Centro Journal ISSN: 1538-6279 [email protected] The City University of New York Estados Unidos
Rodeño Iturriaga, Ignacio F. ERNESTO QUIÑONEZ'S FICTION SEEN AS A PICARESQUE NARRATIVE Centro Journal, vol. XX, núm. 2, 2008, pp. 159-173 The City University of New York New York, Estados Unidos
Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=37712148008
How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative
CENTRO Journal
Volume7 xx Number 2 fall 2008
Ernesto Quiñonez’s Fiction Seen as a Picaresque Narrative
Ig n a c i o F. Ro d e ñ o It u rri a g a
a b s t r a c t
This paper’s goal is to read Ernesto Quiñonez’s novels Bodega Dreams (2000) and Chango’s Fire (2004) in the light of the picaresque genre. In order to do so, the analysis shows how the usage of a first-person narrative, the treatment of discourse and speech, and the employment of orality are features that let us align these US Latino texts with those of the picaresque canon, especially the classical Spanish novels that define the genre. Other picaresque aspects of Quiñonez’s novels seen in this essay are marginality of their characters, their drive to climb in the social ladder, and their frustration at not attaining these goals. [Key words: Ernesto Quiñonez; Bodega Dreams; Chango’s Fire; picaresca; US Latino; first-person narrative; orality]
[ 159 ] Ernesto Quiñonez, a New York writer of Ecuadorian and Puerto Rican descent, who consciously describes himself as a product of Spanish Harlem and who inserts himself fully into the US Latino literature, is more than aware of the work of his literary ancestors.1 Therefore, in his work there is a deliberate effort to inscribe his fiction as Nuyorican. Accordingly, the voices of previous Nuyorican writers are present in his fiction, sometimes through epigraphs, others through intertexts. Perhaps the most revealing attempt to present himself as an heir to the Nuyorican literary tradition, and by extension his own insertion in it, can be seen at the end of his first novel: at the funeral of one of the characters, William Irizarry, known as Willie Bodega, a benefactor of sorts of Spanish Harlem, Quiñonez presents a long list of prominent artistic figures linked to the Nuyorican movement:
The rest of Bodega’s pallbearers were ex-Young-Lords: Pablo Guzman, Juan Gonzalez, Felipe Luciano, Denise Oliver, Iris Morales. Standing near them were some artists from Taller Boricua: Fernando Salicrup, Marcos Dimas, Irma Ayala, Jorge Soto, Gilbert Hernandez, and Sandra Maria Esteves, along with some ex-cons and poets. Miguel Algarin, Reverend Pedro Pietri, Martin Espada, Lucky Cienfuegos, and even Miguel Piñero cried their eyes out next to Piri Thomas, Edward Rivera, and Jack Agueros. Nearly the entire East Harlem aristocracy. (2000: 208)
Some of the major social activists and writers are present; Quiñonez is present as well through the voice of the narrator and protagonist, who shares many biographical features with the author. Here in this passage, Nuyorican literature is not buried; instead, this is a deliberate effort to claim a space in this cultural tradition, which is celebrated not only to indicate that it is far from dead, but also that Nuyorican activism and literature are continued through his work. Moreover, the title of Quiñonez’s first novel, Bodega Dreams (2000), immediately brings to mind Miguel Piñero’s book of poems La Bodega Sold Dreams (1980) and more specifically the poem “La Bodega Sold Dreams,” which lends its title to the book. In this lyric the poet dreams of being the poetic voice of El Barrio’s Hispanic working class, making his words available to the people through bodegas, where dreams are sold. It is through this intertext that Quiñonez echoes the voice of other
[ 160 ] Spanish Harlem writers and unquestionably claims for himself a place among them, constituting himself in the new voice of El Barrio. In spite of this clearly defined Latino context, where the works are inserted into the writing, the two novels that Quiñonez has published up to the present—Bodega Dreams and Chango’s Fire (2004)—can be read in a broader intellectual and artistic framework: that of the picaresque novel. This is evident to a critical reader since their respective protagonists, Chino and Julio Santana, seem to hold a grudge against the social conditions that surround them. Let us remember that, in the words of Stephen E. Richards (1979: 1), “the term ‘picaresque’ is usual today to designate […] almost any novel in which the main protagonist is in some way at odds with his or her society.” This essay will show how the use of a first-person narrative, the use of discourse and speech, and the use of orality are consistently applied in these two novels in a manner that can be seen as being in accordance with the picaresque canon. This approach is especially effective because it is in the act of stating and not in what is being stated that one can find the essence of the genre. Bodega Dreams2 introduces us to the gentrification of Spanish Harlem and the efforts of a charismatic ex-Young Lord, William Irizarry, known in El Barrio as Willie Bodega, to renovate the neighborhood while keeping it affordable for the Latino immigrants. Bodega uses his profits from drug dealing to extort city officials and to strike deals with the New York City officials in charge of urban planning. It is his plan to create