From bureaucratic alienation to political exile: Evolving views of Uruguayan identity in the work of Mario Benedetti

Modern Language Review

Volumn 100, Issue 2, 2005, Pages

  Jordan, Paul R ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 34347304090     PISSN: 00267937     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (20)

1. This period was dominated by the great Colorado leader José Batlle y Ordóñez (1856-1929), who twice occupied the presidency, in 1903-07 and 1911-15
2. Juan José Arteaga, Uruguay: breve historia contemporánea (México: Fondo de Cultura Econó-mica, 2000), p. 143
3. The main export was meat. In the first decades of the century, processing plants were foreign-owned (i.e. US or British). However, in 1928 the Uruguayan government moved to challenge the quasi-colonialist duopoly when it created the Frigorífico Nacional, in Montevideo. In 1930 approximately one-quarter of a national population of almost two million inhabitants resided in Montevideo (Arteaga, p. 173). (Today approximately 1.5 million-half the country's population-reside in Montevideo.)
4. The economic crisis generated pressure for reform of the 1919 (Batllista) constitution. However, this proved politically impossible; finally, in March 1933 the incumbent president Gabriel Terra (1931-38), originally a Batllista, suspended democratic institutions. An amended constitution, in which the president had greater powers, was promulgated in 1934
5. As Benjamin Nahum observes: '[EI terrismo] no desatendióa los sectores populares, creando el Instituto de Alimentación, el de Viviendas Económicas, reorganizando la Salud Pública y aprobando el Código del Niño, en su defensa. Quiso alejarse ideoló gicamente del batllismo, pero la crisis mundial lo obligó a recorrer casi el mismo Camino: intervencionismo estatal, política de sustitución de importaciones, proteccionismo, control de la moneda y tipos de cambio, etc' (Breve historia del Uruguay independiente (Montevideo: Banda Oriental, 1999), p. 114). Argentina has never generated a consensus politics. There, moderately progressive Radical rule, dating from 1916, was overthrown in a coup, and power restored to an alliance of oligarchy and military, initiating a decades-long era of political instability and conflict. Brazil saw civil war and dictatorship in the 1930s
6. Nahum considers that the term 'neobatllismo' is used because 'ciertos rasgos característicos de su politica lo mostraban como una renovación del viejo tronco batllista' (p. 123)
7. Mario Benedetti, Montevideanos (Montevideo: Alfa, 1959)
8. See John E. Englekirk and Margaret M. Ramos, La narrativa uruguaya (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967), pp. 122-23
9. Mario Benedetti, El país de la cola de paja, 2nd edn (Montevideo: Editorial Ciencias, 1961), P.57
10. Mario Benedetti, Cuentos completos (Madrid: Alfaguara, 1994), p. 77
11. P. A. Odber de Baubeta, 'The Deceptive Simplicity of Mario Benedetti: Narrative Technique in "El presupuesto"', in New Frontiers in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Scholarship: Como fue el maestro. For Derek W. Lomax in memoriam, ed. by Trevor J. Dadson, R. J. Oakley, and P. A. Odber de Baubeta (Lewiston, Queenston, and Lampeter: Meilen, 1995), pp. 547-62 (p. 553)
12. Ezequiel Martínez Estrada, Sábado de Gloria (Buenos Aires: Editorial Nova, 1956). All the evidence suggests that the novella was originally written at the time of Perón's rise to power, probably in 1945; however, it must have been revised later, not before 1955, since there is also reference to events immediately preceding Perón's overthrow
13. Ezequiel Martínez Estrada, En torno a Kafka y otros ensayos (Barcelona: Seix Barrai, 1967). This is a posthumous collection: Martinez Estrada died in 1964
14. Mario Benedetti, Poemas de la oficina (Madrid: Visor, 1998), pp. 7-8
15. Specifically 'Balada de la oficina', in which the young man, hesitating in the street, is seduced by the voice of an office which mocks the freedom of the living elements of outdoors, appealing to his sense of responsibility, and offering him security. See Roberto Mariani, Cuentos de la oficina Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires
16. This story dates from 1951, and is included in later editions of Benedetti's first collection of short stories, Esta mañana, which was originally published in 1949
17. Once again, the comparison with Argentina is interesting. The Uruguayan character toys with the idea of melodrama, but can never escape the sensation that the system contains him. The Argentine novelist Roberto Arlt, by contrast (writing at a moment of political uncertainty, of course), has the protagonist of Los siete locos (1929), a salesman who feels underpaid and trapped, commit an absurd theft from his employers. This moves him away from mainstream society to the margins. He eventually commits murder, and then suicide, in the sequel, Los lanzallamas (1931)
18. The possible examples are many. Perhaps the most complete account is the multi-section story 'La vecina orilla'. In this narrative a basically innocent, if slightly foolhardy, teenager finds himself exiled to the pre-coup Buenos Aires of Isabel Perón. Through different contacts, the charactergradually learns more about what is happening, both in his own country and in Argentina; meanwhile, in parallel the police are moving in on him. These two complementary processes of discovery and being pursued together effectively convert him into a guerrilla-even though he has not carried out any violent acts
19. Benedetti consistently portrays Latin American women, men, and cultures as providing a warm, therapeutic welcome to the (false-European) Uruguayans-in contrast to Anglo-Saxon countries such as Australia or the United States, which provide only economic opportunity. Of course, it is true that many exiled Uruguayans lived in Mexico, and there is no reason to doubt the warmth of their welcome. However, it is rather ironic that Mexican male intellectuals such as Octavio Paz and Carlos Fuentes have also postulated a false consciousness in their culture, caused by European and later North American influence. They use the image of a woman whose nature is divided, who is in conflict with herself, to represent this: Catalina in Fuentes's La muerte de Artemio Cruz, for example
20. Mario Benedetti, Primavera con una esquina rota, 15th edn (Madrid: Alfaguara, 1994), p. 103