David Viñas "! Mario, please Peru Peru, hush!" (*) By Jorge Wolff
The author of Literature and Politics argentina y Cuerpo a cuerpo died aged 83 in Buenos Aires this month of March on which hangs a heated controversy over the presence of Mario Vargas Llosa at the opening of the Book Fair in Buenos Aires in April. In 1996, Viñas uttered the phrase above, the purpose of the book that Vargas Llosa published about Flaubert, but who could update and use in relation to current debate. Then I return here to interview who kindly gave me that year .* graduate student in literature in Brazil with research on the literature of Argentina, have had three meetings with David Viñas in the last days of October 1996. In the first attempt to interview him, showed me the address of the Institute of Argentine Literature, which then drove in the battered building of the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature - 25 de Mayo 217 - "the shadow of menemato" as he made a point of emphasize hours earlier on the phone. I arrived at the agreed time and had to wait about two hours, which was not a problem since he was in search of several books that surrounded me in the library of the Institute. Viñas was being interviewed by a English student and at the end of the interview, mention the break. The secretary interjects: "El brasileño ..." For a few seconds seems to have forgotten the meeting, but suddenly exclaims: "Sí, el brasileño" and comes to the table where I pretended to read while listening to the dialogue. Before even greet me, declares: "! Puede insultarme !"... Then apologize and brand new meeting for the following day, the cafe in the former bookstore Gandhi (Corrientes, 1551). I come to breakfast at 15 hours and was waiting for me, reading De la démocratie en Amérique, de Tocqueville. I salute you worried about the noise, there are many people in place, and a small store. Some interruptions - cafes, cigarettes, several acquaintances - and the end of the session starting at 16 o'clock, when the student returns to Spain to continue their conversation. The last match is for another day, same time and place where you can talk and talk longer. Then we went for another coffee at another bar nearby, facing the crowd routine of people and cars in the neighborhood where he was born. Cordial, Viñas demonstrates from the outset all his known wit and ends the interview with his "shut up" to the last Nobel prize for literature. Redeem the following statement as a way of thanks and tribute.
Interview David Viñas, Buenos Aires, October 1996. George Wolff - I start talking about De Sarmiento a Cortázar
...
Viñas David - This is a book that was basically composed of something like pamphlets. I do not know how to read it now. What is the idea of \u200b\u200bthe book? Given the canonical thing that moment - I think it was about 1970, 71. I do not know if you saw it now became two volumes and is more like pleading. It was almost a fictional version, controversial, unconventional, something like a novel critical, playing there again and possibility before the canonical and the boring. Neither'll tell you what was the academic version that ran and still runs a little. It was to dramatize, to use the idea of \u200b\u200bBrechtian desteologizar, secularize the conventional thing. I do not know to read it now what goes: if it sounds just "Shout" or disproportionate, or arbitrary. Between the boredom and arbitrary, I get the arbitrariness. At least this kind will not be repeating the Our Father.
JW - How would you analyze the Cortázar of 60 years now?
Viñas - Here is the canon. Who canonized, especially from the liberal-conservative area, which still holds here - as elsewhere - The power of culture, especially literature. Consabido canon: Borges, Cortázar, Bioy then appears, and you can put Sabato. But Borges is necessary to lie. The old man knew! He was a son of a bitch, but I knew a lot of literature! The biggest risk, at least here, you read it and get "stuck", full of things, assuming a kind Borges. Okay, ten points. How to Machado de Assis! Okay, the sky, conquered it. The rest is much more debatable. And in the case of Cortazar, one thing you will see, reading the novels is that they are unpalatable.
Rayuela. .. Okay, yes tales, has seven stories that would tell you at first, but the novels ...
JW - Lezama Lima said that the gifts of critic would outweigh the creator of Cortazar. What do you think?