a social class of El Barrio born-and-raised college graduate professionals who would compete with the white yuppies settling in Spanish Harlem and thus give back to the neighborhood. Chino, the college student who is our narrator, falls into Bodega’s sphere of influence when the latter seeks Chino’s help to reach Vera, Bodega’s never forgotten lover from the sixties. Vera happens to be Chino’s wife’s aunt, and is married to another man. Bodega learns of Chino’s connection to Vera through one of his drug dealers, a petty criminal named Sapo, who is Chino’s best friend. Chino is reluctant to help Bodega at first, but soon his charisma wins Chino over and our narrator gets closer to Bodega. It is when Sapo is pulled further into Bodega’s criminal world that Chino’s relationship with the drug lord becomes more complex. This affects Chino’s life to the point of breaking his marriage to Blanca, Vera’s niece. Bodega dies violently, and his figure is turned into that of a local martyr, a hero, by the Hispanic inhabitants of El Barrio. Quiñonez’s second novel is similar to Bodega Dreams. Chango’s Fire is also told from the first-person point of view. Julio Santana is a “firebug,” an arsonist, who burns down buildings in El Barrio and elsewhere for realty investors and rich house owners who then can claim insurance. His boss is Eddie, a sinister figure who acts as mediator between the arsonists and the “clients,” and who is also the father of a developmentally challenged kid, Eduardo, nicknamed Trompo Loco. In spite of Eddie’s constant denial that Eduardo is his son, Trompo Loco admires his father, whom he thinks owns a coffee shop, but which is nothing but a cover-up for his criminal activities. It is Julio who becomes the father figure to Trompo Loco by taking him under his wing. When not involved in burning buildings, Julio is busy constructing them by day and taking college courses by night. He struggles to climb in the social ladder and to make the leap from a marginal life of crime and roguery toward a mainstream, educated, legitimate existence—a life beyond housing projects. He has made important progress towards his goal: he has saved enough
[ 161 ] money to buy a home, a third-floor apartment in an old brownstone, which he shares with his parents. The second floor is inhabited by Helen: a white, blond gallery owner raised in the Midwest who is in search of the glamorous cosmopolitan life that New York offers. Throughout the book, Helen tries to find her niche in a Spanish Harlem that is especially unwelcoming to the type of people she represents. This makes the love relationship between Julio and Helen complicated, despite Julio’s mother’s wishes to improve the family’s racial make-up by having whiter grandchildren. The first floor of the brownstone building is occupied by Maritza, a childhood friend of Julio, who is a political activist and a Pentecostal pastor involved in providing stolen citizenship documents to illegal immigrants, some of whom are Julio’s co-workers at the construction site.
Perhaps the name that is best chosen as a character’s picaresque epithet is that of Willie Bodega.
Next to this building we find a botánica, run by Papelito, a gay santero, who aids Julio to pay his mortgage, procure the interest of Helen and acquire a spiritual life. If Willie Bodega was the martyr in his first novel, Papelito is the martyr in the second. And as happens in the first text, the protagonist of Chango’s Fire ends up alone, his dreams shattered, but with a newly found courage to start all over again. The plots of both novels clearly suggest picaresque motifs, with characters who try to overcome the difficulties that life brings about through illegitimate means, characters who are, in the words of the author, “flawed yet still [have] a heart of gold, and that is what I am interested in” (Kerr 2004). The names of the characters also reflect their pícaro nature: Chino and Sapo are given these street names due to their physical appearance. Sapo even goes further in claiming this as his nickname by croaking and therefore marginalizing himself. For Chino, able to see beyond the walls Sapo himself erects, the ugliness of the toad also contains the inner beauty of his best friend, a feature that most people oversee. Trompo Loco refers to the top that spins, which is meant to refer to the character who does the same when under one of his crazy fits. Papelito is given this name in a clear allusion to his business at the botánica, and a foretelling of his involvement in the affair with the citizenship papers. Perhaps the name that is best chosen as a character’s picaresque epithet is that of Willie Bodega. Once more the connection with Miguel Piñero’s poem “La Bodega Sold Dreams” is too obvious not to allude to it. Like the poetic self in Piñero’s lyric, the Hispanic immigrants in El Barrio are ready for “buyin’ bodega sold dreams…” (1980: 6), and William Irizarry is ready to sell them: dreams of improving their social status, dreams of not having to live by the whims of realty investors, dreams of providing a better education and future to their children, dreams of having their voices heard. But Bodega, who is a drug lord, also sells dreams in this capacity to other people, dreams that are attainable through the consumption of drugs. It is here when the name takes a pícaro, albeit sinister, turn.
