Isabel Allende and the Postmodern Literary Tradition: A Reconsideration of "Cuentos de Eva Luna" Author(s): Samuel Amago Source:

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ISABEL ALLENDE AND THE POSTMODERN LITERARY TRADITION: A RECONSIDERATION OF CUENTOS DE EVA LUNA

SAMUELAMAGO

third novel, Eva Luna (1987) is about a storyteller, The eponymous then Cuento de Eva Luna (1990) is about storytelling. narrator returns to familiar territory in some of the tales, as many characters If Isabel Allende's from the town of Agua Santa that appeared in the former work reappear in in the latter. Among roles as protagonists independent, more self-sufficient Riad Halab?, the teacher In?s, and Eva's Rolf Carle all make these, lover, As suggested appearances. by the title, Eva Luna is again an important is subordinate figure, but in Cuentos de Eva Luna her place as protagonist to her position as organizer and communicator. It is the narrative act itself the text's unifying which represents structural and thematic feature, and it is Eva Luna who gives unity to the collection, relying upon the Thousand and One Nights as both a narrative model and a framing device. Itwill be my intention to examine Cuentos de Eva Luna in terms of Allende's evolving narrative strategies, much different here than in previous literary outings such as La casa de los esp?ritus. By examining in terms of its the collection intertextual narrative conceits, well-structured elements, meta-narratorial frame, explain unified and historical and non-specific geographical how the text functions not just as a collection fictive I hope to context, of stories, but as a

unit. In light of these narrative elements, I will argue that to the Latin American de Eva Luna does not correspond Post as some scholars have suggested, but instead comes closer to the Boom, of Boom authors such as Garc?a M?rquez and the larger preoccupations Cuentos context of literary postmodernism. In the ten years since its publication, Cuentos de Eva Luna has been critics. As Donald Shaw indicates in his recent The Post largely ignored by in Spanish have yet (1990) "The stories of Cuentos de Eva Luna Fiction, to be closely seem marginal to but in general analyzed, American

Boom

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Allende's

as a writer of fiction and as a represen development some of the enumerates Shaw convincingly (68). a greater preocupation characteristics of the Post-Boom: with following of formal historical and social problems of Latin America, the abandonment as evidenced and an during the Boom, greater optimism, experimentation emphasis on the redemptive powers of love over sex. All of these character mainstream tative of the Post-Boom" istics are evident in Allende's earlier elements to dissipate in her

these fiction, but as we will discuss, with Eva Luna later novels, beginning begin in Cuentos de Eva Luna. Even though love is a (1987) and most notably the absence of a concrete or even theme in both texts, it is undoubtedly major context in the latter work?either Latin American historical truly prevalent a more rigorously or social?and return to Allende's narrative organized form that has alienated Several context scholars within Post-Boom have critics. individual with stories taken from their analyzed the collection

of success. larger varying degrees is Koene's "Entre la realidad y la ficci?n: La parodia como arma Intriguing en 'Tosca' de Isabel Allende," which offers possible ironic de subversion uses or inversions of traditional patriarchal conceptions of women's societal insertions from sources such as The roles. Koene posits that intertextual Thousand with link the story and One Nights and operas by Puccini and Bizet of world narrative such key postmodernism, associating feminist conceits with a conscious intent. But the reader is left with as to why Allende inverts these roles, particularly fundamental questions currents since

of this story finally the female protagonist she had, loses everything son and husband, proving herself to be exactly what the title of the lover, story suggests: boorish. Such an ironic finale seems to harm what Keone .del papel tradicional de lamujer en la sociedad calls Allende's "parodia.. (265). Indeed, in "Tosca" it is the protagonist Maurizia Rugieri patriarcal" herself who causes her own alienation from patriarchal society, represented in a fit of idealism, she foolishly into the first by her lover who, pursues jungle, behind and later by her husband and her son. She pursues her dream, leaving as wife and mother in a patriarchal her traditional position society, she is stripped not only of her dream, but of but at the story's conclusion is solitude. she left behind. Her ultimate punishment everything Tony Spanos asks an interesting question or Female Heroine Stereotype?" Judge's Wife': in "Isabel Allende's 'The

leaves it but ultimately the judge's wife Casilda, who in unaswered in the final paragraph. Does order to save her children gives herself over to the man who seeks revenge or does her self-sacrifice on her husband, remain a stereotypical woman, one of her Its seems that by once again making her exemplary? make openly embrace the act of rape, the narrator actually subverts protagonists act for connotations of sexual violence, making rape a redemptive negative as we see in the final lines of the story: both man and woman,