Viñas - I, if I have to claim it, re-read it or propose a course, work on Julio, say, a few tales. And
Rayuela. But if you take
El libro Manuel , then will say - This is nonsense, that seems almost silly. Besides, I think it was very overrated. There was a novelist, was not someone who was able to handle a machine with plenty of volume. I think it is someone who can make a kind of story very well designed, but critically ... It's an American thing, a guy who suddenly put a border problem. If you see how it works, the border problem will decipher an entire series. That is, find some Aleph, propose something that has a very strong productivity. And what do you serve to decipher certain kind of thing. Forgive me, Julio, I am sorry, but no! Something suddenly let me say - this guy even seen - but you did not see - there's something in there that works. Brazil, say: Gilberto Freyre, this type saw something. I do not know how is the controversy surrounding him in Brazil, but he saw an axis, an Aleph. From this, we'll see what things we discover. The hinterlands, very well, you say - This guy saw the Northeast. Or does me no good for nothing. It's someone who saw something. And in the case of Julio, he could not say this, no?
JW - I understand the placement of Lezama Lima as a critique of its limitations as a creator.
Viñas - probably did not want to tell you plainly: - Julio, sorry, do not like what you do ... And note that I'm quoting this from Aleph, or the old Borges, from his perspective. He hits precisely this, with an Aleph. Give a key that can serve a number of things. In the case of Julio, forgiveness ...
JW - You would place the young Cortázar between left Sur liberal magazine?
Viñas - not the left, Victoria Ocampo and everything. Note that in this respect, the old Bennett took his prudent distance, was not superimposed with Victoria. A aleitura is possible that the entire translation of "Letters to Mama" are letters to Victoria. There are things that, plus you can get by joining. Notice how he plays when he writes explicitly Julio Cortazar Victoria "[refers to an article of 1950]. What was this character for him, what was he to Sur. When he goes to Argentina in 1951, is simply a reaction very conservative, very liberal in the face of this phenomenon that era - know there - Varguismo, say, Varguismo, New Labour. What is this? What is this phenomenon? Blacks came out on the streets! What is this story? Simply a reactive thing: - I can not stand! And it was. Okay, it was an alternative. I believe it is in their literature, especially early in his literaura. Okay, Julio, learning everyone feels it. But in the beginning of what he will produce, which comes into circulation, and so
Bestiary. Until the '60s, the component antiperonista is there. And then surely we can confront him about things written by Peronism where explicit - no longer through mediation of the narrative - what was his reaction to the Peronist thing. Then the impact of allure and seduction of the Cuban revolution. I mean 1959, 60, 61, who was the lure that side. And with a presence that is still going running, and it was inevitable for many reasons, it was Guevara. An Argentine with whom he could identify - and he anybody - you would say, controversially, without objection. The world of utopia, etc.. Etc.. The discovery of something revolutionary and Latin America from Paris. Then the proposal is the junction with Régis Debray. That is, as one would have to read frontier Debray, Debray's discovery. As you cross it, no? Someone who comes out here - I think it is in the text - the normal school here and go there. And the other coming from the Ecole Normale Superieure and the entire tale and that cross in Cuba. And the lure of Cuba. But above all, more than Fidel's presence, the presence of Che. So this discovery - after discovering that it serves or gives support to also adhere to the Nicaraguan. I could tell you bluntly, he knew nothing of politics. Politically had no category. Turned substantially in terms of vision, sympathy, etc.. I saw a movie about him in that, seen from here and there, you can take it as a revolutionary. There was an entire membership, which was very extensive and many people had even Debray, and that included the two in the initial process of the Cuban revolution and enlightened them, favored them. Would you believe my problem with Debray now ... He was a man of good will, Julio.
JW - How do you see the case of an Argentine writer who is now in France, like Juan Jose Saer?
Viñas - Saer, no doubt. But I think this circuit ends with Cortázar. Because the Cortázar extends to the maximum. Note that the following is the proper Bianciotto Hector, who are academic in France. For me this is an emblem: the prolongation of the trip - it would do for a test - the Cortázar travel and thing Cortazian including Saer, is that you make academic immortal. Unless we like it ... - If you like, live your life. But that will turn into academic ... It ends with the image of Claudel, or who? Cornelian? Or who is Cardinal Richelieu? What madness, what am I doing here? It is a delusion, it is a carnival. Bianciotto believe that is the complement, I repeat, the trip Cortázar. It's almost his reductio ad absurdum. Note: just learned that Mario Vargas Llosa has been done in academic Spain.
