Copyright by Rafael Dent Hoyle 2003 The Dissertation Committee for Rafael Dent Hoyle certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Writing Against the Grain: Ignacio Solares’ Novels of the Mexican Revolution Committee: ___________________________________ Nicolas Shumway, Supervisor __________________________________ Enrique Fierro ___________________________________ Miguel González-Gerth ___________________________________ Rolando Hinojosa-Smith ___________________________________ César Salgado Writing Against the Grain: Ignacio Solares’ Novels of the Mexican Revolution by Rafael Dent Hoyle B.S., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2003 Acknowledgments I would like to give special thanks to some of the people who helped me complete this dissertation. First, I want to thank my dissertation director and good friend Nick Shumway, who throughout the course of my research and writing was supportive and respectful of my ideas, never acting impatient with me or questioning my commitment or ability. I could not have asked for a better director and mentor. I also want to thank my committee members César Salgado, Enrique Fierro, Miguel González-Gerth and Rolando Hinojosa-Smith, and the many other professors who taught me, supported me and inspired me over the years. These would include my University of Arizona professors Richard Kinkade, Lanin Gyurko, Joan Gilabert and Leo Barrow. I would also like to give thanks to Gustavo Artaza, Executive Director of International Studies Abroad, Inc. (ISA), where I worked for the better part of the six years it took me to complete the dissertation. Gustavo recognized the value of my project and allowed me to take time from work at ISA to move it along. My gratitude also goes out to my loving parents, Robert Hoyle and Olga Santos Hoyle. Words cannot express my debt to them. I love them dearly and it makes me happy to know they are proud of me for finishing this. Finally, I want to thank my wife and fellow Longhorn Risa, who always found a way to help me maintain the proper perspective during the difficult times, all the while being the most wonderful mother to our two beautiful boys Jacob and John. She was my greatest source of strength and I could not have completed this dissertation without her. iv Writing Against the Grain: Ignacio Solares’ Novels of the Mexican Revolution Publication No. __________ Rafael Dent Hoyle, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2003 Supervisor: Nicolas Shumway This dissertation studies four novels by the Mexican writer Ignacio Solares. Although Solares has written over a dozen novels, this dissertation focuses on the four that are part of the literary tradition known as the narrativa de la Revolución Mexicana. The objective of the dissertation is to identify how the four novels continue, enrich and depart from said tradition. For this analysis, the dissertation compares the four novels to a selection of twelve classic works that serve as a cross section and template of the narrativa de la Revolución. The comparison reveals significant similarities and differences. Chapter one discusses how the four novels, like so many previous novelas de la Revolución, contest the conventional celebratory interpretation of the Mexican Revolution. v Chapter two, however, shows that the four look beyond the failures of the Revolution, thus transcending the pessimism that critics have identified as a hallmark of the novela de la Revolución. Chapter three focuses on another unique aspect of the four novels, this being that each implicitly encourages the reader to understand religious faith as a necessity for individual fulfillment, and as an empowering force in the struggle for social progress. Chapter four discusses the four novels’ relevance to their more immediate cultural and sociopolitical context. An initial argument of the chapter is that the four can rightly be classified as postmodern historical novels, although certain definitions of the postmodern, particularly those that define the postmodern aesthetic as ahistorical and apolitical, do not apply. Solares’ novelas de la Revolución clearly respond to the sociopolitical dilemmas that define the final two decades of twentieth-century Mexico. The study concludes that the narrativa de la Revolución Mexicana has been significantly enriched by Solares’ contributions. Like many novelists who came before him, Solares helps readers understand the past from a new perspective. At the same time, Solares breaks patterns that had become too predictable in the narrativa de la Revolución. These innovations make for a compelling series of novels that encourage readers to reinterpret the present by changing their understanding of the past. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction. Ignacio Solares and his Novels of the Mexican Revolution………….1 Chapter One. Solares’ Response to the Conventional Interpretation of the Mexican Revolution.….……….…………………………………………..………29 Chapter Two. Looking Beyond the Failures of the Revolution………………..….85 Chapter Three. The Positive Interpretation of Religious Faith in Solares’ Novels of the Mexican Revolution……………………………………………..…126 Chapter Four. Solares’ Novels of the Revolution: Their Relevance to their Immediate Literary and Sociopolitical Context…....................................................165 Conclusion. Writing against the grain: Solares’ Novels of the Mexican Revolution………………………………………………………….…………..…192 Bibliography…….………………………………………………………………...196 Vita………………………………………………………………………………..207 vii Introduction Ignacio Solares and his Novels of the Mexican Revolution The renowned literary critic John Brushwood, in his 1990 review of Ignacio Solares’ Casas de encantamiento, states: “It has become almost axiomatic, in recent Mexican criticism, to say that [Ignacio Solares] deserves to be more widely read. He is a master craftsman and a superbly compelling storyteller” (121-22). Since the publication of Brushwood’s 1990 review, Solares has continued to practice the craft and display the skills that earned him this critic’s admiration. And he has certainly gained some considerable public notoriety in recent years. However, the man whom John Brushwood considers to be “one of Mexico’s best novelists” (Rev. of Casas de encantamiento 121) and “a major figure in contemporary Mexican literature” (Preface to Lost in the City vii) has yet to receive abundant attention from literary critics. In fact, the literary criticism focusing on Solares’ work is somewhat sparse. To date, less than thirty articles or reviews of his work have appeared in scholarly journals and no book-length study of his work has been published. This dissertation is the result of my effort to give Solares a bit more of the critical attention he deserves. I do not focus on all of his work, but rather on his four novels that form part of the great tradition of Mexican fiction commonly known among literary 1 critics as the narrativa de la Revolución Mexicana.1 In the first chapter of this dissertation, I show that Solares follows a course established by previous Mexican novelists, as each of his four novelas de la Revolución challenges the celebratory and triumphalist interpretation of the Revolution, so typical of conventional historiography. In subsequent chapters, I move on to identify aspects of Solares’ novels that represent innovation within the great tradition of the narrativa de la Revolución. In chapter two, I argue that his novels do not reflect the oft-noted pessimism that is a hallmark of the great tradition. While the four novels certainly draw attention to the tragic failures of the Revolution, they also encourage the reader to look beyond the failures. In chapter three, I argue that Solares’ optimistic vision is facilitated by his resolutely religious conception of existence. I observe, furthermore, that Solares’ novels ultimately propose a unique type of faith-based activism as a means of achieving individual fulfillment and societal progress. In my last chapter, I explain why the four works can justifiably be thought of as postmodern novels. But I argue also that the four do not exemplify the a-historical and a- political aesthetic many critics associate with the postmodern. Solares’ novels of the Mexican Revolution respond directly to the sociopolitical realities that prevail at the time they are written. In this introductory chapter, following a brief overview of Solares’ career as a writer, I explain how and why I place the four novels in the tradition of narrative fiction 1 For a summary of the themes and content of Solares’ other literary works, consult Vicente Francisco Torres’ Esta narrativa mexicana (25-40), where the critic offers an excellent overview of Solares’ literary works through 1987. Also, see Carolyn and John Brushwood’s preface to Lost in the city: Two novels by Ignacio Solares, where Brushwood offers a brief overview of the themes of Solares’ work through 1996. For a quick description of the contents and major themes of Solares’ two most recent novels, El sitio and El espía del aire, see Gonzalo Celorio’s review of El sitio and César Güemes review of El espía del aire. 2 known as the narrativa de la Revolución Mexicana. I then describe briefly how I went about my research and how I form my arguments in the chapters that follow. Ignacio Solares has had a distinguished career as a journalist, academic