Uncivil War S Sandra Messinger Cypess OCTAVIO PAZ, AU AND THE % I I FOR ) A, .1000 . otU Uncivil Wars Uncivil JOE R. AND TERESA LOZAND LONG SERIES IN LATIN AMERICAN AND LATINO ART AND CULTURE JUN0 ELENA GARRO, OCTAVIO PAZ, AND THE Wars BATTLE FOR CULTURAL MEMORY Sandra Messinger Cypess UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS PRE88 AUSTIN Copyright 2012 by Sandra Messinger Cypess All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First edition, 2012 Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to: Permissions University of Texas Press P.O. Box 7819 Austin, TX 78713-7819 utpress.utexas.edu/about/book-permissions The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997) (Permanence of Paper).@ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cypess, Sandra Messinger. Uncivil wars : Elena Garro, Octavio Paz, and the battle for cultural memory / by Sandra Messinger Cypess. - 1st ed. p. cm. - (Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long series in Latin American and Latino art and culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-292-75428-7 1. Garro, Elena-Criticism and interpretation. 2. Paz, Octavio, 1914-1998-Criticism and interpretation. 3. National characteristics, Mexican, in literature. 4. Collective memory-Mexico. I. Title. PQ7297.G3585Z64 2012 868'.64o9-dc23 2012010950 First paperback printing, 2013 DEDICATED TO Raymond (everyone knows why) and to Aaron and Leah, Josh and Rebecca, and their wonderful contributions to our happiness: Benjamin Joey Shoshana Sally Hadassah David e e e CONTENTS PREFACE / iX i. Introduction: Uncivil Wars / 1 2. All in the Family: Paz and Garro Rewrite Mexico's CulturalMemory / 13 3. War at Home: Betrayals of/in the Mexican Revolution / 49 4. Love and War Don't Mix: Garro and Paz in the Spanish Civil War / 79 5. Tlatelolco: The Undeclared War / 115 6. From Civil War to Gender War: The Battle of the Sexes / 151 NOTES / 179 BIBLIOGRAPHY / 207 INDEX / 237 u a 1 "The difficult part is taking the first step." ELENA GARRO Reencuentro de personajes (Reunion of Characters) "I am the shadow my words cast." OCTAVIO PAZ "A Draft of Shadows" (The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz, 1957-1987, trans. Eliot Weinberger) PREFACE FOR MANY YEARS I CONSIDERED EXPLORING the roles of Elena Garro and Octavio Paz in formulating and transmitting the cultural memory of Mexico during the second part of the twentieth century. The inspiration derived in part from my earlier study of the historical figure of the indigenous woman, La Malinche, and how she was portrayed in Mexican literature and culture through the ages, from the initial chronicles to contemporary literary expres sions. It seemed to me that everyone-or perhaps almost everyone-dealing with the topic quoted Octavio Paz's influential essay "Los hijos de la Malinche" (The Sons of Malinche) to discuss the impact and relevance of that historical figure for Mexican ethnic identity. Most readers and critics, however, ignored the subtle commentary of Elena Garro on the same topic (if they even knew that she had attempted such a response). By contrast, my reading suggests that Garro was actually in debate with Paz when she wrote her now canonical short story "La culpa es de los tlaxcaltecas" (It's the Fault of the Tlaxcaltecas). It offers a commentary not only on Mexican ethnic identity but also on gender relationships, an issue that Paz often neglected. The ideas and esthetic expressions of Garro and Paz project varying per spectives on Mexican cultural memory-both what is recalled and "memorial ized" and what is ignored and forgotten. What is poignant and yet paradoxical in the "Garro and Paz story" is that they each had so much to offer to Mexican culture, yet their personal and professional trajectories were so divergent. A case in point: after the traumatic Tlatelelolco Massacre of 1968, Paz became a figurehead for the protesting Mexican students, who called him "El padrino" (the godfather), while Garro was marginalized and forced into exile by both governmental and literary communities for her supposedly inappropriate ac tions. In this book I document the two writers' war of words, in which they explore in different ways similar themes that cover esthetic, erotic, and ethical questions as well as issues of individual and national identity. Paz was certainly the "go-to" intellectual for any number of esthetic, philosophical, political, and poetic topics in the twentieth century, while Garro's voice was muted, overshadowed by recurring personal issues. Her difficult personal life, spent in exile and marked by financial and psychological stresses, often clouded the vi brant and coherent literary texts that she created. Despite the obstacles, Garro contributed to the Latin American canon three virtuoso texts in three dif ferent genres: Los recuerdos del porvenir (translated as Recollections of Things to Come), "La culpa es de los