JW - Predictable in this case, no?
Viñas - It's a circuit. What else makes it? All involve where you do academically. I do not go in that area. But in the case of Saer, I think it is a kind of prolongation of survival. He writes for Argentina. Who cares what he writes? It may be that the chairs of Latin American literature. But as the presence of the writer, of a type that does something, it's here. You can retrieve sense and meaning of everything he does, his texts, and history. Maybe somewhere else but there? It may be that you say: - Well, this Argentinean writer ... metic is one! Or not? Because this is the culmination Cortázar. After that, this type is a metic, or you do academically. Frankly, that of MTEC I am not convinced, no, look, it makes me ill. And let me turn into academic, frankly, is melancholy. It's another project, no? I suggest you: Get a number of Sartre's journal,
Temps modernes, which was the number that we dedicated to Argentina. It is 1981. Then we also talk about Sartre. But we say: - Master does not, that master? Companion! That is, we talk here? The relationship with the French? - No, dear, not colonialism, not crazy! I do not care Gómez Carrillo, whoever, Elisio de Carvalho of the Brazilian literature. Whatever, the chronicler of Paris of a thousand e. .. I do not care, frankly, not. I say the time, much less now. Bianciotto is a puppet, poor baby. A year ago I saw a French comedy called "El cutaway green" it was all a story about the academics. It's a bit like this: you have to put the green coat, do not you think? You may like and be like, okay. - If you're good, baby, live your life, put a green and violet. But as life decision! Do you write or what to do? What is it? Business card, end of year? - My dear, it's fine health! It is a decision, no?
JW - You assign the Cortázar, Borges as the defect of "poner a los otros limits" from the area of \u200b\u200bsacred and impregnable "su cabin supertécnico writer." What we understand as its opposite, as an open literature, in your opinion?
Viñas - Walsh, bores us to quick, quick. Then the paradigm of the writer. Excellent storyteller, has three or four stories ... - Julio, please see Walsh, old man! Look: "Note al pie", "Esa mujer," "Irish behind un gato", "Pictures," but rather "Esa mujer" and "Note al pie" tales are international. In "Irish" is very evident the impact of Joycean thing, which is not evil - Joyce at the time, yes. Before "Note al pie" and "Esa mujer," you say: - Here's a great writer! You say: - How to realize all things! The statement that there was, at best, here immediately, namely the thing materializes, there is no escape, no? It is another type of intellectual, I believe that fundamental. E Walsh, look: a beggar who walked through here, you asked twenty cents to pay for coffee with milk. "Esa mujer" is Eva, who was not named. I mean, to read it antagonistically to a bestseller, which is fully commercialized Santa Evita. Avoid And all you're doing. The film, you not imagine the nonsense about this figure - which is to be removed in very concrete political terms and then see what we mean. Vargas, or who give you ganas, Pedro II, who was this guy? Let's talk seriously, say Prestes too. Not me warms more. Column when I say, not after - poor, whatever, aged. But then you had to say to him: - Stop, old man! It was crazy ... About Walsh, is another gamble, less evil that exists Walsh.
JW - You gave a magazine interview in 1972 that Hispamérica provoked a response from Cortázar. He was referring to his status as a writer in the "ivory tower" in Paris. And then Cortázar says in self-critical tone that is not in Paris to sanctify nobody "bell me ahogaba within a Peronist who was unable to understand en 51, cuando un parlante blast in la esquina de mi house kept me escuchar los Cuarteto of Bartók."
