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DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE My 0150 mil .O Lifia Miehig Univ l 5/08 K:/Pro]/Acc&Pres/CIRC/DateDue.indd SOCIAL CRISIS, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE “NOVELA NEGRA” IN MEXICO AND SPAIN: THE CASE OF PACO IGNACIO TAIBO II AND MANUEL vAzOUEz MONTALeAN by William John Nichols II A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Romance and Classical Languages 1999 ABSTRACT SOCIAL CRISIS, DEVELOPMENT AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE “NOVELAINEGRA” IN MEXICO AND SEAIM: THE CASE 0? PACO IGNACIO TAIBO II AND.MANUEL VAZQUEZ MDNTALBAN by William John Nichols II This project presents a comparative study that brings together two authors—-Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Manuel Vézquez Montalban——from two specific political contexts—~post—l968 Mexico and post—Franco Spain——who both work in one specific genre—~“noir” detective fiction. Although many scholars have addressed detective fiction in Latin America or Spain, the uniqueness of this project lies in its transatlantic study of “noir” detective fiction in Mexico and Spain by Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Manuel Vazquez Montalban. By analyzing the motives and means by which these writers adopt and adapt the North American hardeboiled model of detective fiction, this study presents a global picture of the political, social, economic and aesthetic processes that foment the creation of a “noir” poetic. This dissertation addresses the emergence of the hard—boiled detective in Mexico and in Spain as an archetype that arises in specific social, historical, economic and political circumstances. These archetypes not only project a vision of a modern, urban society but also convey the lack of faith in the political, economic and social institutions inherent in the members of that society. Paco Ignacio Taibo II in Mexico and Manuel Vézquez Montalban in Spain appropriate and adapt the established forms of hard-boiled detective fiction known in Spanish as “novela negra.” They propel the sleuth through changing societies, specifically post—1968 Mexico and post-Franco Spain, struggling to reconcile a past of repression with the ideals of a democratic present. Both Taibo’s detective, Hector Belascoaran Shayne and Vézquez Montalban's detective, Pepe Carvalho simultaneously accept and resist the literary models set by such North American authors as Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald. They embark, therefore, on a search for literary self-identity that coincides with their explorations of the identity of “modern” Mexico and Spain. © Copyright by WILLIAM JOHN NICHOLS II 1999 To my parents, Bill and Dace Nichols my brother, John and, of course, Silvia ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS II would like tx> express Imy gratitude tx> Professor José 1?. Colmeiro for injs excellent guidance, motivating encouragement and diligent patience. To Professor Javier Duran for his continued support and advice regarding, but not limited th Mexican. Literature iafter 1968. Zhui to Professor George Mansour, a mentor who has influenced all facets of my professional formation. I would also like to show my appreciation to the faculty, staff and graduate students at the Department of Romance and Classical Languages who have supported me throughout my studies at Michigan State. Finally, I would like to thank Professors Maria Rosa Olivera- Williams, Carlos Jerez—Farran and Martin F. Murphy at the University of Notre Dame for sparking' my' passion for Hispanic literature and culture. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER 1 SOCIAL CRISIS, MODERNIZATION AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE “NOVELA NEGRA? IN MEXICO AND SPAIN. The Case of Mexico after 1968. The Case of Spain after Franco. . 1968, La TransiciOn and “Novela Negra”. CHAPTER 2 VIOLATION OF A GENRE: IRONY, IDEOLOGY AND THE ASSIMILATION OF DETECTIVE FICTION BY PACO IGNACIO TAIBO II AND MANUEL VAZQUEZ MONTALBAN. The Traditional Detective Story: The Genesis of a Genre. . . . . . . . . . Hard— Boiled DeteCtive Fiction: The Development of a Dark Vision. Paco Ignacio Taibo II and the Birth Of the “Novela Neo— policiaca”. . . . . . . . . . . Manuel Vézquez Montalban: The Revitalization of Literature and Politics. . . . . . . . . . A Postmodern Conclusion: Transgression within the Boundaries. CHAPTER 3 ‘POISONVILLE’ REINCARNATED: MODERNIZATION AND METROPOLIS IN PACO IGNACIO TAIBO II AND MANUEL VAZQUEZ MONTALBAN CHAPTER 4 MEMORY VERSUS AMNESIA: PRESERVATION OF THE PAST IN THE “NOVELA NEGRA” OF TAIBO AND VAZQUEZ MONTALBAN. CONCLUSION. BIBLIOGRAPHY. vii 11 .31 .49 61 61 75 88 127 .164 176 .218 258 262 INTRODUCTION This project presents a comparative study that brings together two authors-—Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Manuel Vazquez Montalban—-from two specific political contexts—~post—l968 Mexico and post—Franco Spain~—who both work in one specific genre—-“noir" detective fiction. Although many scholars have addressed detective fiction in Latin America or Spain, the uniqueness of this project lies in its transatlantic study of “noir” detective fiction