Kathy Taylor
The New Narrative of Mexico: Sub-Versions of History in Mexican Fiction
Cranbury, NJ: Bucknell University Press, 1994. Pp. 185. $33.50
Reviewed by Alfonso González

The major contribution of this book is a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between history and fiction and an in-depth study of four books of Mexican Fiction: La noche de Tlatelolco by Elena Poniatowska, Testimonios de Mariana by Elena Garro, Morirás lejos by Emilio Pacheco, and Pretexta by Federico Campbell. The four books studied are prefaced by an introduction, “The Beginning of the Story,” and followed by a conclusion, “The End of the Story?” The “story” refers to the ever shifting boundary between fiction and history, and it is the unifying theme of Kathy Taylor’s book. The reader will find this work useful for its comprehensive research and interesting for its analysis of less studied but worthwhile works.

In order to illustrate the idea that history and fiction have always coexisted, and continue to exist on an equal level in Mexican fiction, the introductory chapter reviews the Renaissance chronicles of the Spaniards. After showing the coexistence of history and fiction, the author states that this “testimonial literature” continued first in the “novel of the revolution” and now in contemporary Mexican fiction. The first chapter refers to La noche de Tlatelolco, a book about the student disturbances of 1968, and gives a comprehensive and compelling argument about why La noche is a novel and not a collection of the writings of others about the event and the author’s own oral interviews. Of course, much has been said about the importance of this work, but to call it a novel is, in the eyes of this reviewer, a disservice.

The second chapter, on Testimonios de Mariana, examines the use and effect of the point of view in a story about a persecuted woman. Reading about the life of Mariana from three different perspectives gives us a thorough picture of the character. Though the author sees biography as a part of history and writes about the similarities between this biography and Poniatowska’s historical book, the reader is left unclear as to how an individual’s story is like the representation of an historical event.

The study on Morirás lejos, a poetic statement on the perennial and universal character of violence and on man’s cruelty to man, is perhaps the best chapter in the book, for it explains how and why this novel is a major contribution to contemporary Spanish-American fiction. Though the main character has no name-we know him only by his first initial, M-his actions refer to human behavior and emotions such as cruelty, masochism, and fear. The novel is divided into a series of fragments which suggest that he was once a Nazi executioner and is now a hunted man. The research, as in most other sections, is thorough, and the arguments are clear and convincing.

The chapter on Pretexta, perhaps the least studied novel, analyzes the relationship between a press attempting to express itself and a state trying to control it, between the mental imbalance of the implied author and that of his character. Bruno, a journalist, is writing the biography of his political hero, Ocaranza, a man with many the same virtues and shortcomings as the implied author. The conclusion, “The End of the Story?” is a reaffirmation of the perennial symbiotic relationship between history and fiction. It is not the end of the story, for this relationship is never ending.

The documentation of the book is comprehensive, though oftentimes either unnecessary or difficult to find. The numerous footnotes (the chapter on Pretexta, for example, has 152) and quotations tend to hinder the reading and confuse the reader. Besides the noted distractions, the footnotes are difficult to find for they appear at the end of the book and they sometimes refer to other footnotes. The usage of the somewhat out-of-date “ibid” format, which refers the reader to an earlier note that, in turn, refers us to yet an earlier one, is a bit discouraging.

Because of its above-mentioned accomplishments and its thorough research, however, and in spite of the noted confusion of its documentation, Professor Taylor’s book is a fine contribution to the study of contemporary Mexican literature.