Modelo simulado

para la Cultura y las Artes since the late 1980s. In 1989 Alianza Editorial Mexicana (AEM) announced the publication o f a series of travel-writing by M exicans in M exico. On the back-cover o f the first title - Juan Villoro’s Palmeras de la brisa rapida: un viaje a Yucatan - the editors noted:

En un pais como el nuestro, prôdigo en paisajes naturales y humanos retratados con abundancia durante el siglo XIX, extrana no encontrar hoy en dia una literatura igualmente copiosa que lo describa, acote y reflexione sobre el. [...]

Con este volumen, Alianza Editorial Mexicana inicia una colecciôn de relatos de viajes que pretende cubrir las notorias ausencias en este género.

The series was the idea o f editor and writer Sealtiel Alatriste, supported by the vice- president o f the publishing house, René Solfs. Both Alatriste and Solfs considered that the field o f travel-writing on M exico ‘habfa si do monopolizado por viajeros extranjeros que escribieron sus observaciones y experiencias de viaje, de Thomas Gage hasta Lawrence, Greene, Waugh, Paul Theroux et al.’ i^ Furthermore, both had recently enjoyed reading Camilo José Cela’ s travel-chronicles o f journeys in his native land (such as his Viaje a la Alcarria (1948)), and considered that something similar should be possible in M exico. In early 1988, they contacted Juan Villoro with the proposal that he should write a travel- chronicle for their new series. Villoro accepted both the proposal and a comfortable travel

18 Quoted as an epigraph to the introduction to this thesis. 19 Personal letter from René Solis, 8 November 1995.

grant, and was dispatched to Yucatan for a month. The book was w ell received on publication, requiring an almost immediate second edition o f two thousand copies to add to the three thousand already sold.

Five months later a second volume in the series was published - Rafael Ramirez Heredia’s

P o r los cam inos d el sur: vâm onos p a ra G uerrero (1990) - with a print-run o f three thousand copies. The book was also generally w ell received, and was entered in a literary competition. After this, however, the series slumped: the publishing house was in financial difficulties; Alatriste left for Editorial Alfaguara, and later Solis also moved on to direct Publicaciones CITEM. The lack of any kind o f publicity or marketing except one or two unassuming adverts in Vuelta did not help the matter.20 A text which Margo Glantz had been commissioned to write was never submitted. A competition which was planned to stimulate the production o f travel-chronicles in M exico by Mexicans was never organised.21 In the event, a prize-winning documentary by Tom Miller - On the Border: Portraits o f A m erica's Southwestern Frontier (1981) - translated by Federico Patan as Enlafrontera: imdgenes desconocidas de nuestra frontera norte, was added to the series in 1991, and a humorous text by Dante Medina - Solo los viajeros saben que a l sur estd el verano: un viaje p o r Francia, Italia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria y G recia - in 1993, both with print runs o f two thousand copies. However, neither o f these tw o books bears reference to the travel- chronicle series on their jackets - only inside information links them to the texts by Villoro and Ramirez Heredia. Indeed, the spirit of the series had been lost with these two texts: the rules o f nationality were squarely bent with the decision to include a book by a North American author, and Dante Medina’s text related a journey in Europe not M e x i c o .22

The Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (CNCA) was created in December 1988 at the very beginning o f Carlos Salinas de Gortari’s sexenio, replacing the SE P’s Subsecretaria de Cultura and taking under its wing other organisations such as the Institute Nacional de Bellas Artes and the Institute Nacional de Arqueologia e Historia. 23 It is a government institution aimed at promoting M exican culture in all its different forms. It hands out a large number o f grants to writers and artists each year via the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (FONCA) and the Sistem a Nacional de Creadores. The awarding o f grants is not, however, in the hands o f government officials, but in those of well-known intellectuals, in order to try to preserve freedom o f speech.24 One o f the main aims of the CNCA since its inception has been the decentralisation o f Mexican culture, with 20 This is despite Solis’s acknowledgement that books need marketing as well as publishing ( ‘El libro debe venderse’, U bros de México, 3 (April-June 1986), 47).

21 Interestingly, a Catalan publisher (Ediciones B), in conjunction with Iberia airlines, has recently launched a travel-writing competition for its ‘Biblioteca Grandes Viajeros’ series. No Latin American author has yet won the prize, although submissions are encouraged (Carlos Garcia-Tort,‘Escriba (una crônica de viajes) ahora, viaje (con un premio) después’, U S , 23 May 1999, p. 11).

22 It is for these reasons that Medina and Miller’s contributions to the series have not been included for detailed study in the following section of this thesis.

