El canon en la narrativa contemporánea del Caribe y del Cono Sur ed. by Rita De Maeseneer, Ilse Logie (review)

Little of substance has been written about the Latin American canon as a whole, and with few exceptions the contributors to this volume accurately dissect and parse that state of the art to produce this judicious volume. Only scholars of the recognition, expertise, and ultimately accumulated wisdom that De Maeseneer and Logie exhibit can put together studies that, while limiting themselves to a seemingly implausible linkage of the Caribbean and the Southern Cone, make assertions, discover connections, and open interpretative possibilities useful for greater, objective discussions of other canons. De Maeseneer, an amply recognized master interpreter of Caribbean literatures and cultures, and Logie, a solid reader of River Plate narrative, carefully plot the logic of El canon en la narrativa contemporánea, each contributor demonstrating the need to distinguish accurately between endless theoretical discussions or routine exegetical arrangements from lasting and inspiring readings and works.

It is particularly edifying that the last section, “Antonio José Ponte, Alejandro Zambra y el canon” is devoted to a conversation and articles about two of the most important prose writers at this century’s start. Eleven years and greater international reception separate the younger Zambra from the equally stimulating Ponte, both boldly distancing themselves from their cohort’s received ideas and canon, which is also a thread for these carefully edited essays. That section is preceded by four on “Reflexiones generales,” “El canon con mayúscula,” “Géneros cuestionados,” and “Antologías” that are intrinsically novel approaches to the eternally irresolute problem of the canon. They thus provide timely and necessary assessments that incidentally coincide with the growing Anglophone critical recovery of the term after the unintended harm inflicted by Harold Bloom’s misconceptions about the Latin American part of his call to arms. To their and the editors’ great credit these articles do not take their cues from those appeals.

The first two sections are mainly devoted to Southern Cone literatures, while the third and fourth are primarily devoted to Caribbean narrative. It is “mainly” and “primarily” so because, wisely, some of the contributors posit how the literatures of apparently different demographic spaces have much more in common that is generally perceived or assumed, even by specialized readers. That idea is perceptively pursued in De Maeseneer’s and Logie’s excellent and too modestly titled introduction, “Narrativa contemporánea y canon: una contribución al debate.” That said, the three articles in “Reflexiones generales” endeavor to combine aesthetics and politics, and José Amícola’s is most illuminating in that regard, since he is succinct and extremely successful in summarizing the aesthetic debate; while Ana María Amar Sánchez is at pains to politicize an earlier period of Argentine narrative. Liesbeth François’s article is very well informed and conceptualized but ultimately undermined by her choice of sample, since there are no real signs that authors like Sergio Chejfec or better exponents of his idea of the canon are near approaching that status in their narrative, in post-César Aira Argentina or elsewhere.

The most fascinating aspect of the first two essays in the second section is how, while nominally devoted to the “major canon,” Magdalena Perkoswka and Marta Waldegaray respectively renew views on Borges and Sarmiento’s canonicity in terms of comparatively less influential writers like Tomás Eloy Martínez and Tununa Mercado, although the former certainly has had a major presence in the rest of Latin America. Waldo Pérez’s concentration on Orígenes to fine tune questions of identity, tradition, and the archive in the Cuban canon are well taken, but could have been strengthened by engagement with problematic views of the national archive, like those of Gustavo Pérez Firmat, Roberto González Echevarría, and others.

“Géneros cuestionados” includes two magnificent articles, a persuasive and seminal essay on the art of the diatribe by Stéphanie...