The Mystical Feeling: Three Instances of Aporia in Madero, el otro

The Mystical Feeling: Three Instances of Aporia in Madero, el otro darren n. aversa southwestern university  The temporal immortality of the soul of man, that is to say, its eternal survival also after death, is not only in no way guaranteed, but this assumption in the first place will not do for us what we always tried to make it do. Is a riddle solved by the fact that I survive for ever? Is this eternal life not as enigmatic as our present one? The solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time. [ . . . ] We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all. Of course there is no question left, and just this is the answer. —Ludwig Wittgenstein For Andrew Anderson Today’s critical attention given to borders, diaspora, and space within Latin American literature and cultural studies sheds light on how literary works treat spatial issues within the context of establishing identity. A quick glance at related criticism confirms this and offers Kelli Lyon Johnson’s ‘‘Violence in the Borderlands: Crossing the Home Space in the Novels of Ana Castillo’’ and Aparajita Sagar and Marcia Stephenson’s ‘‘Contested Spaces in the Caribbean and the Américas’’ as a pair of recent examples among many others. It is possible though to think of the emphasis placed on space and borders more as arriving at a better understanding of what constitutes the transgression of space. If this is the case, then the transgression of borders and of space could entail a question of one’s place being the proper place. Perhaps more precise would be to ask, how can one attain a proper place in and right view of the world? Is a right view ineludibly connected to one’s transgression of place? Taking aim at the heart of these questions is Ignacio Solares’s Madero, el otro (1989), a New Historical novel that presents a gripping portrayal of the iconic Mexican president, Francisco Ignacio Madero (1873–1913). Madero, el otro depicts the history of a morally sound man who wielded political power in order to steer the course of the Mexican Revolution toward democracy, land reform, and greater liberty, yet was impotent in the face of concrete threats against him. Inexplicable choices—such as leaving intact a substantial portion of the porfirista cabinet during his presidency—and an un- 2  Revista Hispánica Moderna 61.1 (2008) shakable faith in the good will of man explain his downfall, and it is to these shortcomings that historians have often looked for their portrayals.1 Part of Solares’s strategy, however, is to question the consistency of Mexico’s archive on Madero as well as to highlight the role of the unconscious and the mystical in history. Creating synergies between historical documents and psychological ‘‘explanations’’ and mystical connections for events attributed to Madero ’s rise to the presidency and to his assassination means accounting for unconscious forces. As Solares sees it, Madero’s taking of dictation from spirits, his attempts at achieving liberation of the self from the ties of the real, and his political praxis should not fall through the cracks of history as unrelated. Solares views the charge of re-writing Madero’s story as a balancing act: ‘‘¿cómo entender la historia sin los elementos inconscientes que contiene, que contiene todo lo humano?’’ (251). Solares’s aim is undoubtedly a revisionist one, and we need look only to the ‘‘Nota’’ at the end of the novel to confirm that the author strategizes creating a place for the other Madero without ever relocating the historical points of reference:¿A quién creerle y a quién no? ¿Y por qué? Quizá, la ventaja del novelista es que puede colocarse en un intervalo, como dice el poema metaf ı́sico indio, el Vijñana Bhairava: ‘‘En el momento en que se perciben dos cosas, tomando conciencia del intervalo entre ellas, hay que ahincarse en ese intervalo. Si se eliminaron simultáneamente las dos cosas, entonces, en ese intervalo, resplandece la Realidad’’. (249) For Solares, the issue remains a divided one: to engage and...