Viñas - Okay, Julio! He was so. But this is a defining, almost caricature. - Okay, Julio, can no longer stay. In other words: not the music, okay. The aim was to understand what was going on as far as the effort to understand what was wrong with the process Peronist, who was very complicated - so complicated as it may be the process by Labour in Brazil. - But does say you're done, crushed by this kind of thing. - You choose a position that involves something elusive, very traditional, very traditional, which is to go to Paris, go! Suddenly, Paris, shines a bit revolutionary, as some history. The discovery takes place there. However there is a play on two tracks. - Julio, how is this story? The contradictory things: - What image do you have the revolutionary process, "with all its limitations, as of now. This historical process has got to understand it, at least for an intellectual who wants to be lucid. I'm going to Paris and then from there then adhere to the revolution Cuban - who apparently has a prolixity - because he declared Marxist-Leninist. And see, the process of revolution is something contradictory, quite contradictory. Of course, as of now, there is a theorem, it is the whole package that is stuck in there. Diagram is not simply a tale, it's all a phenomenal complexity. - Okay, Julio ... But how is the story? What descends ... Bianciotto the good lord, the reductio ad absurdum of Julio - and I think it is a reductio ad absurdum. And to what extent also Debray is a reductio ad absurdum, today. - For Debray, dear, I met in Havana. Thy book Revolution in the revolution, "the shoot under the door at the hotel. At that moment it was phenomenal to be in Cuba. But when the wind comes from, because not everything is so straight, not so clear, then you take away. - Sorry, Regis! ...
JW - By the way, as you see Cuba today?
Viñas - As a massive package phenomenal picture! I redeem an element: there's the Pope. Note that you'll Company. I tell him - Velho, paisinho, who is "it" thinking in terms of Brazil, bears fellow Americans. Coming from where comes the limitations phenomenal with all the shortcomings Internal note that not changed, could not turn - what would have been ideal - Fidel Castro on a drug trafficker, saying he had a harem of whores or would be linked to the "White" Colombian. If not done so is because they do not have that possibility. I never returned to Cuba. I went in 1981 and had a very serious problem with the Cubans because they named the Argentine dictatorship. It was a discussion, which has witnessed the good Osvaldo Soriano. Anyway, if I were religious, I would say that god help them. " One can not help ... And like playing in front of the good Clinton and all the snitch, the bill is ... I did not return, despite several invitations. Also, this being a tourist guest and the people there do not even have to eat, I am not convinced. A distant relationship. When there is something so arbitrary as the good Pope. It seems to me an injustice by making it phenomenal that follow, no doubt. I do not know how to get out. Who knows, put somewhat mystical. That God enlighten them. I do not know, old, frankly I do not know ...
JW - I would like to talk a little about the years of the magazine
Outline (1953-1959).
Viñas - was something of kids, old ...
JW - My question is perhaps more lasting. You wrote that explains the Sarmiento Argentina ...
Viñas - Evidently it was a bourgeois lucid, just happened now. And note that it is an intellectual who gets to be president. You have to read his correspondence with Peter II. You are in correspondence, is a marvel, a wonder. Seduction by the Botanical Gardens ... The palm trees here in the Plaza de Mayo, he bought them because he saw the palm trees in the Botanical Garden of Rio de Janeiro, you know? I mean, like condensation, Facundo is an essential move of the bourgeoisie, 1850. Because it is a very slow process. To understand this move, you must read the complete collection of El soul singing, which was a popular magazine. The seed, the bourgeois who sees the seed. I mean, like handles, as it does. It is a bourgeois conqueror, yes.
JW - Sarmiento explain to some extent Argentina and the group's proposal outline was also, in his theory of the city, explaining the country.
Viñas - Ricardo Piglia says one thing that I redeem. I am detached from it, but I think that's right. The secret delirium of writers - those who simply do not want bestsellers - Facundo is to write the twentieth century. What would be in Brazil? Someone who wrote The hinterlands. Because delirium is to see how to find the old Borges, The Aleph. It's a bit in relation to this outline. But imagine: a little based on improvisation, intuition. As we succeed, as they say in the neighborhood, find "la madre del lamb." They say in Brazil "la madre del lamb"? The key. "Lamb is a sheep creates.
JW - Yes, the lamb.
Viñas - Of course, the lamb, to see how to find the key to this. You say, old Sarmiento, and no doubt now. And all I want. Therefore, we continue discussing. I say, is valid. The rest ... Perhaps it was fantasy Boundary. And yes, as you play, we'll do the hinterlands. I say, was game. And so, not leave to chance! The Macunaíma not know, something.
JW - Her reading of Argentine literature is made by the bias of the trip to Europe. How important is this topic now and before?