A Reconsideration

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de Eva

Luna

45

era pudorosa y t?mida y hab?a estado casada con un austero ante quien nunca se mostr? desnuda. Durante viejo esa inolvidable tarde ella no perdi? de vista que su objetivo era ganar tiempo, pero en alg?n momento se abandon?, de su propia maravillada sensualidad, y sinti? por ese Casilda hombre algo parecido a la gratitud. Por eso, cuando oy? el ruido lejano de la tropa le rog? que huyera y se ocultara en en sus Vidal prefiri? envolverla los cerros. Pero Nicol?s para besarla que marc? por ?ltima vez, su destino. (162) cumpliendo as? la

brazos profes?a For Casilda,

release from a rape actually appears to represents a welcome the bounds of marriage. sexual existence within repressed of the prevalence Canillo offers a good thematic discussion of fetish istic details "submit of love in "Dos palabras" and "Ni?a perversa," the existence of the reader to a presentation of an intentionally amplified one to assure him of a greater and, at times, an exaggerated of the story and the style of the that springs from the originality has (199). This is certainly an expanded version of what Allende

which

eroticism pleasure creator"

on several occasions about the thematic preva already said in interviews in Cuentos de lence and redemptive value of love in her fiction, particularly Eva Luna. is Patricia Hart's the most extensive discussion of Cuentos Perhaps s The Stories of Eva Luna." Like several Feminism in Isabel Allende' "Magic sworks, Hart emphasizes a social/feminist other critics of Allende' narrative are stories that speak of how equality that the Cuentos agenda, suggesting the sexes should be, and that Allende between has written them not so much as fiction, but as a survival manual women. for mistreated Such confusion is undoubtedly intention with novelistic influenced technique to the abundance with interviews of the author that have been published, by of her novels has at some the point inwhich almost every female protagonist see this in an interview herself. We point been confused with Allende of authorial in La narrativa de Isabel Allende: "Eva Luna habla por m?, ella published mi experiencia tiene todas mis emociones, de vida, mis creencias" (154). Such statements have undoubtedly obfuscated critical perception, and many s characters strictly in terms of the critics have been tempted to read Allende' author's possible social or political views. For the purposes of this study, it will a critical distance between the figure and important to maintain of the author and her work, in order to arrive at a better idea of personality as a work of fiction. Hart's argument how the text functions is frequently be by a reliance

that she upon those concepts of "Magic Realism" in the Fiction in her Narrative Magic of Isabel postulated intelligently a discussion s earlier fiction. As shall be discussed of Allende' Allende, later,

weakened

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in Cuentos Allende has abandoned her dependence upon fantastic elements to the point that critical terms such a "Magic Realism" have become Most anachronistic. recently, David Buehrer1 has taken serious issue with on a supposed several of the critics mentioned above for their over-emphasis inAllende's later fiction, these agenda that has in fact disappeared in particular. He states somewhat strongly that "the critical claims for at best, and irresponsible at her feminist standing are overstated posturing feminist stories worst" (106) going on to state that

.to call Allende it cheapens feminism.. and others like her feminist when the evidence of their prose itself suggests that is, female characters who quite different: something and finally romantic, long for a chivalric, mythical, from the realities past divorced phallocentric conflicts and struggles of the present. (107) of women's

In spite of his sometimes rhetoric, Buehrer's inflammatory point is well as Latin-American taken. Perhaps it is best to divorce the figure of Allende Woman-Author multicultural of maintaining states on from her fiction, eschewing the traditional emphasis so fashionable, and feminist studies that have become in favor amore critical distance in the analysis of her fiction. Buehrer

of Eva Luna correspond more to a "'phallocentric' one (104), and than to a groundbreaking literary 'gynocentric' tone in referring to the he takes on a somewhat although disparaging traditional flavor of these stories, Buehrer is correct in distancing Allende's realism, as she more closely draws from the tradition of style from magical as we shall discuss the fairy tale in the collection, shortly. to date is Carvalho's One of the most cogent articles on the Cuentos in Isabel Allende's and in Cuentos de Eva Novels "Narration and Distance that the Cuentos tradition Luna," which asserts that in both Eva Luna and in La casa de los esp?ritus as narrator and character as there exists a "distance between character states that "As of Cuentos de Eva Luna, Carvalho (56). Writing protagonist" an autonomous narrator without is free to range throughout limits, [Eva] and the history of Latin America.. both the geography .the narrator never no herself from her story; there are few narrative anticipations, distances of a narrator in the present looking authorial intrusions, and no implication back at a distant past" (58-9). Essentially, Carvalho notes that the narrator's to close the distance between to her stories also functions reader proximity and story. But this is only partly true, for while Eva Luna as narrator is always close to her Allende's physically), distance the reader from fictionality. stories and their characters (either emotionally use of several narrative serves frames actually their content, thereby emphasizing or to

the stories'

A Reconsideration

of Cuentos

de Eva

Luna

Al

to show, in spite of her great literary popularity, attempted received short shrift from critics who tend to has frequently social rather than literary aspects of her fiction. In the case of emphasize Cuentos de Eva Luna, critical attention has been centered almost exclusively of her upon Allende's supposed feminist agenda, while serious discussions As I have Isabel Allende narrative work Iwill bound the stories technique have been few. Further, critics have tended to remove from their context within the collection, rather than treating the in its entirety as a well-organized narrative with internal structure. As a collection is not merely of love stories, but are tales show, Cuentos

together by formal similarities and an overall thematic and structural frame based upon the Thousand and One Nights. we address the issue of Allende's Before narrative strategy, it will be useful to establish a thematic outline of the collection. The stories that make tales of love, but within this very up Cuentos de Eva Luna are generally can be found. The first group of stories are theme four sub-categories a In "El oro de Tom?s Vargas," those that deal with feminine revenge. woman and her husband's concubine themselves their cruel avenge against and tight-fisted lover by secretly taking his hidden gold, which results in his murder when he cannot pay a gambling debt. The thematic content of "El broad is very hu?sped de lamaestra" muerte anunciada. The story much premeditation and with the man who revenge upon similar deals with s Cr?nica de una to Garc?a M?rquez' the school teacher In?s, who after

