Una mímesis del tiempo: Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas y las formas de una gramática del relato

History of the Indies, by Friar Bartolomé de Las Casas, was written over a thirty-year span, and is a text willing to include everything that happened in that timeframe. The History is also a text interrupted by constant digressions that show a particular emplotment that operates by accumulation in order to reproduce in the reading time, the writing time. This operation is based on the interspersion of multiple minor stories and disruptions in the flow of events that seem to distract the reader, but, in fact, it immerse him in what I call literal history. In his history, the time invested in writing/reading will be a fundamental factor to present the events, and end up producing a “phenomenology of reading.” The “fortunate” years full of actions are paired with numerous transversal stories, as it becomes necessary to fill out the pages with the time in order to feel the amount of facts in the space and time of reading. Years with a lack of events produced skinny books, few facts, no digressions, as it would not be important to fill this half-emptied time. By doing this, Las Casas mastered the time of reading, which mimics the time of writing.