[ 162 ] First-person narrative Nowadays, the concept of first-person narrative, no matter whether it be an autobiography, first-person Bildungsroman, testimonial, journal, or even a memoir, is considered one of the essential ingredients in those works that are regarded as belonging to the picaresque genre. Such an assertion is supported not only by the agreement, whether explicit or implicit, of the majority of the scholars devoted to this genre, but also by several examples of creative works associated with it. One could argue that it is possible to find picaresque works that are narrated in third person and where the narrator is not a character; works where the narration is a dialogue; and works in which the first-person narrative is embedded in the narration in third person or within a dialogue. However, this does not preclude the fact that the autobiographical has3 been perceived as one of the common denominators in these writings, as Fernando Lázaro Carreter already suggested in his 1972 study of Lazarillo de Tormes (1554). In autobiography, and more specifically in the picaresque narratives of the self, to speak of the first person means that the narrator mentions—rather, signals—himself as an integral part of the enunciate and declares himself immersed in the narrated universe, distinguishing himself from the third-person narrator who is not a character. Still, the autobiographical model that picaresque narratives employ includes a third agent beyond those of the narrator and character: the situation of the narration itself. The study of the narrative point of view is what has given the features of the autobiographical its prominent place in the analysis of picaresque novels. This employment of the point of view is twofold: “to narrate, that is to say, to transmit something in words; and to experience, to perceive, to know as a character what is happening in the fictional space” (Stanzel 1984: 9). This concept of the rogue as a literary character who narrates himself has not appeared suddenly. José Ortega y Gasset (1946) started by applying the concept of point of view to the perception of the world surrounding the character. It was not until twenty years later that Américo Castro (1967) saw the point of view as a narrative procedure. Both Bodega Dreams’ Chino and Chango’s Fire’s Julio Santana open the novels by giving us their unfiltered point of view. Chino’s voice starts the text by giving us his opinion and confessing his hopes for the future, thus creating a distinct bond between protagonist and reader. It is in the very first page that the reader sees the world surrounding the main character through his own point of view: “Sapo was different. […] I loved Sapo. I loved Sapo because he loved himself. And I wanted to be able to do that, to rely on myself for my own happiness. […] As far back as I could remember Sapo had always been called Sapo and no one called him by his real name, Enrique.” (2000: 3). This is even more apparent in the case of Quiñonez’s second novel: not only is the first-person pronoun the third word of the text, but the scene is set through the eyes of the pícaro protagonist. The text opens with a powerful sentence: “The house I am about to set on fire stands alone on a hill” (2004: 3). Julio, then, proceeds to give us his charged description of suburban life as a goal for new immigrants to the US. in what can be perceived as the usurpation of the author’s voice by the narrator, a blurring of boundaries that is narratologically very effective in defining characters and situations from a physical and a moral standpoint. Thus, the narrator’s authority suffices to highlight the commendable or reprehensible behavior of all the characters and, more importantly, to suggest another behavior (Rey 1979: 70). Both first chapters establish the fact that the reader will access the situational context through the eyes of the character. By immediately telling us about their surroundings, Chino and Julio reveal that the bond between character and social
[ 163 ] environment predates that of the link between narrator and character. This particular use of the narratologic point of view also stresses the fact that the rogue is a literary creature who narrates himself.
During my three years at Julia de Burgos, I had more fights than Sapo. And since I was born with high, flat cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes, and straight black hair (courtesy of my father’s Ecuadorian side of the family), and because kung fu movies were very popular at the time, when I was in the eighth grade, I was tagged Chino. I was happy with the name. Chino was a cool name, qué chévere. There were many guys named Chino in East Harlem but it wasn’t a name that was just given to you. First, you had to look a bit Chinese, and second, you had to fight. (Quiñonez 2000: 7–8)
Quiñonez also inserts the first-person narrative within dialogues, a resource that is also used in the picaresque novels, as we have stated before. In Chango’s Fire, Julio describes his side-job to Helen, his love interest, in what might be considered a first-person account in the lines of the confessional autobiography. The atmosphere seems to work toward this aim too, since both characters are speaking in Helen’s apartment and the mood is set for romance. Yet Julio has the need to finally confess to his lover that he is an arsonist at the service of Eddie.
“All right, all right. I’m a criminal, Helen. I’m a criminal,” I say. Helen puts her glass down. “I’m into insurance fraud.” “What do you mean?” Her eyes narrow in bewilderment, forming two parallel wrinkles just above her nose. […] “No, Helen, I set fires.” It comes out so natural, as if I am a bus driver, locksmith or doorman. […] “What do you mean fires?” “I’ve done things,” I say, putting my drink down as well, “I set fires not just for money but out of some sort of vengeance, an anger I have. When I was a kid, the property you are standing on top of was worthless.” (Quiñonez 2004: 176)
There is no contradiction between dialogue and first-person narrative; quite the contrary, in opposition to a pure autobiographical narration, dialogue becomes represented mediation. The autobiographical element is present; moreover, it is framed. There is a strong situational mark that pervades the first-person narrative per se. As we mentioned before, the first person in the picaresque autobiographical narrative is immersed in the narration. The narrator is defined not only by that which he tells, but also by the very fact of telling. It is this act of telling that becomes a feature in his life path and, thus, in the fiction. The autobiographical nature of the narration serves also as a means to distinguish the protagonist from other characters in the novels. While we can argue that characters such as Bodega, Nazario, Eddie, Maritza, or even Papelito are also social rogues, the first-person narrative defines both Chino and Julio as rogues in their literary condition. Thus, this narrative divide serves to set the protagonists apart. From the standpoint of the literary genre, then, what becomes of relevance is the definition of rogue as narrator and the context toward which the narration aims. In accordance with what Henry Ettinghausen (1987: 252) states, as rogues Chino and Julio offer themselves to the reader not only by means of what they say, but also by being specifically the ones relating the story, and furthermore, by how