the complicity of the citizens of her town, gets killed her son twenty years earlier. "Una is probably the most poignant of the stories of revenge. A wealthy venganza" avenges herself upon the man who raped her when beauty queen ultimately she was a child by making him fall in love with her?and she even falls in love with him herself?only later to commit suicide in order to punish him. "Si me tocaras el coraz?n" is the tale of a powerful landowner who imprisons a beautiful but mentally immature girl in the basement of his home, for his own pleasure. He is legally punished by being imprisoned, and in the final lines of the story, the reader finds that his role has been reversed with that He molders of his now deformed but free love-prisoner. away in his prison cell, mentally he was placed achieves crushes himself, as he has forgotten where he is or why incapacitated there. In the case of "Ni?a perversa," the revenge Elena Mejias is partially unintentional, but its effect is the same. She utterly

when

years with an idealized vision of her. Years later, when she finally comes home for a visit, her forgetfulness to the overwhelming is a brutal juxtaposition memories he has constructed of her, and she nonchalantly rebuffs his
advances.

the illusions of her step-father, who had refused her sexual advances she was still very young. Ever since she first made these advances, he has thoughts of her every day and subsequently falls in love ago,

The

second

type of stories feature protagonists

who

are unsatisfied?

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in other men. The who seek fulfillment romantically?women to a judge who is not only an inadequate of "Clarisa" ismarried protagonist are all born retarded. Much lover, but their children later, it becomes that the saintly Clarisa had found another man, Diego Cienfuegos, apparent It is an ironic twist indeed who later fathered her three healthy boys. is likened to a saint by the narrator and that Clarisa, an apparent adulteress, usually by the society her deathbed. Patricia in which "Regalo Zimmerman to visit her on she lives, and that the Pope comes una novia" is pure whimsy, as the unhappy para is incessantly courted by the circus-man Horacio

Fortunato, who fell in love with her at first sight. The only story of this type is "Tosca." Here, Maurizia that does not end well for its female protagonist remains alone after the death of her lover, with whom she had run Rugieri away in order to live out a fantasy based upon classic operas. As I stated to the story ends with the brutal realization that in her attempts a romantic to the banality for herself alternative of common she not only loses her husband and son, but also her weakling matrimony, earlier, fashion lover. In "Con todo el respeto debido," Abigail McGovern apparently fakes in order to increase her social respectability. And her own kidnapping in "El palacio is freed from an finally, imaginado" Marc?a Lieberman of by the aging benefactor unsatisfactory marriage when she is kidnapped serves as ambassador. the country in which her husband She is spirited one with the jungle and the she becomes palace, where almost mythical society of Indians who dwell there, mysterious, ghostly, and removed from the rest of human society. freed from her dull marriage away is made up of what might third category be called archetypical Belisa love stories. In "Dos palabras," the hardened word-vendor wins the love of a general with two "magical" words that the Crepusculario A romantic "Boca de Sapo" is a romanticization of the invents sexual bar games for the company who prostitute Hermelinda, workers. When the brusque Spaniard Pablo comes into town, he wins her the vulgar game she has invented for her patrons, and love, after first winning reader is never allowed to know. later by pleasing her sexually. In this allegorical tale reminiscent of Rudyard to a hidden

Hermelinda is the origin of the Kipling's Just So Stories, Allende hints that
popular bar game in which players toss coins into the mouth of a toad. After the sad bar patrons must content themselves with she leaves with Pablo, is their coins into a cast-iron toad, instead of her vagina. "Walimai" tossing a romantic tale of almost mystical inter-tribal love, which touches superfi of natives "Ester by foreign cially upon the mistreatment companies. as the doctor is the first story with any sort of fantastic element, Lucero" Indian remedy to cure the girl he has loved Angel S?nchez uses amysterious secretly, but who is too young for him tomarry. "Mar?a, la boba" is an ironic on love, as suggested by the first line: "Mar?a, la boba, cre?a en commentary el amor. Eso la convirti? en una leyenda viviente" (127). After being hit by

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a train, her diminished mental condition allows her to fall in love with every man with whom she has sexual intercourse during her long career as a "El peque?o Heidelberg" is an octogenarian love story about El prostitute. never learned Spanish, a Nordic Capit?n, foreigner who has surprisingly and La Ni?a Elo?sa, who may or may not be real. After forty years of pining, to dance by using some visiting Nordic El Capit?n finally asks his beloved tourists as translators. When the story ends and he is dancing alone, the of the exchange reader is uncertain whether between the two ever any occurred. A harsh, previously unemotional outlaw dies for love in "La mujer del juez," fulfilling a prophecy made at his birth, and in "Vida interminable," in order to spend eternity together. the Blaums attempt to kill themselves Even though "Cartas de amor traicionado" might women who these tales that deal with unsatisfied the bonds intellectual of husband also be categorized with seek satisfaction outside

of marriage, it is based upon the disparity between physical and love. Analia Torres discovers that she did not marry the author she received during her years at school but, that her a friend to write them. She outlives her husband, and on her son's report card, Analia the handwriting is finally able man with whom she truly fell in love so many years earlier. the letters

the love

had convinced

recognizing to approach As him,

itwas his fault for having helped her husband by writing love letters for she tells the schoolmaster that he owes her the eleven years that she lost the wrong man. by marrying The last category of stories deals with social issues, and has therefore received the most hacia attention from scholars who organs and "Un discreto in human subscribe to theories of the The black market of Marxist el norte," idealism. is poignantly in portrayed is an amusing milagro" del olvido" is a stream of

