Border Theory: The Limits of Cultural Politics

Four: The Time of Translation: The Border of American Literature

FOUR The Time of Translation: The Border of American Literature David E. Johnson What philosophy of translation will dominate in Europe? In a Europe that from now on should avoid both the nationalistic tensions of linguistic difference and the violent homogenization of languages through the neutrality of a translating medium that would claim to be transparent, metalinguistic, and universal? J A C Q U E S DERRIDA,1992 In the LatinAmericas,wherever they are, there are, perhaps still to come, two steps to the border. These two pasos will have been thought under the auspices of two proper names whose propriety goes unquestioned: Paz and Borges.They will havetaken sides where perhaps there are none. In any case, the juxtaposition of Paz and Borges,of two relationships to modernity, has been most recently suggested by Nestor Garcia Can­ clini in Culturas hibridas, in which he poses the problem of their rela­ tion as one of the direction of their work, writing of Paz, "Queremos entender por que a uno de los promotores mas sutiles de la modernidad en la literatura y el arte latinoamericanos le fascina retornar a lopre­ moderno [We want to understand why one of the most subtle promot­ ers of modernity in Latin American literature and art is fascinated with returning to the pre­modern]" (1990, 98; 1995, 68).Retornar. return, step back, turn around. A certain progress will be described in this re­ turn. But Borges,according to Garcia Canclini, never steps back, never returns to a premodernity that would buttress the fictions of modernity: Todos los soportes del arte moderno... son ficciones fragiles. Segiin Borges mejor que indignarse por la irrespetuosa demolicion que les inflige "la 129 130 David E.Johnson sociedad de masas," es asumir, mediante este trabajo esceptico, la imposible autonomia y originalidad de la literatura. Quiza la tarea del escritor... sea reflexionar sobre esta situacion postuma de la modernidad. Las parado­ jas de la narrativa y de las declaraciones borgeanas lo colocan en el centre del escenario posmoderno, en este vertigo que generan los ritos de cul­ turas que pierden sus fronteras, en este simulacro perpetuo que es el mundo. (1990,106) [All the supports of modern art... are fragile fictions. According to Borges, rather than becoming indignant at the disrespectful demolition that "mass society" inflicts upon them, it is better to assume, by means of this skep­ tical work, the impossible autonomy and originality of literature. Per­ haps the task of the writer... is to reflect upon this posthumous situation of modernity. Borges's paradoxical narratives and statements place him at the center of the postmodern scene, in this vertigo generated by the rituals of cultures that are losing their borders, in this perpetual simu­ lacrum that is the world.] (1995,76) Paz and Borges will be, for Garcia Canclini, the proper names perhaps most exemplaryof the two principal strategiesfor entering and leaving modernity. On the one hand, Paz steps back from modernity in order to reinscribe a certain origin, or point of departure, of modernity; he steps back to step in. On the other hand, Borges doubles the origin of modernity—all the citations and translations— in order to displace its ground; he steps in place, in other words, in order to "leave" moder­ nity behind. Borges writes its obituary, remarks its posthumousness. Both Paz and Borges conceive modernity as a place and as a place to be left, whether, in Paz,to be left to us, to the future, more secure, or, in Borges, to be left behind, to be left for dead. Both texts thus amount to articulations of the limit, the border; and both can be understood to theorize the possibility of literature and, perhaps, of culture as effects of a certain relation to the border. In this regard, Paz and Borges be­ come important sites (cites) for any attempt to rethink the writing of the borderlands and, perhaps, especially the double writing of Rolando Hinojosa. At stake in Hinojosa's double text, his construction of a county that takes place twice, alwaysin translation, willbe the border ofAmeri­ can literature and, perhaps, the principle of any possible hemispheric (pan­American) literary production, if not, in fact, that of globality in general.1 The Time of Translation 131 Paz arrives at the border: his entire critical obra takes place there, or, more exactly,his critical reflectionsbecome possible only after he crosses the border between Mexico and...