[ 164 ] they relate it. This is very closely connected to what David Goldknopf (1969: 20) calls “confessional increment,” which refers to the characterizing value taken up by what is being narrated, precisely because it is the character himself who narrates it. When Julio explains his involvement in burning homes for a fee, the reader’s first impulse is to see him as a cynic. But it is precisely because of the implications of the confessional increment that this approach is no longer fitting from an early point in the story. The use of the first person by the rogue affects not only him but also the circumstances that trigger the discourse itself. In other words, the confessional increment has an effect on the character that the narrator construes when telling about himself, as well as on the situation in which the picaresque narrator is immersed prior to the first-person account. The intricacy of the narrative act is thus manifest. Another important aspect of the use of the autobiographical as a narrative technique is the strong realism it conveys. Heinz Klüppelholz (1979: 141) has noted that the first-person narrative allows us to blur the borders between fiction and reality. Käte Hamburguer (1968: 275) goes further in stating that the narration in first person, by virtue of its characteristics, does not necessarily inscribe the text in fictitious reality, but in that of an assumed reality, posing as nonfiction, as historical document. We must stress here the fact that Hamburguer (1968) considers it fictitious reality, feigned reality, not authentic reality. Thus, from the point of view of German literary theory, the border nature of this narrative form and the sense of plausibility found in the picaresque narrative is explained. The unsettling aspect of the relationship between the autobiographical and the picaresque has been the excessive emphasis placed in the relationship between the narrator and the narrated, what connects the erlebendes ich (the I of existence) and the erzählendes ich (the I of narration) that the German criticism speaks about. This gives the point of view of the narration a judgment of value. In other words, the autobiographical in the picaresque has become a question of credibility, of coherence between narrator and character, an issue of point of view. At the end of Bodega Dreams and Chango’s Fire, the reader is left with a rather clear idea of the identity and intentions of the protagonist, as well as of his relationship with the surroundings. This is so because the logical question that the reader asks is why are Chino and Julio telling her/him their stories. This is a query that is widely taken into consideration when addressing the writings of the self in general, and that links itself with Emile Benveniste’s distinction between “historical enunciation” and “discourse” (1971). The first one would be the account of past events, while the second is a statement that presupposes a speaker and a listener, where the former has the intention to influence the latter in any given way. Jean Starobinski (1974: 69) then posits the idea of autobiography as a mixed identity that we can call historical discourse, one which forces us to accept a historical narration embedded in a discourse. In other words, the autobiographical narration is always motivated. Even though Starobinski is referring to autobiographies in the strict sense of the word, it is not difficult to see the correlation with the picaresque narrative, and specifically with Quiñonez’s texts. We could then apply the hypothesis of the primacy of discourse over history in both texts. And it would follow then, that in Bodega Dreams and Chango’s Fire the confessional autobiographies to which we referred before, and to which Starobinski alludes, are subjected to a subversive profanation. Continuing with the psychoanalytical approach, Chino and Julio’s accounts are not so much the telling of what took place in another time, but how both of them got to the present conflict. This is the case of several canonical picaresque narratives, in which there is a certain sense of frustration about past life events, a sense of
[ 165 ] alienation. Then the emphasis is not so much in the objective history, but in the discourse itself. The internal conflict that Julio has is whether or not to set his own house on fire in order to pay Eddie back, and he uses the narrative to explain the reasons that lead him to his dilemma. The narrator is able to create an image of himself, the character, according to his intentions. But this is not without limitations, those imposed by the set of relationships that make up a social and ideological situation: the context. In both of Quiñonez’s works, the autobiographical is wrapped in the context. Moreover, it is the context itself that determines the autobiographical and within which the autobiographical is able to acquire full meaning. The main characteristic of said context is that it is not far removed from the process of stimulus-reaction that seems the motivating factor for these first-person narrators we call pícaros. Julio Santana is an arsonist, but he is determined to explain in the first person that it is the social conditions of his surroundings, the context he is immersed in, the force that compels him to act in such a way.
Your life meant shit from the start. (Quiñonez 2000: 4) Spanish Harlem was worthless property in the seventies and early eighties. […] Spanish Harlem’s burned out buildings are gold mines. Many of the same landlords who burned their building are now rebuilding. Empowerment zoning has changed the face of the neighborhood. (Quiñonez 2004: 6–7)
Here we witness another characteristic of the picaresque autobiographical narrations: the bias in presenting as autonomous a narrative of the self that demands a characterizing frame; the constant signaling to the past context, which we have mentioned before. By disobeying the orders of Eddie when setting a house on fire and taking a cat with him, Julio is forced to set his own home on fire. Chino’s daydreaming alone on the fire escape reminds us of the reasons that prompted Blanca’s decision to leave him. However, the reader, given the confessional nature of the rogue’s narration, is able to go beyond forgiving the arsonist in Chango’s Fire and ends up establishing an empathy with Julio Santana that will last throughout the book, as happens in the case of Bodega Dreams, which similarly examples the empathy between reader and protagonist in the picaresque genre. Also, like two good pícaros, Chino and Julio suffer setbacks in their efforts to move up in the social ladder. In both cases these drawbacks are triggered by their past actions and contexts. They are unable to escape their own, particular historical contexts. It does not matter how hard they try, nor if their efforts result in the improvement of the collective group as well. And, like the characters in the picaresque novels, Quiñonez’s characters show an unfailing hope that their situation will improve and their lives will meliorate. In trying to typify both of Quiñonez’s novels as picaresque narratives of the self, we could resort to the concepts of speech and discourse. We have already mentioned that the narratives of the self are apparent in their intent, and as such they have enough characteristics to be considered as integrated in a communicative act. Yet it remains to be clarified if these narratives where the self bares himself can be considered confessions. There are certain aspects that would point in that direction: the extreme efforts of the pícaro to explain the context and causes that led him to his condition and to act as he does, the nature of his connection to the reader, and the manner in which he composes his discourse and uses speech. Let’s focus on these two aspects now.