Post-Boom. "Un camino criticism consciousness

"Lo m?s olvidado solace episode shared by two strangers who seek post-coital in each other. This story, placed at the center of the collection, mirrors the love supposedly shared by Eva Luna and Rolf Carle, whose relationship serves as the catalyst for the Cuentos de Eva Luna themselves. "Wailimai," category, might also from the injustices it is the only story as those

although I have already attempted to place it in another fit here as a sort of native spiritual fantasy escape in Latin America. committed by rubber companies I have omitted that does outlined Luna manichaean abandoned not make above. The "De barro estamos use of the same hechos" because sort of narrative

elements

and her

this is the only story in which Eva last of the Cuentos, role as protagonists. Carle play a major The so prevalent in the first twenty-two characterization stories is lover Rolf

here, and this is the only story in which Allende makes use of a realistic narrative style. We will return to "De barro estamos hechos" and "El in our final analysis of the collection. palacio imaginado" to a All of the stories that comprise Cuentos de Eva Luna correspond

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more

or less average length. The longest stories are "Un discreto milagro" and "El palacio imaginado" with fifteen and sixteen pages respectively, while the shortest story is "Lo m?s olvidado del olvido," which spans only an average often pages, a length that would five pages. Each story occupies

make

to them easily transmitted orally, a trait which links them structurally and One Nights, whose narrator Sheherezade's the Thousand orally com municated stories are also fairly regular in length and structure. Yet this is to an oral tradition. In his study of not the only aspect that links the Cuentos some of the key the short story's debt to the oral tradition, Sherr outlines characteristics of the folk tale, such as the preponderance of either simple or s stories, inwhich only the the case inAllende' royal protagonists?certainly or the very rich play important roles. Any sort of middle classes very poor absent. The reader notes also that either play aminor role or are completely the author favors exotic names over Hispanic ones?Zimmerman, Rugieri, McGovern, Boulton, Halabi, Lieberman?which, Blaum, Crespusculario, to the dearth of concrete functions references, along with geographical Folk context in favor of amore universal relevance. any Latin American allows the reader to participate tales tend to be plot centered, which in the triumphs and tribulations of the main characters, and this vicariously inwhich the characters pursue everyday is certainly the case in the Cuentos, alienate such

as earning a living and avoiding but with often enemies, results. extraordinary Sherr also notes the irrelevance of external time in the folk tale, as each stories are Indeed, Allende's sequence. story contains its own chronological concerned with Latin American and external issues, only superficially relevance is conspicuously absent. Every story might occur in a historical pursuits contexts, variety of historical all of them. The first stories, seem to take place Vargas" buried runs through although a temporal progression as "Boca del sapo" and "El oro de Tom?s such in a distant, almost mythical past, when men

had not yet been invented. their fortunes in the dirt and automobiles to the Second World War, and the In "Tosca," the narrator makes reference first automobile appears, while by the last of the story, "De barro estamos as television and video play the context is obviously hechos," contemporary, important roles. common characteristic of the folk tale is the use of contrasting Another for her reliance upon los esp?ritus (Shaw 62), and protagonists stereotypical to this tendency, although the final results differ. In is no exception Cuentos the female fantasy stories we outlined above, the husband tends to be boring, are imaginative the women and occasionally self-centered abusive, while in the and beautiful, unfulfilled. The male protagonists but emotionally stories of female revenge are often brutal, uncaring, selfish, and almost stereotypical characters. Allende has been casa criticized in La de always abusive of women and children. We note the contrast of Elena's

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mother

and step-father Su madre

in "Ni?a perversa":

en una criatura redonda, se hab?a transformado una ondulante an?mona de rosada, gimiente, opulenta, manos toda boca y mar, pusos tent?culos y ventosas, y y rodando adherida al cuerpo le pareci? r?gido, por contraste grande quien un trozo de madera de movimientos torpe, espasm?dicos, sacudido por una ventolera naturaleza inexplicable...La le pareci? brutal y le tom? un buen tiempo masculina piernas y orificios, de Bernai, sobreponerse The woman love?while al terror y forzarse a mirar. (28-29) rodando

to is soft, pink, and caring?a natural creature predisposed theman is a stiff, brutal, and awkward beast. Such stereotypical is further found in the archetypical characterization romantic love stories, in the male protagonists tend to be suspiciously similar to Francisco in La casa de los esp?ritus?self-sacrificing, attractive and understand

