Madness and Irrationality in Spanish and Latin American Literature and Culture
Lloyd Hughes Davies
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In Madness and Irrationality in Spanish and Latin American Literature and Culture, Lloyd Hughes Davies focuses on the line between sanity and madness in the Spanish-speaking world. He discusses where it starts, where it ends, or if it even really exists. The author sheds lights on thinkers and writers who talk about the normality of madness, among them Thomas Szasz, Erasmus, Michel Foucault, and David Cooper. The monograph convincingly borrows from a significant number of theories to highlight the key theme of the book: madness. According to Ronald David Laing, it is the “social context” rather than a medical condition that drives a person to madness. He also points out the distinction between clinical and creative madness. Davies looks at the concept of madness in the writings of female authors such as Virginia Wolf and Margaret Atwood that feature schizophrenic characters seen by their creators as “quasi-religious figures, saints or servants, questing for some form of truth” (Rigney qtd. in Davies 5). For some other female writers, such as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, insanity epitomizes the spirit of resistance against stereotypes and patriarchal tyranny. At the same time, madness is also viewed as resistance to interpretation. Madness and Irrationality in Spanish and Latin American Literature and Culture offers an introduction that sets out to provide the reader with a brief history of madness followed by nine trenchant chapters and a conclusion.
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In the second chapter, the author focuses mainly on Argentina and its creation in a desert as the crucial piece of a puzzle without which no answer is complete. Calling the desert a “space without place and a time without production” (Davies 14) suggests the founders of the nation were obviously obsessed with an Iberian insanity and “purely quixotic” madness (Posse qtd. in Davies 14). The author takes his analysis through literary, historical, political, cultural, and linguistic landscaping to study the political madness embodied in violence, oppression, and repression. His concern here is with landscape as a canvas upon which a cultural system of values is painted and through which particular meanings can be driven.
Davies claims that the desert imposes its stamp on human beings throughout South America. He puts under scrutiny Juan Manuel de Rosas and Juan Perón and their impacts on the Argentinian psyche. He shows how the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo are called locas. The voice of the mad mothers is the voice of truth and reason. The author links the immigrants in Argentina to the cities that trap them, enslave them, and finally devour them. In a similar vein, the marginalization and otherness of the immigrants is in close connection with nation’s “madness-inducing nostalgia for former greatness” (22).
In the third chapter, Davies analyzes the conquest and conquistador not as heroes, as madmen who reframe the conventional image of a triumphant and reasonable conquistador. A conquest is usually intermingled with mythical aura. However, in Davies’s studies of El largo atardecer del caminante and Daimon by Argentinian Abel Posse, the madness is linked to the violence underpinning the foundation of the conquest and fueling the insanity of the two contrasting protagonists.
The fourth chapter puts under scrutiny two marginalized women in Noticias del imperio by Fernando del Paso and Urraca by Lourdes Ortiz. Observably, in the above-mentioned works, gender sets significant limitations on social relations. The female characters of both books “expose the limits of a system in which gender is implicated in social control-limits where the language of ‘reason’ struggles to maintain the authority” (Davies 46).
There is a close connection between literature and madness. In the next chapter, Davies works on Alejandra Pizarnik’s La condesa sangrienta and shows how Pizarnik’s protagonist mirrors the author: la condesa’s possession by the devil is similar to Pizarnik’s possession by literature. As la condesa is bound to kill, Pizarnik is bound to write. Following Borges, writing is identified here as “addictive” and “dangerous” (74). By the same token, Pizarnik and la condesa are obsessed with youth and age. The literary violence of Pizarnik is comparable to physical violence of la condesa. Here, Davies studies madness as a parody of heroism and sanctity. In the second part of the chapter, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’s so-called subnormal text El estrangulador is studied. El estrangulador is replete with ambiguity and parodies. The protagonist is departing from common standards in feigning his madness, as suspected by physicians. He subverts and liberates the assumptions of the dominant bourgeois rationality through madness, rebellion, artistic crimes, eroticism, and a re-creation of reality, resenting the psychiatric instinct that fails to recognize “una filología psiquiátrica insuficiente para abarcar todas las tipologías del alma humana” (Vázquez Montalbán, qtd in 84).
Chapter six works on insanity caused by reading and collecting books, as they “can unhinge the mind” (Davies 90) and blur the borders between real life and the fictional. In La sombra del viento by Carlos Ruiz Zafón and El club dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, books inspire the main characters to replicate a real-life situation. Intertextuality and as a result bookish madness are main themes of the chapter. As Davies demonstrates, both texts have several references to other books and the characters embody those of other literary works. In Davies’s terms, the characters do not read books; they are indeed read by books.
The next chapter seeks to interpret the works of Nuria Amat in terms of metaliterature and madness. Drawing on Shoshana Felman, Davies states, “Every reading is a kind of madness since it is based on illusion and induces us to identify with imaginary heroes” (107). In Amat’s works, books and libraries drive characters to madness. In this chapter, Davies again goes back to the idea of the character as a double of the author.
José Lezama Lima and his Paradiso are the central focus of the next chapter, where Davies explores madness on multiple levels: literal, textual, and figural. As the author shows, there is a wide range of insanity in Paradiso. What brings it all together in common focus is “la pérdida de la finalidad” (Vitier qtd. in Davies 122). Lima’s book is structurally studied by Davies: he shows how chapters may seem out of place and words are extremely excessive and redundant and adopt a new function and meaning. All of that leads to delirium and madness. Lima’s writing is characterized by the power of imagination and “delirium knowledge” (Lupi qtd. in Davies 162).