23 ‘Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes’, Libras de Mexico, 13 (October-December 1988), 72. 24 Nevertheless, José Agustin has pointed out the partiality o f some of the intellectuals who award the grants {Tragicomedia mexicana III: la vida en México de 1 982 a 1994 (Planeta, 1998), pp. 257-262).

the creation o f cultural institutes and grant-awarding bodies in most state capitals. In 1992 the Coordinacion Nacional de Descentralizacion (CND) was created as a sub-division o f the CNCA in order to oversee this area o f its work. Nevertheless, several critics continue to dispute the CNCA/CND’s success in this fie ld .2 5

Undiscouraged by the failure o f the AEM series, the idea o f com m issioning young but known M exican authors to write travel-chronicles about the different regions o f the Republic was taken up again in 1994 by the CNCA, in conjunction with the CND, as a complement to other series o f theirs which cover historical travel-chronicles, both Mexican and foreign ( ‘Lecturas M exicanas’), and foreign travel-chronicles ( ‘Mirada Viajera’). The CNCA, being a government-funded organisation, is also under no particular obligation to make a profit - indeed, they are famed in M exico for the lack o f effort they make to distribute their books once published -; hence the financial difficulties o f AEM and the slow sales were o f little importance in comparison with the ‘good idea’ of shaping up a new vision o f M exico.

Impressed by Juan Villoro’s account o f Yucatan, the editors at the CNCA invited him to produce a chronicle for their new series; an offer which Villoro turned down despite the increased financial incentives in terms o f a FONCA travel grant and payment for the resultant text. Instead, in the first year’s batch of travel-chronicles, the CNCA published: Fernando Solana Olivares’s Oaxaca, cronicassonambulas (November 1994); Hugo D iego Blanco’s Ange/m5 (July 1995); Francisco Hinojosa’s Un taxi en L A . (August 1995); Maria Luisa Puga’s Cronicas de una oriunda del kilom etre X en M ichoacân (September 1995); Luis Zapata’s Paisaje con am igos: un viaje a l occidente de M éxico (September 1995); and Orlando Ortiz’s Cronica de las Huastecas: en las tierras del ca im â n y la sirena (October 1995). The production of chronicles then slumped for the period o f almost a year until the publication o f Silvia Molina’s Campeche, imagen de eternidad (July 1996); Hector Perea’s

México: cronica en espiral (September 1996); and Alvaro Ruiz Abreu’s Los ojos del paisaje

(October 1996). A ll of these texts except the first - by Solana Olivares - have had print runs o f two thousand copies, and all are expected to take three to four years to sell out.26 In making commissions, one o f the editors at the CNCA - Aurelia Alvarez (series editor) - acknowledged that,

Pedimos una crônica al estilo de los viajeros [...] sobre la regiôn de la que estamos hablando con ellos [los autores] ; que tenga un estilo literario, que no sea al go com o 25 Agustin, p. 261, and Renato Ravelo, ‘Avances y postergaciones, signos del CNCA en la gestiôn de Tovar’, U , 17 December 1998, p. 27.

26 Solana Olivares’s text had a print-run o f three thousand copies.

Other texts which have appeared in the series since I began writing this thesis are Ana Garcia Bergua’s

Postales desde elpuerto (December 1997) on Veracruz, Hemân Lara Zavala’s Viaje al corazon de la

peninsula (March 1998) on Campeche; José Martinez Torres’s Chiapas: cronica de dos tiempos (June 1998);

and Adolfo Castanôn’s anthology o f Lugaresquepasan (October 1998). All except Martinez Torres’s text constitute interesting proposals, although Castanôn’s travel-chronicle includes no mention o f travel within the Mexican Republic or in Mexican communities abroad.

Francisco Hinojosa’s second contribution to the series covering the Mexican population of Chicago is due to be published shortly, and other commissions are still being made.

estudio académico o estudio histôrico; que tenga mucha soltura en el estilo, que tenga anécdotas, que sea al go fâcil, agradable a leer, com o para alguien que vaya a la zona en cuestiôn y que ello pueda ser un libro que lo acompana en su propio viaje.27

It was also intended to be a kind o f ‘literary fingerprint’ o f the author in question. N evertheless, given the variety o f texts w hich were submitted as a result o f their com m issions, the editors rephrased the definition somewhat for the inside front cover o f the books themselves:

El diario de viaje, el relato que abreva en el pasado, el testimonio del viajero que se convierte en lugareno, la descripciôn poética de ciudades o pueblos, se reünen en esta colecciôn para retratar un M éxico multiple y evocador, cuya singularidad oscila entre lo entranable y lo extrano.