in Mexico and Spain by Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Manuel Vézquez Montalban. By analyzing the motives and means by which these writers adopt and adapt the North American hard-boiled model of detective fiction, this study presents a global picture of the political, social, economic and aesthetic processes that foment the creation of a “noir” poetic. Much like a detective’s investigation, this project began with a series of questions including: What are the social, historical and political circumstances in which hard-boiled novels flourish? What is the vision of society, justice and morality conveyed by the hard-boiled private eye? What social conditions have inhibited the growth of these novels in Mexico and Spain in the past? What has allowed their recent development in these countries? How do these authors issues of modernity and democracy as specifically Mexican or Spanish phenomena? How do these authors and their novels fit into discussions of “pop” literature, postmodernism and discussions of genre categorization? The answers to these questions reveal an intimate connection between Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Manuel Vézquez Montalban, both of whom intend to transcend “pop” literature and mystery fiction categories. Both authors manipulate the investigative nature of detective fiction in order to observe and criticize their societies, question the essence of a written text and doubt the validity of genre hierarchies. With the short story “Murders on the Rue Morgue,” Edgar Allan Poe began in 1841 a literary genre known as detective fiction that narrated the investigation and solution of a crime through a central figure’s use of logic and ratiocination. Popularized by Sir Arthur Conan IDOyle and later by Agatha Christie, the genre known as the “whodunit” created logic puzzles that narrated the Sleuth's accumulation of clues, discovery of the murderer and the inevitable delivery of the guilty party to the authorities. Evil, in these texts, exists as an external entity that disrupts the social order which is ultimately IIIIIIIIIIIIllr—-* .44 restored by the discovery and expulsion of the villain. Nevertheless, in the 19203 and 19303, such North American authors as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler invented a new type of detective fiction that rejected the bourgeois tendencies of the “whodunit.” Articulating a hard—edged realism, this model of detective fiction comes to be known as the North American School of Hard~Boiled Detective Fiction. Tough-guy loners like Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe walk the mean streets of San Francisco and Los Angeles favoring intuition over intellect and cynicism over cold logic. The central figure is no longer an aristocratic amateur sleuth but a professional private eye who maintains strict loyalty to his client and adheres to a personal code of morality. Often pitted against corrupt police, greedy politicians, dangerous gangsters and the decadent elite, hard-boiled detectives understand and manifest the social crisis of the Prohibition and Depression eras in the United States. In both Mexico and Spain, many authors have adopted and adapted the realist tendencies of hard—boiled deteCtive fiction to reflect the social crises of their respective countries in a genre known as “novela negra.” “Negraln in this sense, refers to the “noir” vision that permEates hard—boiled fiction in post-1968 Mexico and _— r ____..4 post-Franco Spain. Most prominently, Paco Ignacio Taibo II, in Mexico, and Manuel Vézquez Montalban, in Spain, appropriate the brutal realism of writers like Hammett and Chandler in order to create “social chronicles” that comment and criticize contemporary modernization and development within specifically Mexican and Spanish contexts. Through an investigative process, their detectives—Hector Belascoaran Shayne and Pepe Carvalho, respectively*—hunt for truth in societies where justice is constantly subverted in favor of the interests of the government, big business, and the ruling class. Whereas the police uphold the established order through repressive tactics, these detectives defend the poor, underclass and dispossessed from victimization, co— optation and deception. Both Taibo and Vézquez Montalban, however, “use and abuse” the generic conventions of hard-boiled fiction by infusing the essential structure of an investigation with self-referential irony, intertexuality, narrative fragmentation, and juxtaposition of narrative voices. Thus, while these texts portray contemporary social processes, they also deconstruct their own written nature, explore cultural codes, attack hierarchical differences between “high” and “low” literature and blur genre categorizations. These authors, in other words, create novels that represent postmodern inquiries into the ephemeral and subjective essence of “truth.” The detective’s investigation, therefore, provides a means for Taibo and Vézquez Montalban to explore the nature of their respective societies as well as examine the nature of “truth” through metafictional innovation. In the words of Marshall McLuhan, “The medium is the message” (23) where the text not only explores a crime but also