which Leal

female mates. But whereas such characterization ing of their extraordinary so common s first novel was a target of criticism, in Cuentos inAllende' they serve to supply the universality typical of the folk tale, not unlike the stories and One Nights. titles of folk tales generally indicate the content tales themselves, which is certainly the case in the Cuentos, mirror the clarity and compression found in the Thousand and other traditional popular sources. The Another narrative in the Thousand and nature of the whose plots also and One Nights

of both the traditional folk tale pattern characteristic a thematic and the Cuentos is and stylistic Such recurrent repetition. evident with the examination of the stories' first lines, patterning becomes seventeen of which introduce the full name of a protagonist whose name will continue to be repeated in the first lines of the majority of paragraphs (not An excellent of such recurrence is found in including dialogue). example The first line is characteristic of "Clarisa," the third story of the collection. the narrator's style throughout: Clarisa naci? cuando a?n no exist?a la luz el?ctrica en la

al primer astronauta levitando ciudad, vio por televisi?n sobre la superficie de la luna y se muri? de asombro cuando lleg? el Papa de visita homosexuales disfrazados Clarisa's name y le salieron de monjas. al encuentro (35) los

later appears in the first lines of eight of the following nine paragraphs. Most of the stories tend to move directly and chronologically towards their final climatic endings, with a repetition of the protagonists'

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as is the case with "Una at the beginning of many paragraphs, name In the latter Belisa Crespusculario's and "Dos palabras." venganza" not including dialogue. introduces every one of the first six paragraphs, The repetitive pattern outlined above is a common characteristic of the But the Arabic in the Thousand and One Nights. tale, exemplified in Allende's tradition is not the only textual influence stories, as she draws freely from several literary traditions. As we can see in the introductory there is a tone and style in phrase of "Clarisa" and other tales in Cuentos, folk medias of the short res, which adds a certain urgency. Indeed, the exigencies that much vital information be introduced in the opening lines story require to pique the reader's attention and to supply important background data. In

full names

many of the stories the first line refers to the past from the point of view of an anticipated future. Laurie Clancy has suggested that Allende is indebted to the influence of Garc?a M?rquez in her use of this technique in La casa de los esp?ritus and the author's with the Colombian writer dialogue as indicated in stories such as "Clarisa," quoted in the Cuentos, continues above. point a return final paragraph of the story represents statement in which is fulfilled: the narrator's initial The to the starting

Esa noche muri? Clarisa sin angustia. De c?ncer, diagnostic? al ver sus capullos de alas; de santidad, el m?dico los devotos api?ados en la calle con cirios y proclamaron de asombro, digo yo, porque estuve con ella cuando flores; nos visit? Not el Papa. (48)

only is the resigned, rhythmic tone of some of these stories reminiscent of Garc?a M?rquez, but their structure also hints at the circularity of novels in such as Cien a?os de soledad. Such intertexual play is evident elsewhere

as we can see in the first line of "La mujer del juez": "Nicol?s the Cantos, Vidal (153). And once siempre supo que perder?a la vida por una mujer" as we saw in "Clarisa," the anticipated future of the first line finds its again, in the final line of the same story: "Pero Nicol?s Vidal prefiri? en sus brazos para besarla por ?ltima vez, cumpliendo as? la su destino" that is fulfilled at the (162). The prophecy profec?a que marc? s continued with its circular plot further points toAllende' conclusion, along fruition envolverla debt to the Latin American well Garc?a M?rquez?as discussed. Allende's Gabriel literary tradition?most specifically as to the Thousand as will be and One Nights,

as the stories not in Cuentos, narrative style is regularized a highly compressed often in exposition, only begin similarly presenting a single line - and span an average of ten pages, but also end in very much Fifteen of the stories end with the same manner, with very few exceptions. a climactic anagnorisis for the protagonist always in the last paragraph and

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to this conceit are in the last line. The stories that do not correspond in form, as we have seen in stories such as "Clarisa" and "La mujer del juez." Vladimir that the use of such repetitive Propp has emphasized is a common characteristic structural patterning of the folk tale (23-4). In the often circular this repetition, along with the continual appearances of the narrator Cuentos, in much within her own fictional accounts, functions the same way as do similar techniques found in the Thousand and One Nights. In her study of the Thousand The and One Nights, Sandra Naddaff states:

of a repetitively structured very movement narrative.. .indicates its essentially anti-mimetic thrust, its as its gener to acknowledge refusal anything outside itself ating force.. .The insistent textual returns and repetitions, the constant reminders within the narrative of an earlier of

textual existence, speak of nothing so much as the primacy the narrative's and the textual basis of the discourse narrative as its point of reference. (118-9) Similar to the Thousand and One Nights, Cuentos de Eva Luna is awork that exists only in itself, as the stories are insulated from the referential world by two frames: first by the quotations from the Thousand and One Nights that

