"Vivir en varon": Machismo y modernidad en La importancia de llamarse Daniel Santos de Luis Rafael Sanchez

In La importancia de llamarse Daniel Santos (1988) Luis Rafael Sánchez invents a series of interviews by informants who explain the influence of the (in)famous bolero singer Daniel Santos in their lives. In this manner, Daniel Santos becomes an elusive center, the authority figure that mediates between Luis Rafael Sánchez/author, the interviewees, and ultimately, the reader. With this context in mind, this essay argues that as a way of pondering about his ethical responsibility and literary authority within the Puerto Rican belles letres, Sánchez recuperates and problematizes the discourse of Latin American machismo in its contestatary quality, and in its relationship to modernity. On the one hand, Daniel Santos, as representative of machismo, becomes the figure of transgression against the authoritative trope of modernity; on the other, his problematic persona conjures up a totalitarianism centered on the myth of the Latin American macho and the bastion of "vivir en varón." For Sánchez, this process of recuperation would then presuppose his position as disciple of Daniel Santos, and heir to his magisterial power, establishing his solidarity with the reader and the voices of the marginalized. In this fashion, La importancia explores the mechanisms that make Daniel Santos a figure of authority, which in turn would make Sánchez a figure of authority within the Puerto Rican literary tradition. However, Sánchez's criticism of the machismo myth represented by Daniel Santos compromises his position, exposing him to the rejection of the reader's solidarity and loosing his position as an authority figure.