It would appear that, with respect to the first six titles, ‘el diario de viaje’ - the original com m ission - accounts for only three texts (Hinojosa, Zapata, and Ortiz); ‘el relato que abreva en el pasado’ for one (Solana Olivares); ‘el testimonio del viajero que se convierte en lugareno’ for one (Puga); and ‘la descripcion poética de ciudades o pueblos’ for one (D iego Blanco). This stretching o f the definition seems acceptable in that all o f the texts retain vestigial traits, or a consciousness of, the travel-chronicle. Even the stretching o f the boundaries o f present-day M exico to include Hinojosa’s trip to Los A ngeles does not ostensibly detract from the unity of the series in that there is a sufficiently strong Mexican presence in that city to allow Hinojosa to concentrate his travels in the Mexican ‘quarter’ of town, providing a valuable portrait o f M exico as seen by M exicans from north o f the border.

However, not wanting to refuse any o f the texts submitted, the ‘fa c il’ in ‘algo facil, agradable para leer’ might at times be interpreted as ‘facile’ rather than ‘straightforward’ or ‘accessible’ for the average reader: Alfonso de Marla y Campos, director o f publications at the CNCA, acknowledged this lack o f literary quality in some o f the works (Zapata, Ortiz, Puga).28 Part o f the problem with the literary quality o f the texts submitted are the conditions set by the CNCA in their com m issions: the authors o f the first batch of chronicles were given, on average, three months to make their journey and write it up. Alm ost every author regretted not having had the time to work more on the conception and literary style o f the work. Those who acquitted themselves best either submitted work that they already had written (and which only barely fitted the com m ission) or extrapolated liberally from their first-hand travel experiences into their own personal fictional world. A reason why the travel aspect may be dropping out o f the com m issioned chronicle is the drying-up o f expense accounts for the second and third batches o f travel-chronicles. The CNCA are now claiming that they want texts written only by authors who already know the places that they are writing about, hence obviating the need for any travel, but also creating

27 Personal interview with Aurelia Alvarez, 20 January 1997.

28 Personal interview with Alfonso de Maria y Campos, 21 May 1996. It is for this reason that I have omitted to study authors such as Puga, Zapata and Molina. While all three texts have redeeming features - some o f which ally them more closely with the genre of autobiography - they are all tainted by a placid and banal narrative voice; a travel-chronicle structure which is either overlooked or completely dull; and contents which are superficial and/or run-of-the-mill: commonplace.

an ellipsis of the travel-chronicle form. It does, however, seem possible that ‘una mirada total mente ajena’ is as good a way for a M exican to review M exico as the vision of someone who grew up in a place, thus obtaining ‘lo extrano’ as a counterpart to the vision o f ‘lo entranable’.

Regardless of whether the authors of these travel-chronicles were paid a travel grant or not, they were all asked to write something which follow ed the blueprint for the genre as it was practised in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the implication being that they should merely up-date the content o f the chronicle, rather than worry about the form, or the

raison-d'etre o f the genre itself. Not everybody adhered to these guidelines; however, the content is necessarily up-dated in all texts. In general the texts focus on issues such as how people live in certain places; what is quirky or typical about a particular region; what fellow travellers say and do; and/or the personal drama of the author outside his/her normal milieu. They tend to concentrate on intimate dramas rather than social classifications (psychology rather than anthropology), and the traditional issue o f national identity is replaced by that of personal identity, if at all.

Up-dated texts mean texts that acknow ledge the arrival in M exico o f aspects of postmodemity. But the question o f postm odem ity is not simply a function o f content: postmodemism simultaneously spreads over into the domain o f form and style. What does this look like? And does it affect all travel-chronicles produced from the late 1980s onwards? On the one hand, Villoro and Hinojosa have produced chronicles which include postmodem metatexts on the subject o f how to write a postmodem travel-chronicle, and which ironically posit postmodemism as a problem, while consciously going in search of the postmodem subject. On the other, Ramirez Heredia and Ortiz have written a more traditional type o f travel-chronicle; one w hose access to the superficial and the commonplace surprisingly fails to transform it into a postmodem offering on account o f its lack o f intemalised criticism. In a more postmodem vein, Perea and Ruiz Abreu opt for the narration o f increasingly metaphorical and ‘virtual’ forms o f travel, in particular travel through literature, memory and imagination. This is an approach which is stretched to the limit in the work o f Solana Olivares and D iego Blanco who create fictions which have only the most skeletal consciousness o f the shape o f a travel-chronicle. In fact, this latter pair of texts constitute a move towards ‘archival fictions’ which use previous travel-chronicles as an ‘archive’, rather than as models for form and content.29

* * * * *

29 ‘Archival fiction’ is way of classifying recent Latin American narrative proposed by Roberto Gonzâlez Echevarria in his Myth and Archive. See Section 2, Chapter 4 for a full explanation.

Although Section 2 of this thesis starts with Villoro’s text, these approaches to the contemporary travel- chronicle should be considered as simultaneous options; as yet there is no real sense o f development in the approach taken.

CHAPTER 1

Postmodemity in Yucatan