then by the larger frame of the love story shared begin and end the collection, Rolf Carle and Eva Luna. by We have mentioned the frustration of critics who look for Post-Boom in Allende's characteristics later fiction and who therefore lament the lack context in her stories. Allende of a Latin American distances intentionally in order to call attention not to social or herself from such external factors to the political topics, but to the work of fiction itself, and by extension, to narrative act. Concrete locations occur too infrequently geographical assume that these stories take place anywhere in particular. "Boca de sapo" makes a brief reference to the Tierra del Fuego, and "Un discreto milagro" on occasion. The town of Agua Santa where Eva the term "sudamericano" spent much of her youth in Eva Luna is the setting for several stories, but the town is more allegorical than literal, much as Garc?a M?rquez's Macondo an allegorical setting for many of his short stories and novels while provides his own intertextual play between his texts. The result in both providing authors' works is a universality of theme that perhaps could not be achieved from the Thousand and One Nights that begins Cuentos de Eva Luna is followed directly by a brief interlude that explains the stories that are to follow: Lying in bed, a worshipful Rolf Carle asks his lover Eva Luna to tell him a story, "un cuento que no le hayas contado a nadie" (9). Eva exceeds his request, telling twenty-three original stories. The stories pro by other means. The quotation

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or less chronological in a time before the fashion, beginning or reliable methods of electricity of banking, and concluding in appearance modern times. As we will attempt to show, the stories not only function but also form part of a greater meta-narrative. independently, They are a part ceed in amore of the collection's Luna and Rolf discourse, over-arching Carle's love affair. framed within the context of Eva

like to suggest that the narrator's emphasis on the act of Thus, Iwould in the final narration makes it an hechos," story, "De barro estamos section that serves to explain the text as a whole. Rolf discursive important to save a young girl, Azucena, Carle has decided who has been almost buried in amudslide caused by the eruption of a nearby volcano. completely a television He is reporter, and as one of the first people on the scene, he keeps her company until help can arrive. He tries to give her the inspiration cameras to live while the impersonal television look on without helping, even when Eva watches room. While he pleads directly to the cameraman for help. events on television these heart-wrenching In the meantime, she finds of from her living that she

this "real" story unfolds, for the first time a role nor has control over the outcome neither plays indirectly does she play a part, both in her organization events, and in Rolf's use of the stories she has given him child. Eva states:

the tale. Only and telling of the in order to save the

Pude hizo

hora a hora, supe cu?nto seguir los acontecimientos arrancar a la ni?a de su prisi?n y para [rolf] por de lo ayudarla a soportar su calvario, escuch? fragmentos estuve presente hablaron y el resto pude adivinarlo, que cuando ella le ense?? a Rolf a rezar y cuando ?l la distajo con los cuentos que yo le he contado en mil y una noches blanco de nuestra cama. (268)

bajo el mosquitero Her

of the "mil y una noches" spent with her lover in the explicit mention but like Sheherezade' need not be further emphasized s, the stories here, past of Eva Luna function to put off death, in this case the death of the young girl. as evidenced in the final tales have a double So Eva Luna's function, paragraph of this story in which the reader is reminded of Rolf Carle's

difficult childhood in occupied Austria (describedmore fully in the novel

Eva Luna). The memories of his distant past again come to the fore during with the sinking child. Eva's stories have previously the trying moments to him a salvation from an unpleasant past, and she directly represented after the addresses her lover in the final paragraph of the text, immediately conclusion of the last story. Some time has elapsed since the tragic episode with Azucena, and the narrator states, "yo espero hacia el interior de timismo y te cures de las viejas el viaje que completes heridas. S? que cuando

A Reconsideration

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Luna

55

como antes" otra vez de la mano, caminaremos regreses de tus pesadillas This is a parodie inversion of the Sheherezade myth, as Eva does not (272). seek to save herself from her lover, as Sheherezade must, but rather seeks to redeem him through storytelling. The reader will recall a similar episode a remembered from Eva Luna, in which childhood episode prefigures Rolf Cari?' m?s s late reliance tarde, al otro skills: "muchos a?os upon his lover and her storytelling un d?a llorando bajo el lado del mundo, despert? donde dorm?a con lamujer que amaba" (42). In fact, this

blanco mosquitero seems to be the starting point for the Cuentos and in both cases, the act of narration is ascribed redemptive the narrator. The narrative act powers by here ismore important than the stories themselves. The collection concludes with this quotation from the Arabic text: "Y en ese momento de su narraci?n vio aparecer lama?ana y se call? discretamente" Sheherezade (273). Here, Eva is linked explicitly with Sheherezade, and the narrative frame is closed. It bears mention only events functions which

that the framing device of the Thousand and One Nights not as an important structural element, but also isolates those take place in between, attention not only to the drawing

but also of the narrator herself, who themselves, to appear in some of them. happens also The Thousand and One Nights also plays a central role in the novel Eva Luna, and fittingly situated at the center of the novel is this reference to the text: Arabic fictionality of the stories Un d?a lamaestra In?s habl? a Riad Halab? de Las mil y una noches y en su siguiente viaje ?lme lo trajo de regalo, cuatro en cuero rojo en los cuales me grandes libros empastados sumerg? hasta perder de vista los contornos de la realidad. El erotismo y la fantas?a entraron en mi vida con la fuerza de un tif?n, rompiendo todos los l?mites posibles y poniendo arriba el orden conocido de las cosas. No s? cu?ntas patas veces le? cada cuento. (141) Riad Halab? and his shop La perla del oriente also appear in the Cuentos, in "El oro de Tom?s Vargas" and "La maestra In?s." Again Riad is portrayed as a fatherly figure consulted in times of need. Placed at the center of the thematic physical role in both books 282 pages, this citation plays an important structural and texts. The reader not only learns of the origin of the

novel Eva Luna's

the stories of Sheherezade, but also of an of Eva's character. She learns from the Thousand and One important aspect to reality, that the narrative act is not only a comforting alternative Nights a fictive space within which the constraining but also order of the world may if only for a brief time. be subverted, The Thousand and One Nights has an important narrative function in that contain

