Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 11:29:07 +0200 From: "ana l. valdés" <agora-AT-algonet.se> Subject: Re: Allende, Esquivel and the poetics of the best-seller.... You get us in a very tricky discussion, because, who are the best judges of the term "populae"? Are we, intellectuels, academics, writers, supposed to etablish esthetic and literary values who apply to who "others" (readers) must read? I think yes, this is a part of our mission or of our vocation, but I know this is a very dangerous position, often misunderstood as elitistic. The problem with Allende is her lack selfinsight, and her consequent lack of self critical view. She writes as she believe the "popular classes" speaks, thinks and act, but, she doe´sn really undertand their codes and their values. Her writing is a mixture of political correctness and mimickal catcopy of the slang, voacabulary and syntax of the "people". I guess the nearest she was from the people was in the contact with her servants and maids (present as "part of the family" in her book about the death of her daughter Paula). I think Esquivels book "Like Water for Chocolate" is a more challenging book, a book who combines politics, genderissues and good literature in a very succesful recipe. (The use of the kitchen, the recipes, the matriarchys repressive role, is a proof of talent and good esthetical norms). The problem with Allendes writing is her explicity, she want so bad be political correct, so representative for the "poor", that she kills her prose, who bacames unauthentical, flat and full av stereotypes. Take other writer who did the same, Manuel Puig, the argentinian writer who wrote "The Kiss of the Spider Woman", "The Betrayal of Rita Hayworth" and "Boquitas Pintadas" (no idea about the english translation, "painted mouths"?). He did a wonderful reconstruction of the language and esthetical values of the argentinian lower classes, in love with Hollywoods stars, imitating their make-up and haircuts. But he never pretend he was one of them, he wrote a pastiche, he raised the "kitsch" to a esthetized and very attractive "metalanguage", plenty of love, tenderness and closeness to his subjects. As I wrote before, the problem with Allende is (in my point of view)m she lacks credibility and she is not enoogh gifted to use the same tool as Puig did. Greetings from Ana L. Valdés, latinamerican writer in Sweden --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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