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596
HISPANIA
dedi-
. . temMargaret
Rudd, "Gabiela
blor de alma en temblor de camrne.'" No. 2:
Brazil Today."
Latin American Research Review,
ra, 2
Trends in Folklore Research";also another segSchtitz) and El Colegiode M6xico(Udo Ruk- ment of the American bibliography.i1, 2 (Supser).
plement) lists dissertations,by disciplines, counInostrannaiaLiteratura, 1966, I1: poems by tries, universities, with indices.
(1967):
Stanley
L.
Robe,
"Contemporary
OFTHEHISPANIC
WORLD
BOOKS
kaleidoscopic patterns the following three
basic scenes:
(1) The one which lays the groundwork
for the other two describes in nauseating
detail the torture of the Chinese as well
as the victim's haunting facial expression
of pain suffused with ecstasy.
(2) The two characters strolling along
a beach toward a cliff encounter a child
building a castle in the sand. The woman
begins to run, and when she turns around,
the man is shocked to discover her appearance radically changed; she has become "la
otra." Moments later she picks up a dead
starfish and discards it in disgust. In a
house near the beach, they find an envelope containing the photograph of the
dismembered Chinese which arouses their
carnal desires and leads to coitus.
(3) The most confusing scene depicts
the couple's reunion in an apartmenthouse
in Paris, apparently many years later. The
woman has chanced upon the picture of
the tortured man and summons Dr. Farabeuf, now old and arthritic, who arrives
with his bag of surgical instruments and
finds her seated in a corridor before a
Ouija board seeking the answer to an
enigmatic question. As he enters, he hears
her drop three coins belonging to a Chinese puzzle. A mirror on the wall reflects
the repeatedly mentioned objects in the
room: a marble-top table, worn velvet
curtains, a painting depicting divine and
profane love, a phonograph, and on the
floor a copy of the North China Daily
News dated January29, 1901. The woman
runs toward the window but suddenly
stops and remains "inm6vil" at the sight
of a strange Chinese symbol traced on the
steamy pane. As she goes past the table
her foot strikes the leg, producing a sound
that reverberatesdown the passageway to
a closed door. Ultimately the doctor, wearing rubber gloves and brandishing surgical
knives, leads the woman through the door
into his laboratorywhere she is or will be,
not unwillingly, dissected alive.
Perplexing and devoid of orderly plot,
Farabeuf requires the reader to reconstruct
the story himself. Moreover, as the novel
progresses,each scene is repeated with new
or altered details, often borrowedfrom one
597
of the other scenes, creating many contradictions. The reader is led to believe, however, that the woman went to China as a
nursing nun during the Boxer Rebellion,
was seduced by Farabeuf, may have become his wife, and perhaps a prostitute.
The work could have various interpretations, but it assumes greater plausibility if
one supposes that the woman is insane
(this is suggested more than once) and
that all the action (partly real, partly
imagined and partly anticipated) takes
place in her mind. The obscure question
that she asks of the Ouija board and the
Chinese puzzle turns out to be "Quien
soy?"Thus the novel chronicles a deranged
woman's search for identity by evoking an
obsessive "instante, a fabulous moment of
simultaneous orgasm and death or of
physical love and dissection.
In spite of the implications of the preceding paragraph,it should be emphasized
that Farabeuf is not primarily a psychological novel. The characters,their actions,
and the motivation for their actions are
never clearly analyzed, the author refusing
to admit that he knows any more about
them than the reader or the characters
themselves. Elizondo's work is above all
an aesthetic experiment in novelistic technique with philosophical overtones inextricably linked to its aesthetic objectives.
It is similar to the "nouveau roman" that
has been appearing in France since the
publication of Alain Robbe-Grillet's Les
Gommes in 1953.
While the "new novel" is characterized
by a reaction against rationalistic and
scientific philosophical systems and psychological analysis by the omniscient author,
in its quest for artistic innovations it has
felt the influence of two twentieth-century
philosophies: phenomenology and existentialism. In their subjective approach to
reality Elizondo and other "new novelists"
reveal the influence of the German philosopher Husserl, the originator of phenomenology, who influenced existentialist
thought. In order to understand Elizondo's
novelistic technique and aesthetic objectives, a basic understanding of Husserl's
philosophy is essential.
Phenomenology is the description and
598
HISPANIA
599
(pp. 41-42)
Like many "new novels," Farabeuf has
borrowed techniques from music, art and
Tratarias de reconocer en el brillo de aquella
the cinema for stylistic effect. The repecuchilla afiladisima los reflejos que produce el
sol . . . pensariastal vez que yo habia recobrado tition of scenes, juxtaposed or merged into
la estrella de mar que tu habias
multiple patterns, recalls the rhythmic
arrojado...
abririas aquella puerta y penetrarias
. . en
leitmotif and contrapuntal arrangements
aquel cuarto . . y yo te seguiria, .
pre- of modern music. Words have often been
... y tu
figurando . . . en mi mente tu abandono
chosen for their tonal and alliterative attu
muerte.
entrega,
"Hubieras tratado de huir al verte cara a cara tributes and their vague or diabolical imcon un desconocido [the Chinese] cuya sola pre- plications: "el tumbo
acompasado de las
sencia lienaba aquella casa con el dolor . . . de
olas . .." (p. 80); "el golpe de las gotas
una tortura que se recuerda como si se hubiera
contra los cristales . . ." (p. 152); "Era
. y que de pronto asalta la
presenciado
una mirada capaz de infundir un terror
memoria . . ... (p. 118)
600
HISPANIA
describing it as fully as possible. The attempt to analyze the "instante" is designed to aid the woman in her search for
identity. "Algo en tu vida se te escapa. Un
instante quizai . .. que puede darte la
clave de lo que realmente eres o de lo que
has dejado de ser para turbarte tanto" (pp.
129-30). In her demented state she imagines that she will attain this key moment
only at the instant of death, the result of
her dissection which becomes synonomous
with sexual love. "Vas a iniciarte en un
misterio cuyo arcano te ha obsesionado sin
que nunca lo hayas entendido . . . Debes
abandonarte en sus manos [Dr. Farabeuf's] para poder comprender el significado de tu vida, . . . Sacrificas tu pudor
y tu cuerpo . . . para lograr aprisionarlo
que siempre te ha fugado" (p. 173).
As the novel draws to its close, the
scenes are arrangedin increasing intensity,
the final chapter setting the stage for the
climactic moment, the "instante" so assiduously sought. While awaiting the arrival of the old doctor (il), the younger
Farabeuf (yo) straps the woman into a
coffin in front of the mirror. In hypnotically seductive language he prepares her
for her "suplicio" and anticipates the
moment when the knife will touch her
skin: "Tu boca abierta en un grito hecho
de tensos alambres y de potentisimos
resortes descubriri hacia el techo de este
cuarto las encias lividas y la dentadura
aivida de morder la noche en una convulsi6n de bestia fuertemente bridada"
(p. 178). And why experience this illusive moment? "Con el fin de encontraruna
respuesta; . .. '(Quien soy?', diris, pero
en ti misma descubriraisal fin el significado
de esas silabas que siempre habias creido
sin sentido" (pp. 178-79).
In the final lines, the woman is told that
Farabeuf (dl) has arrived, but the climactic moment is still anticipated-never
attained. "Ha llegado . . . En tu mente
van surgiendo poco a poco las imaigenes
ansiadas. Un paseo a la orilla del mar. El
rostro de un hombre que mira hacia la altura [the face of the tortured Chinese].
Un nifio que construye un castillo de
arena. Tres monedas que caen . . . Una
estrella de mar . . . recuerdas?. . ." (p.
601