[ 166 ] Discourse and Speech It has been said that fiction imitates speech not life. As one can perceive after our brief treatment of the use of first-person narrative, there is nothing gratuitous in the picaresque act. In a similar way, there is nothing gratuitous in the way Ernesto Quiñonez composes his novels. Quite on the contrary, in both cases we are up against an explicit intent. Thus, the narrative situation itself becomes another level in which these novels can be studied within the parameters of the picaresque genre. Similar to the picaresque protagonist, both Chino and Julio don’t act: they talk. Or if you want, they act talking. All their tribulations and misfortunes are, in the first instance, part of a discourse, which, in turn, is produced in a specific context. This context, on the one hand, brings the discourse about, and, on the other, it is the frame toward which the discourse is aimed. Therefore, one of the fundamental aspects of the picaresque genre is the narrative style. Both Julio and Chino are very articulate characters, and it is this linguistic capacity that serves as a tool for their empowerment. The protagonists relate to other characters in the novels by virtue of their command of the language. Moreover, it is that command of the language that allows them to mediate in different social contexts and, ultimately, by overcoming the obstacles imposed on them by the social context, redeem themselves. Gonzalo Sobejano (1975: 467) states that the sense of loquacity in the rogue is an outlet for his condition. By employing the freedom to express that which social norms and civic behavior forbid, the picaresque character constructs a social criticism that allows him to let off steam and at the same time explain, and even justify, his dishonorable condition. In both of Quiñonez’s works we are constantly reminded of this. Chino and Julio, as well as Sapo, Trompo Loco, and even Julio’s mother use language as an outlet. In Chango’s Fire, Papelito suggests that only by revealing in the open what santería is, will its practice leave behind the secretive stigma it carries. Chino, Bodega, Julio, Eddie, and Trompo Loco are conscious and unconscious reminders of what society does not want to admit. It is by this social criticism that that drug trafficking and arson are justified, if not altogether encouraged for the sake of a greater good. The picaresque discourse emerges specifically opposed to a series of contradictory comments about a given topic, usually one coming from a more authoritative/ authoritarian source. This opposition turns problematic any activity of the rogue. Thus, the picaresque word is perceived as something alive: the spoken language, what we call speech. This implies a narrative style that is noticeably dialogic. As a consequence, the narrator is constantly in need of anticipating and, furthermore, influencing the possible reply from his interlocutor, who is none other than either the assumed reader, or the reader himself. Mikhail Bakhtin (1989: 97) explains this anticipation: “Formándose en la atmósfera de lo que se ha dicho anteriormente, la palabra viene determinada, a su vez, por lo que todavía no se ha dicho, pero que viene ya forzado y previsto por la palabra de la respuesta.” This anticipation reinforces the proximity between the narrative style of the picaresque and the “real” conversations, and gives prominence to the enunciation over the narration, which, in turn, ends up being rhetorical in nature. By the narrator-reader engagement in this “dance of anticipation,” the author is able to engage his audience, and turn the reader into a supporter of the rogue’s cause, thus reinforcing the idea that any dishonorable conduct by the pícaro is justified. This time, not only do the characters justify their actions, but the reader justifies (or at least condones, has a more lenient disposition toward) the law-breaking activities of Chino, Bodega, Julio, and Maritza.
[ 167 ] On the other hand, the word of the rogue is received as the “discourse of the other.” This nonidentification with the rogue is one of the fundamental elements of a relationship between creators and receptors based on distance. Enunciation and narration are two concepts that must be carefully delineated when we deal with the picaresque genre. We must acknowledge an alienated perception of the narrative and of the picaresque character itself. This perception opens the door to irony, parody, and, from another point of view, moral judgment. It is this tension that is constantly pervading our reading of Bodega Dreams and Chango’s Fire. No matter how far are we ready to justify these character’s actions, we are always conscious of our distance from them. It is precisely this distance that allows us to pass moral judgment and, ultimately, understand their self-justification, if not completely support it. The reader’s moral stance toward the character is somewhat from above; such a stance is needed in order to judge. Most of the intertextual relations have this moral distance at their core. The rogue, asserts Maurice Molho (1972: 20–1), “es ante todo un hombre sin honor […] que se confiesa y se sincera a la ‘gente de bien.’” The realism of the picaresque fiction also depends on this distance, since it’s based on “un mundo extraño—dentro de una realidad comprobable” (Lázaro 1976: 140). Thus the key to the originality in the picaresque narration is the forming of a voice that it is new and, at the same time, distinct, as well as being strange and conflictive; it is a voice that must express itself within the situational frame of a given context. From that perspective, both Chino and Julio Santana are essentially an artificial creation whose foundation is purely verbal and whose intrinsic nature is not just the freedom in their speech, but the tension between their peculiar situation and the characters themselves. As Rolf Kloepfer (1980: 118) argues:
Communication studies have shown that the interrelational aspect of communication is at least as important as the referential aspect. Labov and Waletzky argue ingeniously that not only there would be no story without an “evaluative function” but that this function actually determines the structure of what it is to be narrated.