questions itself, societal beliefs and literary categories. Although he emigrated to Mexico at age nine, Taibo's own heritage links him to Gijon, Spain where he was born and where each July he holds the “Semana Negra” (“Noir Week”) that celebrates detective and crime fiction, popular culture, politics and revolution. Vézquez Montalban's political interests have likewise linked him to Mexico not only through his friendship with Taibo but also through his defense of sub-comandante Marcos and the EZLNl. Both Taibo and Vézquez Montalban View detective fiction as a political tool that signals society’s problems through the detective's investigation yet, more 1 Vézquez Montalban recently published his interview with sub— comandante Marcos in the Lancandén jungle of Chiapas in a February, 1999 issue of El Pais. ..___ V -7 — 4 importantly, utilizes the mass appeal of a popular genre to communicate with a wide audience. Studying the novels of Taibo and Vézquez Montalban together, one notes that the notion they share of the “novela negra” genre only links their artistic vision and also establishes parallels between the political, economic and social processes that give way to a “noir” poetic. Chapter 1 will outline the atmosphere of social, political and economic crises that plague Mexico and Spain and frame the development of “novela negra” in these countries. Within the socio—historical context established in Chapter 1, then Chapter 2 effectively deals with the emergence of the hard—boiled genre in the literary landscape of Mexico and Spain specifically addressing how Taibo and Vézquez Montalban appropriate and violate its generic tenets of hard—boiled detective fiction while simultaneously upholding its realist tendencies. Chapter 3 focuses on the dystopic view of Mexico City, Barcelona and Madrid that conveys dissatisfaction with the modern urban identity of contemporary Mexico and Spain and it addresses issues of development and modernization in these countries. Finally, Chapter 4 examines the interplay among memory, history and truth on both individual and collective levels as citizens struggle to reconcile a repressive past with the ideals of a democratic present. pl? CHAPTER I Social Crisis, Mbdernization and the Emergence of the “Novela Negra" in Mexico and Spain The genre known as “noir” detective fiction arose in the United States in the 19205 and 19308, an era dominated by chaos, uncertainty and doubt. “Noir” detective fiction, also referred to as “hard-boiled” detective fiction, utilized the figure of a morally ambiguous, cynical, “tough—guy” sleuth to depict the dark realism of a nation in crisis. Prohibition, gangsterism the Stock Market Crash and the Great Depression revealed a dark side to the project of modernity and instilled skepticism in the democratic ideals upon which the United States based itself. As a result, “noir” detective fiction, established by such authors as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, portrays and criticizes a capitalistic, urban and industrial nation dominated by greed, corruption and lawlessness. Similarly, over the last thirty years, “noir” detective fiction has emerged in Mexico and Spain as a means for social criticism in countries struggling to understand their modern identity. Most prominently, Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Manuel Vézquez Montalban have adopted the North American genre to address the crises of their respective countries. In their works, they question the definition of a “modern” identity and the political, cultural and economic development in post—1968 Mexico and post—Franco Spain. Therefore, in order to understand the reasons for the development of “noir” detective fiction in Mexico and Spain, it is necessary to analyze the crises that condition the historical moment and frame the cultivation of this literary genre. Both Mexico and Spain embody changing societies laboring to reconcile a past of political repression, almost 70 years of PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) domination in Mexico and 40 years of Francoism in Spain, with the ideals of economic and political modernization, neo—liberal capitalism, a world market and a consumer culture. Over the course of the twentieth century, both countries have attempted to undergo a transition from closed, agrarian communities dominated by an oligarchy of conservative elites to open, urban and industrial nations characterized by democratic freedom. Nevertheless, the censorship, violence and political repression of the past have given way to corruption and government fraud, gang violence, drug addiction, unemployment and terrorism despite, or maybe because of, the assimilation of the capitalist model. It is important to note, however, that in spite of all the similarities there are important differences between Spain and Mexico. In the case of Spain, the project of modernity2 has been intimately associated with the internal tensions between the “two Spains”— conservative versus liberal elements-and the incorporation of a new, democratic European identity. Mexico, on the other hand, has struggled to reconcile the First World model of the United States and a Third World Latin American reality. The clash between the “modern” and “pre-modern,” often with bloody consequences, manifests the uncertainty and seeming incompatibility of a capitalist economic model with a history of political repression. Both Mexico and Spain, however, endeavor to cope with a modern identity characterized by corruption, violence, disorder and chaos in which a byproduct of development is the victimization of the working underclass, the dispossessed, the marginalized and, in Mexico, the indigenous. ~ 2 Modernity here corresponds to a project of political democratization, technological advancement and social secularization. The notion of modernity as a project is described in Marshall Berman’s All That Is Solid Melts Into Air and Mateu Calinescu's Five Faces of Modernity. 