56

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a sort of role-model for Eva Luna Eva Luna, as Sheherezade will become both in the novel and in its sequel, Cuentos de Eva Luna. In the latter work, the Arabic stories provide a more important structural role, tying however, intention in the telling of her tales is the collection together. Sheherezade's to attempt to freeze death. Eva Luna's section preceding describes deterioro narrative directly the first Eva time, thereby delaying and, in the end, avoiding her own states in the is no less clear, as Rolf's Carle' project the excerpt from Thousand and One Nights, following

de act, he states, "Es un momento prof ?tico, es toda nuestra existencia, sin principio ni todo lo vivido y lo por vivir, todas las ?pocas simult?neas, fin" (8). This statement, which recalls an almost Borgesian concept of time, is the essence of the collection.2 The act of narration represents a paralysis an alternative of time inwhich the teller and the audience might contemplate

story. In the languid time spent in bed telling stories, he as "detenidos al and himself para siempre...invulerables to what must be the la mala memoria" (9). And referring

to an unpleasant present reality. Everything is possible in a tale, and it is there that the narrator offers solace to others and finds it for herself. Like the novel that precedes it, Cuentos de Eva Luna begins with a quotation from the Thousand critics to call the eponymous upon "discarding had established centuries Cuentos de Eva Luna canonical narrator models a fact that has sparked and One Nights, a Latin American Sheherezade several intent norm of expression that the masculine (Rivero 143). A more cautious reading of reveals several narrative patterns that not work, but also supply structural

only and thematic

ago" however, link the novel with the classic Arabic Several unity. critics have mentioned

the narrator's similarity to Sheherezade, of the Thousand and One Nights, but only in reference to the the protagonist and thus ignore an important key to novel Eva Luna (Rivero, Reisz), Eva Luna is a novel about a storyteller, the Cuentos. but understanding is about storytelling. Both works Cuentos de Eva Luna with a begin but in the latter text, Allende quotation from the Thousand and One Nights, amore extensive use of the Arabic folkloric tradition in order to create makes and an intertexual both a narrative frame in the form of the quotations, the reading of the stories thatmake that privileges statements on the narrative technique Naddaff's Perhaps narrative strategy: and One Nights will clarify Allende's structure up the collection. of the Thousand

a story about telling The Thousand Nights is essentially a work that is initially generated and ultimately stories, sustained by the narrative act. In the process of unfolding, it reflects back upon itself, mirrors itself, indeed tells about itself and about narrative in general. In doing so, it asserts itself as a treatise on the basic elements of narrative and

A Reconsideration

of Cuentos

de Eva

Luna

57

explores generative

the function force behind

of

the word the text. (14)

and

its status

as the

The narrator Eva Luna reflects Surely upon there

the narrative

is always conscious of the power of her words, and act on several occasions in different manners.

about the first story, whose is something autobiographical is the storyteller Belisa Crespuculario, who discovers that words protagonist and uses them to make her have incredible, sometimes fantastical power living and to find love. Eva herself appears in four stories, which at times while simultaneously calling gives them a sense of narrative authenticity, attention exists neous to the fact that they are only stories. They are told by a narrator who the stories, but who also appears within them. This simulta tone similar distance and proximity gives the Cuentos an archetypical outside

and the folk tale in general. and One Nights as Roberto Blaum Eva plays an active role in "Vida interminable," that she euthanize him in the final paragraph. She draws attention requests to her narrative craft in the first paragraph of the story:

to the Thousand

Hay toda clase de historias. su substancia es el lenguaje

en palabras son apenas una imagen o una intangible lamente, como manzanas, vienen completas, hasta el infinito tomadas secretas sin riesgo

nacen al ser contadas, Algunas antes de que alguien las ponga y una emoci?n, un capricho de reminiscencia. Otras

de la realidad en las sombras de la ocultas que permanecen son como organismos les salen ra?ces, memoria, vivos, se llenan de adherencias tent?culos, y par?sitos y con el en materia A veces de pesadillas. tiempo se transforman para exorcizar contarlo como de un recuerdo los demonios un cuento. (193) es necesario

y pueden repetirse de alterar su sentido. Existen una al ser contadas. Y hay historias

this self-referentiality reminds the reader of the stories' fictionality. Again, In this respect, Cuentos shares with its predecessor Eva Luna a fictional of both the Post-Boom self-awareness characteristic (Shaw 67) and literary postmodernism?a piece of fiction that refers to itself and to its own fictionality. As we have already stated, even though they might have the short stories are not as important as the narrative act special qualities, itself. and Allende's the Thousand and One Nights similarity between is the preference of a female narrative voice that s stories differ frames the entire work. As I have attempted to show, Allende' in that Sheherezade created her fiction in order to save herself from her Cuentos The most obvious