Bakhtin (1989: 193) reinforces this interrelational nature of communication that we witness in the picaresque style. “El estilo viene determinado por la actitud esencial y creadora de la palabra frente a su objeto, al hablante mismo y a la palabra ajena.” Thus, picaresque discourse is born within a vortex of other discourses, where it must affirm itself, and that does not exclude other discourses such as the I-character’s, the I-narrator’s, the implied reader’s, and the implied author’s. Even though the word of the rogue comes from a first-person narrator, it is not monologic. There are several discourses internalized in the pícaro’s discourse. Such a combination of discourses, which Mikhail Bakhtin called raznorechie–heteroglossy for Holquist and Emerson, heterologie for Todorov and Lázaro Carreter—is notorious in the picaresque style. That Julio Santana in Chango’s Fire assumes and internalizes very different languages can be seen in his interactions with Papelito, his relationship with Helen, his exchanges with Maritza, and his big-brother responsibilities toward Trompo Loco. All these different discourses that our rogue adopts enrich him as a complex entity, even if contradictory internally. The reason for this apparent contradiction in Julio Santana is because the relationship among the different discourses is not that of juxtaposition or hierarchical subordination, but of dialogic contact. If Leo Spitzer (1984: 166n) said that “Celestina, tanto en su lenguaje como en su carácter, es una suma de mundos,” Julio and Chino, our pícaros,
[ 168 ] are also a convergence of worlds, and by extension Bodega Dreams and Chango’s Fire, as picaresque narratives, in their style, present this junction of worlds. In Quiñonez’s works we have yet another turn of the screw in that the worlds of our pícaros resist any harmonious integration in a higher space that understands them. Hence the double dialogic nature of the picaresque discourse of Quiñonez: in its global form, it confronts other discourses; and internally, it is constituted by a collection of discourses in dialogue with each other. Julio, Chino, and the rest of the rogues in these novels assume different languages and bring them face to face, moved by a third level that is crucial: the narrative situation, which entails the pragmatism of the picaresque voice. Through the narrative voice of Chino and Julio, the author integrates in the texts various languages of different social and ideological value. When Chino addresses Negra or Vera, the language is different than when he is addressing or referring to Blanca. It is another issue entirely when he addresses Willie Bodega or Nazario; and yet another one when in dialogue with Sapo. Perhaps a better illustration can be seen in Julio’s exchanges with his parents, where he is always aware of what can be said and what must be concealed; thus, the discourses change from submissive to protective, to secretive, and to rebellious. The dialogues with Papelito offer the possibility of religious esoteric and Afro-Caribbean discourses. Precisely, this “mixture of styles has the effect of making the readers pass through a succession of contradictory and ambiguous attitudes” (Lutwack 1967: 219). Quiñonez’s texts present parallelisms, colloquialisms, expressions borrowed from pop-culture, advertising, mass media, religious jargon, all of which break the tone of the text. Also, the discourse is elaborated around the conflicts of different languages and registers. Patently obvious to the reader of Bodega Dreams and Chango’s Fire is the alternation of two discourses: that of the unrepentant pícaro and that of the reformed rogue. Each of these discourses presupposes different relationships with both society and the reader. Their alternation brings forth the tension between the social criticism of the narration and the sincere belief that a better Spanish Harlem is plausible in the near future. In the first instance, the character judges; in the second, he cannot avoid the fear of being judged. In an interview with Euan Kerr, aired by Minnesotta Public Radio on October 2004, the author said about his character Julio Santana: “he never judges, you know, his mother is a racist and his father was a junkie, and yet he never brings that up, and Helen has problems with the bottle and yet he never brings that up, ‘cause he knows that, you know, ‘I can’t throw stones. I myself am a criminal’” (Kerr 2004). The same could be said about Chino. This quality can be perceived in the novels:
‘No, I set fires.’ I hear the people laughing outside the office. They’ve been having a good time out there, ‘Listen, keep your mouth shut, Helen, and I can promise you, seriously promise you fire insurance kickbacks. You can even have half of my share. Maritza will get the other—’I stop talking when Helen’s eyes start to shine. The moisture is them is about to spill. (Quiñonez 2004: 251) In my dream I felt sad. But the new language Bodega had spoken about seemed promising. Alone on the fire escape, I looked out to the neighborhood below. Bodega was right, it was alive. (Quiñonez 2000: 212–3)
It seems that Willie Bodega tells Chino what Julio tells Helen, which is a contemporary version of what we read in Fernando de Rojas’s La Celestina (1499) when Sempronio tells Claixto: “Haz tú lo que bien digo y no lo que mal hago” (1979: 51).