Throughout the next chapter, Davies paints a picture of Juan José Saer’s insane worlds, which are similar to those of Lima. Repetition, distorted images, deviance, detour, and digression are among common characteristics of the two authors. Davies calls it “positive treatment of madness” (161). Both Saer and Lima challenge the mainstream way of thought and behavior, experimenting with the creativity and effectiveness of language to overcome lo inenarrable (Davies 161). Saer’s obsession with lo real is of main interest in Davies’s reading of the Argentinian writer. For Saer, “the only means of approaching lo real is via ‘lo imaginario’” (136). Certain words are repeatedly used by Saer. However, the concern here is with the aspect of how the unusual and obscure ways and “ever-elusive depths” (140) of such words shape the concept of lo real.
Davies, in his compelling survey study, weaves together themes of madness, literature, social norms, and linguistic aspects to explain the roots of insanity in Spanish and Spanish American literature.
Davies claims that the desert imposes its stamp on human beings throughout South America. He puts under scrutiny Juan Manuel de Rosas and Juan Perón and their impacts on the Argentinian psyche. He shows how the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo are called locas. The voice of the mad mothers is the voice of truth and reason. The author links the immigrants in Argentina to the cities that trap them, enslave them, and finally devour them. In a similar vein, the marginalization and otherness of the immigrants is in close connection with nation’s “madness-inducing nostalgia for former greatness” (22).
In the third chapter, Davies analyzes the conquest and conquistador not as heroes, as madmen who reframe the conventional image of a triumphant and reasonable conquistador. A conquest is usually intermingled with mythical aura. However, in Davies’s studies of El largo atardecer del caminante and Daimon by Argentinian Abel Posse, the madness is linked to the violence underpinning the foundation of the conquest and fueling the insanity of the two contrasting protagonists.
The fourth chapter puts under scrutiny two marginalized women in Noticias del imperio by Fernando del Paso and Urraca by Lourdes Ortiz. Observably, in the above-mentioned works, gender sets significant limitations on social relations. The female characters of both books “expose the limits of a system in which gender is implicated in social control-limits where the language of ‘reason’ struggles to maintain the authority” (Davies 46).
There is a close connection between literature and madness. In the next chapter, Davies works on Alejandra Pizarnik’s La condesa sangrienta and shows how Pizarnik’s protagonist mirrors the author: la condesa’s possession by the devil is similar to Pizarnik’s possession by literature. As la condesa is bound to kill, Pizarnik is bound to write. Following Borges, writing is identified here as “addictive” and “dangerous” (74). By the same token, Pizarnik and la condesa are obsessed with youth and age. The literary violence of Pizarnik is comparable to physical violence of la condesa. Here, Davies studies madness as a parody of heroism and sanctity. In the second part of the chapter, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’s so-called subnormal text El estrangulador is studied. El estrangulador is replete with ambiguity and parodies. The protagonist is departing from common standards in feigning his madness, as suspected by physicians. He subverts and liberates the assumptions of the dominant bourgeois rationality through madness, rebellion, artistic crimes, eroticism, and a re-creation of reality, resenting the psychiatric instinct that fails to recognize “una filología psiquiátrica insuficiente para abarcar todas las tipologías del alma humana” (Vázquez Montalbán, qtd in 84).
Chapter six works on insanity caused by reading and collecting books, as they “can unhinge the mind” (Davies 90) and blur the borders between real life and the fictional. In La sombra del viento by Carlos Ruiz Zafón and El club dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, books inspire the main characters to replicate a real-life situation. Intertextuality and as a result bookish madness are main themes of the chapter. As Davies demonstrates, both texts have several references to other books and the characters embody those of other literary works. In Davies’s terms, the characters do not read books; they are indeed read by books.
The next chapter seeks to interpret the works of Nuria Amat in terms of metaliterature and madness. Drawing on Shoshana Felman, Davies states, “Every reading is a kind of madness since it is based on illusion and induces us to identify with imaginary heroes” (107). In Amat’s works, books and libraries drive characters to madness. In this chapter, Davies again goes back to the idea of the character as a double of the author.
José Lezama Lima and his Paradiso are the central focus of the next chapter, where Davies explores madness on multiple levels: literal, textual, and figural. As the author shows, there is a wide range of insanity in Paradiso. What brings it all together in common focus is “la pérdida de la finalidad” (Vitier qtd. in Davies 122). Lima’s book is structurally studied by Davies: he shows how chapters may seem out of place and words are extremely excessive and redundant and adopt a new function and meaning. All of that leads to delirium and madness. Lima’s writing is characterized by the power of imagination and “delirium knowledge” (Lupi qtd. in Davies 162).
Throughout the next chapter, Davies paints a picture of Juan José Saer’s insane worlds, which are similar to those of Lima. Repetition, distorted images, deviance, detour, and digression are among common characteristics of the two authors. Davies calls it “positive treatment of madness” (161). Both Saer and Lima challenge the mainstream way of thought and behavior, experimenting with the creativity and effectiveness of language to overcome lo inenarrable (Davies 161). Saer’s obsession with lo real is of main interest in Davies’s reading of the Argentinian writer. For Saer, “the only means of approaching lo real is via ‘lo imaginario’” (136). Certain words are repeatedly used by Saer. However, the concern here is with the aspect of how the unusual and obscure ways and “ever-elusive depths” (140) of such words shape the concept of lo real.
Davies, in his compelling survey study, weaves together themes of madness, literature, social norms, and linguistic aspects to explain the roots of insanity in Spanish and Spanish American literature.
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