58

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the king Shahrayar, while Eva tells her tales not to save herself, interlocutor, but to deliver her lover Rolf Carle from his past. And both female narrators use their stories to defer death, Sheherezade her own, while Eva's stories are in order used indirectly by Rolf in the Final tale "De barro estamos hechos" to postpone the death of the little girl trapped in the mud. we have stated above, one of the characteristics As of the Latin Post-Boom American is the abandonment of the Boom's insistent preoccu innovation and form. To a certain extent, however, pation with technical seems to represent a return to such formal pursuits, as Allende has Cuentos tightly structured comment directly two narrative frames, both of which these stories within and indirectly upon the stories themselves. First, there are taken from the Thousand and One Nights that begin and end the

the quotes text. Second, there is the relationship shared by Eva and her lover Rolf Carle. to this relationship both follow the epigraph from the Arabic The references text at the beginning of the collection and precede directly the postscript novel. The resultant Chinese from the same source at the end of Allende's box

structure of these narrative frames, along with Allende's frequent use of repetition, and self-referentiality function characterization, stereotypical as distancing devices that direct the reader's attention not to the stories, but to the act of storytelling. This narrative self-awareness and recurrent use of seen in the first seven stories in particular? both deliberate anachronism? and a popular, often parodie use of traditional literary devices?exemplified ' swork Allende by the author's use of the Thousand and One Nights?places a literary postmodern are reminded context. We within that the solidly to borrow a phrase narrative device shows itself as contrivance, postmodern from Matei of writing and there is no authorial attempt Calinescu, or to comment upon reality?Latin American to transcend the act or otherwise. The world described, its body.

of Cuentos de Eva Luna lies not in the fictional meaning but in the narration of the stories that give the collection

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

A Reconsideration

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de Eva

Luna

59

NOTES

also relies somewhat uncritically upon the problematic term of realism," applying it piecemeal to Garcia Marquez, Vargas Llosa, and "magical Fuentes. It is interesting to note that he takes his definition of the term from Stanford Pinsker' s study of Alex Haley and Toni Morrison, ignoring themore relevant work of critics such as Lois Parkinson Zamora and others, who have intelligently postulated amore precise critical vocabulary for Latin American literary studies. 2 This is not the only instance inwhich Allende coincides with Borges. Juan Dahlmann is reading the Thousand and One Nights, a recurrent element in Borges' fiction when he has his accident in "El Sur."

1 Buehrer

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Allende,
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Isabel. Cuentos de Eva Luna. M?xico:

Eva Luna. Barcelona: Plaza & Janes,

Diana,
1987.

1990.

Buehrer, David. "FromMagical Realism to Fairy Tale: Isabel Allende' s The Stories of Eva Luna." West Virginia University Philological Papers 42-43 (1997 98): 103-07. Calinescu, Matei. Five Faces ofModernity. Durham: Duke University Press, 1987. and Erotic Love in Two Stories by Camilo, Sylvia G. "Fetishism, Love-Magic Isabel Allende." Readerly/Writerly Texts: Essays on Literature, Literary/ Textual Criticism, & Pedagogy 3 (1995): 193-200. Castillo de Berchenko, Adriana, ed. La narrative de Isabel Allende. Claves de una 1990. marginalidad. Perpignan: CRILAUP, Laurie. "Isabel Allende's Dialogue with Garc?a M?rquez: A Study in Clancy, Literary Debt." Ant?podas 6-7 (1994-95): 55-62. de Carvalho, S.E. "Narration and Distance in Isabel Allende's Novels and in Cuentos de Eva Luna." Ant?podas 6-7 (1994-95:55-62. The Stories of Eva Luna." Hart, Patricia. "Magic Feminism in Isabel Allende's Literatures Through Feminist/Poststructuralist Multicultural Lenses. Bar bara Frey Waxman, ed. University of Tennessee Press (1993): 103-136.

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American

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in the Fiction of Isabel Allende. London: Associated Narrative Magic University Press, 1989. Koene, Jacoba. "Entre la realidad y la ficci?n: La parodia como arma de subversi?n en 'Tosca' de Isabel Allende." Romance Notes 38 (1998): 263-70. Naddaff, Sandra. Arabesque: Narrative Structure and the Aesthetics of Repetition in the 1001 Nights. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1991. of the Folktale. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996. Propp, V. Morphology Sobre Isabel Allende y Eva Riesz,, Susana. "?Una Sheherazada hispanoamericana? Lunar Mester 20 (1991): 107-26. Rivero, Eliana S. "Scheherezade Liberated: Eva Luna andWomen Storytellers." in Search of Latin American Women Writers Splintering Darkness: Themselves. Lucia Guerra Cunningham, ed. Pittsburgh: Latin American Literary Review Press, 1990. 143-56. in Spanish American Fiction. Albany: SUNY Shaw, Donald L. The Post-Boom Press, 1998. Sherr, Paul C. The Short Story and the Oral Tradition. San Francisco: Boyd and Fraser, 1970. 'The Judge's Wife": Heroine or Stereotype?" Spanos, Tony. "Isabel Allende's 67 (1990): 163-72. Encyclia