[ 169 ] Orality Another defining feature of the picaresque genre intrinsically close to what we have just seen about discourse and the speech, and that pervades the works of Ernesto Quiñonez, is its oral ontology. The voices of Chino and Julio Santana, as well as the narration of any rogue–characterized by its loquacity—share many of the features that lately the critics have identified with orality. This identification has been made from a structural as well as from a stylistic point of view. The syntax, the use of the semantic reiteration, the colloquial tone, the use of slang, the implication of physical gestures and tone of voice are features that surface throughout Bodega Dreams and Chango’s Fire. It is as if we are reading an oral discourse directly translated to the printed page, without any adaptation to the idiosyncrasy of the written text. This is in accordance to what we have stated before: the characters don’t act, they speak; they act speaking. This is not to say that the orality we witness in Quiñonez’s novels is a literal one: we are not stating here that his pícaros have to be engaging in an oral exchange with another character. What we postulate is a concept of orality that Walter J. Ong has coined as “oral residue” and defines as: “habits of thought and expression tracing back to preliterate situations or practice, or deriving of the oral as a medium in a given culture or indicating a reluctance or inability to dissociate the written medium from the spoken” (1965: 146). The concept, however, does not fully account for what we perceive in Quiñonez. We are far from those “picaresque works that are at the crossroads between oral and written narrative” (Reed 1984: 34). What we are interested in bringing to the fore here is the fact that the orality that Chino and Julio Santana illustrate so well is one of the distinguishing components of the picaresque style. We should understand this orality as an essential artifice that constitutes the expression of the rogue as a literary character. And we must remain aware that the orality of the pícaro is presented through the narration, not the enunciation. This fact highlights the artificiality of the expression, especially when what we read is an autobiographical narration of the rogue. Orality itself is very closely linked to the autobiographic character of these works. It seems as if both types of work, picaresque and autobiography, would be half way between the written and the oral. If writing is what creates personal distancing, as Ong susggests (1982: 46), one could argue that writing and the autobiographical narration of the pícaro are opposed to each other. However, autobiographical works, because of their oral nature, live in a more complex context than a verbal one. Since the “[s]poken words are always modifications of a total existential question” (Ong 1982: 67), it seems obvious that the accounts of Chino and Julio, as well as those of any rogue, demand an oral dimension in their style. If we add to this a certain agonistically toned character, a belligerent disposition of the spoken word, we seem to only reinforce the basic features of the picaresque genre. Both Chino and Julio are in constant struggle with their environment and the people that surround them. Being at odds with their environment is in this case supported by the belligerence of the oral word, all of which reinforces the basic pícaro discourse. In Bodega Dreams and Chango’s Fire the characters engage in violent linguistic exchanges with one another. “That nigga had that shit coming” (Quiñonez 2000: 91) tells Sapo to Chino after a very violent fight with the English teacher, an authority figure. This is even more apparent in the case of the santero addressing Julio Santana after Papelito has died: “‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’ he said to me, and I was a bit surprised at a holy man with a potty mouth. ‘Why should I fucking teach you the way of the saints? What have you done that
[ 170 ] proves you are worthy of knowing their stories?’ I liked him right away.” (Quiñonez 2004: 268). And the reason why Julio Santana liked the santero is because he was real, not a make-believe, esoteric elder. Or when Willie Bodega questions Vera right after she has killed her husband during a heated argument between both men over her: “Ave María, coño, me cago en la madre” (Quiñonez 2000: 192), where we see once again the mix of the religious and the profane in a very charged blasphemy. These characters’ discourse helps them to separate themselves from their surroundings and engage in the battle of knowledge. As Ong (1982) suggests, the spoken word and the colloquial language challenge hearers to provide an apposite or contradictory utterance, thus engaging the audience (in the case of Quiñonez, the reader) in an intellectual combat. The use of Spanglish, code- switching, slang, and street register seems to point towards this.
“See, it’s alive,” he said, and right at that minute, at a window next door to us a woman yelled to her son down on the street. “Mira, Juanito, go buy un mapo, un contén de leche, and tell el bodeguero yo le pago next Friday. And I don’t want to see you in el rufo!” We both laughed. (Quiñonez 2000: 212) It’s all profit really. These union jobs pay sixteen dollars an hour, the Mexican is given five, the owner of the name takes eleven. The undocumented worker is making more money than he ever imagine:, the average wage in Mexico is four bucks a day, and in other parts of Latin America it is even less. The owner of the name, the member of the union, can spend his days doing other things or nothing, the buildings get gutted, later renovated, yuppies rent them, and everyone is happy. So everyone keeps quiet. No one asks. You don’t ask. You never ask. (Quiñonez 2004: 28–9)
All the oral features mentioned a while ago, along with the tendency to digress and comment, the association of ideas (a feature more common in the logic of speech than in that of the written word), the continuous references to the moment of narration, and the ever-present assumption of an immanent reception constitute a remarkable tendency towards oral style that has been part of the picaresque genre since its beginning.
