CULTURE Edgar Montiel ALFONSO REYES: THOUGHTFUL CENTAUR On May 17, 1889, the most famous of their children was born in the family of General Bernardo Reyes in Monterrey, Nuevo León. Mexican history has described Alfonso Reyes as "the greatest of our writers and thinkers"; during his 70 years of life he was a prodigious literary creator, worked in the Mexican diplomatic service, and carried out a tireless search for an identity which would give Latin Americans the status of "universal citizens". Faithful to his people and loyal during their adversities, Reyes established the Popular University in 1921 for those who could not pay for higher education or who did not have time to attend regular schools. His father was assassinated by those who saw General Bernardo Reyes as a threat to the dictatorship of General Porfirio Díaz, and after this, his son went into exile, spending 10 years in Spain before working for the Mexican Embassy in Paris, Buenos Aires, Río de Janeiro and Montevideo from 1924 to 1938. When he returned to Mexico, he had already produced a vast and -monumental written work —his collected works have still not been completely published, although 21 volumes already exist. Reyes was a master of all kinds of literary genre— critique, poetry, drama, chronicle and essay. Paradoxically, he never received homages during his life-time, perhaps because he was a "staunch enemy of pedantry", and a man of few presumptions. One hundred years after his birth, Mexico commemorates this writer. New generations of Mexican and Latin American writers still have much to learn from him. Carlos Fuentes once said that as a march in progress, to the etcetera..."; child he used to sit quite formally on For Reyes, we need to recover he placed it within ancillary litera- Don Alfonso's lap to listen to him the glory of the Thinker, ture, in that literature lends its attrib- ramble on about many topics, inclu- deserved by those who know utes to the essay to deal with themes ding books and literature. Fuentes how to make of the essay a that are not necessarily of the literary was lucky enough to initiate himself genre of fine literature as well world. The image of the centaur in the arduous and joyful task of tam- as of knowledge, a style which expresses well the hybrid nature of ing words with such an able leader. the genre, a movable territory where But, for purity, all the new genera- reaches the heights of science and art, the rational and the tions of Latin American essayists exceptional perfection sensual, and the open curve of con- have suffused themselves with the ro cepts and intuitions all harmonize. bust humanism of the Mexican writer For Reyes, we need to recover the in order to learn from him the wise It was Alfonso Reyes who defined glory of the thinker, deserved by prose that attains depth and beauty, the essay as "the centaur of genres, those who know how to make of the density and grace. where there is a bit of everything and essay a genre of fine literature as well everything fits, the capricious son of as of happy knowledge, a style which Writer and literary critic. This text first appe- a culture that can no longer respond reaches the heights of exceptional ared in the cultural supplement of the newspa- to the round and closed orb of the an- perfection. Its writing is done with ca- per La Jornada. cient, but to the open curve, to the dence, musical cense and imagery, 64 iill~~111■• CULTURE Reyes is the artist-essayist capable of uniting the objective and the subjective, depth and form, harmony and equilibrium as permanent values with rigor in its judgements. His abili- ty to write essay —which is as if to say, poetry— is within the tradition of Michel de Montaigne (Essais, 1580), to share knowledge with weap- ons of beauty ("whoever seeks knowledge must be permitted to find it where it lives"); but it does not to- tally share the subjective motto of the French philosopher who states, "These are my fantasies, for which I attempt to know not things, but rather myself". Neither is there the impersonal, dis- tant and cold treatment which charac- terizes the type of essays written by the empiricist Francis Bacon. Reyes is the artist-essayist capable of uniting the objective and the subjective, depth and form, harmony and equili- brium as permanent values. This is his Hellenistic descent. With him it is not possible to make the common place separation of content from cre- ation. His theses, the originality of his i- deas, are expounded with precision and caution. There is no grandness in his judgments. Discourse is a part of He wouid have wanted that we call him simply, a poet: Alí Chumacero. the idea. A point of view exists only Photo by Héctor García/Foto Press when it has been formulated. The form into which it is poured is not a simple covering but is the transparent them. For that reason you have been currents of thought, rambles about crystal in which its essence, the subs- able to write what you want, some- man's place in society, about the pos- tance of its reason, is shown. To fully I cannot do." sibilities and defects of his world, transmit ideas and opinions with or- This freedom of expression is the mixing general considerations with der, emotion, fluidity, and freedom immense legacy that Reyes has left all worries born in the daily political are not few merits in these times in dilettantes in essay writing. struggles." His prestige slowly declin- which economists and administrators It is important to place Reyes in the ed due to the often pertinent criticism mistreat prose with technocratic context of his times. During the made of his works by the pragmatism turns, or philosophers enter into the 1920's the figure of this thinker domi- of Anglo-American inspiration, shadowy kingdom with hermetically nated among Latin American intellec- which disdained excessive rhetoric. sealed phrasing. Pedro Henríquez tuals. According to Ignacio Sotelo, José María Vargas Vila was a perfect Ureña said to young Reyes in a 1914 Reyes was the writer who "through target for this critique. letter: "...you are really free. Your assimilating contemporary European In this respect, it is interesting to style is not Marcelinesque. You are observe in Number 6 of the Revista de one of the few persons who writes América (July 1914), directed in Paris Spanish with the agility of French or by the brothers Francisco and Ventu- English; you are one of the few who Thanks to this Mexican ra García Calderón (a kind of Peru- knows how to write essays and fanta- writer, essays maintained a vian "connection" for those who sies. Why don't you want that free- line of continuity, a deepening wanted to know what was to be dom? It was good for you to find process of ideas written with published on Latin America), the Caso and me, already with experience surreptitious counterpoint produced and ready to hear your spoken ideas care between Vargas Vila, then exalted, and happy that you should write and the youth, Alfonso Reyes, who CULTURE words... The book is one hundred divide which neither affects nor bene- Reflection on the character leagues from rich rhyme, and the fits, but rather all to the contrary". and feeling of Latin American author has twisted the neck of elo- We do not gain much in density and culture was of great concern quence. It is too close to reality to be we lose in intelligence and liberty. The to Alfonso Reyes Renaissance shine. His mastery of novelists with their high-flying imagi- words comes with a certain purifica- nations caught the readers' attention. tion of ideas and the dominant char- We said before that we should reclaim acters are brevity and transpar- for Reyes the distinction of thinker. It made his first appearance in Paris in ente". is pertinent to confer a new hierarchy this magazine. Here are two ways of focusing on to this condition, in that it is inscribed In reply to a question on the even- literary circumstances, two ways of in the best continental intellectual trad- tual existence of American literature appreciating the future of our cul- itions; thanks to the Mexican writer, in prose and in verse, Vargas Vila ture. With these differing sensitivi- essays maintained a line of continuity, replied: "I do not believe in the exis- ties, essaying varied, but in the pro- a deepening process of ideas written tence of an American literature; in- cess —aboye all due to the brusque with care. consistent countries in formation, entrance of "social scientists" with A certain European vanity underest- subjected to fluctuating influences their pretense of Science— writing imated the function of the thinker, between civilization and barbarism: lost and gained accountrements that without noticing that he responds to a we are not yet able to give blossom to give it stiffness and sternness; dis- tradition, a certain type of society and literature; we have eminent literati, course became descriptive and herme- even to a certain level of editorial but we do not have our own litera- tic. The threat attained disconcerting infrastructure. Thinker is the name of ture; we have great poets, but we do levels with the semiologists, armed the philosopher of culture in Latin not yet have our own Poetry". What with their map of multiple meanings. America. He is the leader in opinion lovely prose! What a true diagnosis of What gained conceptual rigor, lost that examines problems in society, the literary moment and how little beauty.