Writing Paris: Urban Topographies of Desire in Contemporary Latin American Fiction (review)

Marcy E. Schwartz, Writing Paris: Urban Topographies Contemporary Latin American Fiction. Albany: SUNY P, 1999.

From the very beginning Schwartz establishes that her book "is not about Paris, but about the Paris inscribed in Latin American narrative" (1); its topic is Latin American, rather than comparative or European literature. A collection of closely related studies of the theme of Paris in four contemporary or almost contemporary writers, Writing Paris analyzes the self-conscious and ironic inscriptions of the desire for Paris—love of the city—and desire in Paris—love in the city—which revise earlier, more straightforward, Latin American writing about the two themes. The four writers to whom she dedicates chapters "respond to the supposed collective heritage" in Latin America with regard to Paris (7).

Schwartz finds two main kinds of images to be dethroned in the recent works: first, that of Paris as a haven for artists and thinkers; and second, that of Paris as a Mecca of heterosexual opportunity for men. The brief historical chapter "Desiring Paris: The Latin American Conception of the Lettered City, 1840-1960," justifies her concentration on these two forms of writing Paris in the four recent authors because during the Romantic and Modernist periods writers needed to confirm their success in Paris in addition to their home country, and because sexual desire could be satisfied in an idealized French capital, in the male Latin American imaginary at least, but not in Latin America, due to greater restrictions on behavior at home. The revisionism of the contemporary works painfully debunks the illusions inherent in their topos: "Parisian fictions from Latin America envelop their protagonists in an architectonic world that offers a view of its own metafictional artifice" (146). These novels and short stories hold up "the image of the city as wanton woman open to foreign penetration" (145) and then deny Paris can deliver on such a sexual promise, or that they would want it to. Although not entirely unexpected, these are interesting findings which suggest that those Latin American writers who have written about Paris since World War II have gone through similar processes culminating in a greater awareness of the metaphor of places in postmodern times and a greater disposition toward unsettling the gender paradigm than their predecessors.

Schwartz's main chapters treat Julio Cortázar, Manuel Scorza, Alfredo Bryce Echenique, and Luisa Futoransky. In Cortázar, her focus is on his treatment of passageways, bridges, the metro, arcades, and windows as places where fantastic connections can occur; Paris and its environs provide access to and promote movement toward a fantastic eroticism. Whereas Cortázar is principally known for this urbane context, Manuel Scorza is not; his inclusion in this list will surprise readers. According to Schwartz, Scorza's foray into the urban, postmodern novel near the end of his life "intermingles a critique of both neoindigenist and urban cosmopolitan literary conventions" (68). La danza inmóvil (1983) alternates between three stories: first, the kind of Peruvian story he is famous for, often called neoindigenist, taking place in the countryside; second, that of the male expatriate in Paris, with a young French woman as the inevitable love interest; and third, that of the Parisian publishing world. Significantly, "the common reference point for erotic desire in all three subplots is Paris, its cafés, cultural establishments, and beautiful women" (70). The third novelist, Alfredo Bryce Echenique, compares to Cortázar in his international postmodernity. He represents the events of 1968 in Paris in a thoroughly Peruvian idiolect and an autobiographical turn which destroy the two Latin American myths of Paris with incisive humor. The only woman writer included, Luisa Futoransky from Argentina, departs from the traditions of respecting Paris by subverting the histoire of the male sexual adventure with a beautiful French seductress. Instead, she writes of sexual freedom from a woman's perspective. Son cuentos chinos and De Pe a Pa by Futoransky remain interesting for...