Open end The picaresque genre characterizes itself by the construction of a different expression: that of the other. Such articulation depends, from a pragmatic point of view, on the situation in which the narrative is conceived. The situation is, on its part, socially, morally, and ideologically divided. This is the cauldron in which Ernesto Quiñonez cooks up both his novels. Chino, Julio Santana, and other characters provide a commentary on their situation from a first-person point of view, with a direct, streetwise language. It is through their command of the language that these characters are able to better themselves in a situation that is hostile a priori. From the onset we face characters that are at odds with their surroundings and who must act in a morally questionable way, but who still offer no excuse and ask for no apology. By means of the style and language use, the author manages to create empathy between characters and reader. This narrative construct clearly parallels that of the picaresque genre of the Hispanic literary tradition. Quiñonez’s characters, because of their picaresque nature, are a strong, direct reply to the words included in the epigram to Bodega Dreams. If Pedro Pietri wrote in Puerto Rican
[ 171 ] Obituary (1973: 2): “All died waiting dreaming and hating,” Chino and Julio are going to channel that hate, not just waiting but acting and by these means attempt to pursue their dreams. One can safely say that in Ernesto Quiñonez we have a continuation of the picaresque novel that is already present in the US Latino literary tradition. A brief sample of these other texts that can be read as picaresque narratives include Down These Mean Streets (1967) by Piri Thomas; Drown (1996) by Junot Diaz; other texts are not necessarily set in New York, like Pocho (1959) by José Antonio Villareal; John Rechy’s City of Night (1963); Oscar “Zeta” Acosta’s Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972); Jimmy Santiago Baca’s Working in the Dark: Reflections of a Poet of the Barrio (1992). Women characters can also be read as pícaras, like those appearing in Dolores Prida’s Beautiful Señoritas (1977), or Woman Hollering Creek (1991) by Sandra Cisneros. Regarding these texts within the framework of the pícaro and the picaresque will lead to a better and more complete understanding of the true US Latino literary tradition, since it will allow us to consider it a literary artifact within and outside of the realm of writing it claims for itself.
Acknowledgments I am indebted to Reyes Coll-Tellechea (University of Massachusetts at Boston) for her suggestions regarding the picaresque genre and to Efraín Barradas (University of Florida) for his insightful comments to this manuscript. notes 1 While Ernesto Quiñonez’s published fiction takes place exclusively in Spanish Harlem, and there is no desire on his part to deny his experiences growing up in El Barrio, from which he extracts material for his work. Quiñonez prefers not to be considered a Latino writer. In an interview he has manifested his desire to be regarded as a writer who happens to set his fiction in New York’s El Barrio, much as James Baldwin wrote about Harlem, William Faulkner about Mississippi, or James Joyce about Dublin. In that sense, he does not want to be considered a regional writer. Baldwin, Faulkner, and Joyce tried “to catch something universal. That is what I am trying to do, and that is what these writers did. I am a writer. Period” (Kerr 2004). What Quiñonez’s fails to notice, in my opinion, is that a writer can be part of several classifications, and, in his case, as a US writer who writes from his Ecuadorian and, most importantly, Puerto Rican experience. As someone whose fiction deals with Latinos in New York, he cannot escape being classified as part of the US Latino literature, in the same way Baldwin or Fauklner cannot escape being part of the African-American and Southern literary canons, respectively. This interview by Kerr is one of the few works whose subject is Ernesto Quiñonez. I have been able to find a small number of book reviews of both his novels and a brief paraphrased interview in Spike Magazine, and a few critical studies of Quiñonez’s Bodega Dreams: a chapter in Bridget Kevane’s Latino Literature in America, June Dwyer’s article in Literature Interpretation Theory, and a chapter in the May 2007 book by Dalleo and Machado Sáez. I have found no critical studies of Quiñonez´s later novel: Chango’s Fire. 2 Given the nature of my analysis and the fact that most readers might not be familiar with Quiñonez’s fiction, I consider it useful to present a synopsis of the novels. 3 I will use the terms autobiography and autobiographical in this essay to encompass all first-person narratives or narratives of the self. I am aware that not all of these are autobiographies, but the purpose of this essay is not to elucidate the differences in the types of first-person narratives within the picaresque narratives.
[ 172 ] references Bakhtin, M. M. 1989. Teoría y estética de la novela. Trabajos de investigación. Trad. Helena S. Kriukova and Vicente Cazcarra. Madrid: Taurus. Benveniste, Emile. 1971. Problemas de lingüística general. México: Siglo XXI. Castro, Américo. 1967. Hacia Cervantes. Madrid: Taurus. Dalleo, Raphael and Elena Machado Sáez. 2007. The Latino/a Canon and the Emergence of Post-Sixties Literature. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Dwyer, June. 2003. When Willie Met Gatsby: The Critical Implications of Ernesto Quiñonez´s Bodega Dreams. Literature Interpretation Theory 14: 165–78. Ettinghausen, Henry. 1987. Quevedo’s converso pícaro. Modern Language Notes 102: 241–54. Goldknopf, David. 1969. The Confessional Increment: A New Look at the I-Narrator. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 28: 13–21. Hamburguer, Käte. 1968. Die Logik der Dichtung. Stuttgart: E. Klett. Kevane, Bridget. 2003. Latino Literature in America. Westport: Greenwood Press. Kerr, Euan. 2004. The Man Who Lit ‘Chango’s Fire’. 26 October. Minnesota Public Radio. Accessed 27 May 2006.
[ 173 ]