Viñas - Who knows the fundamental starting point here has been to Sarmiento, the voyage of Sarmiento. The previous moment is still steeped in a colonial thing. The journey toward Madrid, in a somewhat administrative discretion. Immediately, the idea is always the trip as a boomerang. If you go there in order to return, ie the sanctification inherent in it. And since then the possibility of a certain accruals and defining traits, distinct. Above all, perhaps, on the heel or the passage of model Sarmiento - the bourgeois with a lot of perspective building a country, no? And in the case of Sarmiento, he corrects his trip to Europe and now the United States. That is, it feels very inconsistent, he feels that something is very decadence - the relationships you have with some people there before the discouraged. He then retrieves a huge, almost delirious enthusiasm for the United States. And indeed, the model becomes the United States, especially in the educational field. This does not rule out that the European axis, and particularly France and Paris, it will serve as support for their projects and even personal. On the other hand, cultivates a sort of clearance. He takes the Facundo to open its contacts in Europe, and publish it. And he's like that accumulates, with his U.S. trip, which is complementary immediately: 45, 46 and 47 is already in the United States. How to build your fantasy president.
JW - One hundred and fifty years later, as you face the American cultural dominance?
Viñas - It seems obscene to anything that is American culture TV. Frankly, I do not care. I do not propose Faulkner. I do not propose the great American jazz or the great cinema. I propose a film that is idiocy. I mean, this is what one calls an American audience. I do not know it would be necessary to analyze very carefully how this kind of production due to a given audience. I will not tolerate. And I want more than that people will not tolerate ... At least in the area in which they may have some cultural and political implications. Sounds like a imbecility. And it is a proposal that involves a homogenization mainly this: a phenomenal flatness, among other things, would not have a problem for wild speculation, but simply because it bores me. I see this production, I read the last American literary production generally. I just read a week ago, something called New York Trilogy and I do not remember the name of the author. It seems to me silly. I mean, frankly it yourselves have to realize! Well, this according to the classics, you know, Melville or Thomas Wolfe. That might be the starting point, not so much as a result of an honorable thought, but a thing of the visceral type.
JW - What does exile in Argentine politics and cultural tradition and its own trajectory?
Viñas - For the founding generation - Sarmiento and Echeverría, Alberdi and other figures - the exile is the myth of the country, nostalgia for the country, identifying the country with a woman, with loving, correspondence, this place of affection. Who knows if he could personally contribute to that. From 76 to 83, when the military dictatorship, I personally went into exile. But in truth, only what I can tell is a bit of Buenos Aires - the extension of the body, knowledge, tones of speech, no? It is a phenomenal complexity. Yes, perfect, Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro, whatever. But the density of it, no? I mean thinking in exile. This density toward an embodiment is my density. In exile I check this issue, that is, in exile cut out and focus on what this implies it may sound like a metaphysical abstraction of identity. Okay, it's how little I know, the little that I can speak from my body, my embodiment. And I do not think that has a monopoly for any of this. Of course you can aspire to nostalgia, you can go to a myth, it certainly can go to business - because it gets even worse, tango, Gardel and such. I'm not especially a drug dealer this ...
JW - In the struggle between the critical currents of Angel Rama and Emir Rodríguez Monegal, who survives to you?
Viñas - Angel! Angel had a passion for it all and had a great dignity, as an intellectual and a person. Monegal think that turned into a bureaucrat of American university culture. I met him in Mexico and I noticed he had lost everything, it was a kind of conventional American teacher. Angel had an ability to see whole. Because, in the opposite direction, say, Monegal had a great analytical skill. But with Neruda and Quiroga is a biographic more than traditional. Plays with a folk group psychoanalysis ... And the idiocy of good Vargas Llosa, writing a booklet about Flaubert? He arrived here with this when the old Sartre had written the phone book on Flaubert. - Mario, please!, Peru Peru, hush! Look what this work is a delusion. Just a man with the analytical capacity that gets to decipher another man. I mean, Monegal ... Seemed to have much more capacity dramatized, Angel. And the ability to see, which I believe is the most redeemable anywhere. Since rhetorical elements, not conventional coincidences crop in Latin America, which is in the city.