tlaxcaltecas," and Un hogar sdlido (A Solid Home). Despite such evaluations by scholars, many of her works have yet to be trans lated and thus are unknown to an international public. Paz, in contrast, was lionized, interviewed, translated, and showered with prestigious awards, including the Nobel Prize in 1990. He was recognized early as one of the outstanding poets and essayists of the twentieth century. When he died in April 1998, his funeral justifiably was an event of national import. It was attended by thousands, including Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo, who called him a "universal Mexican" (New York Times, April 21, 1998). Paz was mourned by the intellectual elite as well as by average citizens. When Garro died a few months later, in August 1998, her funeral understandably did not occasion the same highly publicized national state of grief caused by Paz's death, although a leader did comment on the meaning of her loss to the world of letters. As reported by the New York Times on August 25, 1998, the president of the National Council for Culture and the Arts in Mexico, Rafael Tovar y de Teresa, singled out Garro as one of the three most important female writers of Mexican letters, along with the seventeenth-century nun and poet Sor Juana In6s de la Cruz and Rosario Castellanos (1925-1974), a contemporary of Paz and Garro. Garro's contributions to cultural memory provide a reckoning of the ter rible impact of machismo in Mexican society. She critiqued the negativities of a patriarchal culture throughout her writings, especially in a number of novels UNCIVIL WARS published after 1980: Testimonios sobre Mariana (Testimonies about Mariana, 1981) and Mi hermanita Magdalena (My Little Sister Magdalena, 1998). Al though it is easy to read these novels as romans a clef within the genre of auto biography, I suggest that they are more like political statements symptomatic of the troubled connection that Garro felt with the realities of Mexican cul ture than a vengeful attempt to discredit Paz. Garro is not so much expending her literary energies out of a personal need for retribution as articulating in her own work the complaints and resentments of Mexican women in general. She had dealt with these issues as far back as her initial writings of the 1950s and 196os, which were created while she was still married to Paz and were en couraged by him, like her early plays and Los recuerdos del porvenir. As is clearly evident in the feminist readings of those early works, Garro presents a picture of Mexican womanhood within the context of the patriarchy. It was not her bitter divorce from Paz that brought her to feminism and to harsh criticism of one male member of this society. On the contrary, her works have always explored gender relations and the unequal power relations that characterize Mexican society. Consequently, in a subversion of the traditional use of the muse figure as a "female" who inspires a male writer, Paz instead became the "muse" for Garro: the object of her artistic gaze. Although most of the creative production of Octavio Paz can be found in English versions, many of the works of Elena Garro have not yet been trans lated. At the first mention of each work I give the Spanish title and its English translation (italicized only if the translation has been published). Thereafter I refer to works in translation by their English titles. All translations of citations from untranslated works by Garro and Paz as well as from other sources are my own. Working on this research project and completing the manuscript led me to explore many books and essays. More importantly, I enjoyed and benefited from conversations and correspondence with numerous colleagues with simi lar interests. If I have forgotten anyone or committed other acts of omission throughout the text, I ask for understanding and pardon. I have to thank so many people for their generosity in sharing their thoughts and comments with me-Tanya Huntington Hyde, Carola Marx Kaplan, Joan Korenman, Jose Maria Naharro-Calder6n, Enrico Mario Santi, Rita Sparrow Mall, Anthony Stanton, Vicky Unruh, and Mary Kay Vaughan. Pat Herron of the University of Maryland Library and the entire staff of the Interlibrary Loan Department, especially Charles Wright, helped me to find many of the resources that en riched my understanding of Garro, Paz, and Mexican culture. Conversations PREFACEXI with Regina Harrison, Roberta Lavine, Eyda Merediz, Ana Patricia Rodriguez, and Rochelle Messinger Strauss enabled me to clarify the points I hoped to communicate. Lucia Melgar's own written work on Elena Garro and our per sonal conversations have also been invaluable. Rebecca Schaefer Cypess ap plied her excellent editorial skills to key chapters. A few treasured friends read every word. A historian and educator by training, Paul Flaum examined the chapters to make sure that what I was saying would be clear and jargon-free.