10 IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIllllIIIlIIIIIIIIIlIIlllIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII..‘L_________;:IIIIIIIII In this way, the social, political and economic crises plaguing Mexico and Spain link directly to a disillusionment with a modernity that brings economic prosperity, though definitely not for all members of society, at the price of authoritarianism, marginalization and political repression. The trajectory of these two countries in recent history represents a quest for what both Raymond Carr, in Spain, and Enrique Krauze, in Mexico, call a “democracy without adjectives” (Carr 214) (Krauze, Por una democracia sin adjetivos). As will be seen in Chapter 2, both Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Manuel Vézquez Montalban analyze this quest and confront the failures of the project of modernity in their respective countries through the realism and cynicism of “noir” detective fiction. The adventures of their respective detectives testify to the promises and failures of economic development in Mexico and Spain. I. The Case of Mexico after 1968 Mexico’s journey toward modernity adheres to an economic model that favors financial prosperity and social stability at the expense of authoritarianism and political repression. This model, evident in the years previous to the Mexican Revolution during the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz, based itself on 11 “exclusionary politics” that marginalized the poor, landless peasants, working class and indigenous in favor of the interests of the social elite. In this way, the “Porfiriato,” as the dictatorship came to be known, professed such liberal ideals as Progreso and Libertad yet masked the means by which these ideals were to be achieved. Diaz’s slogan “Pan y Palo” manifested the dictator’s attitude toward the underclass in which reward for hard work was tempered with physical violence—a ruthlessness noted by Ronald Atkin in Revolution! Mexico 1910-20, “Diaz had created a machine which he oiled with the blood of the underprivileged” (6). Both Robert Quirk and Eric Wolf capture the contradictions and double morality of the Porfiriato that extol liberalism and economic development on one hand yet expose disparaging inequalities among classes on the other. In The Mexican Revolution: 1914—1915, Quirk notes that despite the facade of prosperity due to a balanced budget, dependence on the gold standard, and heavy foreign investments, pre—Revolution Mexican society advocated economic, racial and political subjugation of the poor, A balanced budget meant little to an Indian agricultural worker whose standard of living plummeted while the national 12 income rose. Real wages were lower than they had been a century earlier under Spanish rule. [m] By 1910 less than five per cent of Mexico’s population owned almost all of the arable land. [m] In the cities the industrial workers labored for little pay under hazardous and unsanitary conditions. Strikes were repressed by the army with extreme brutality. There was no semblance of popular rule, as opposition parties had long been discouraged, and voting procedures were rigged to insure the election and re- election of Diaz, his legislators, and his state officials. [m] Among the members of the middle and upper classes, Mexico's politically effective population, the dictatorship found much support. The positivists taught that the masses—more than eighty per cent of the Mexicans were illiterate-were not, perhaps would never be capable of self-government. (2-3) In much the same way, Eric Wolf notes the disparities of the Porfiriato in Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century, Under the dictatorship of Diaz Mexico underwent profound change. During this period, foreign capital investment in Mexico greatly outpaced Mexican investment. Concentrating first on the construction of railroads and the mining of precious ores, it began to flow increasingly, after 1900, into the production of raw materials: oil, copper, tin, lead, rubber, coffee, and sisal. The economy came to be dominated by a small group of businessmen and financiers whose decisions affected the welfare of the entire country. Thus, in 1908, out of sixty-six corporations involved in finance and industry, thirty-six had common directorates drawn from a group of 13 thirteen men; nineteen of the corporations had more than one of the thirteen. During the final decade of the nineteenth century, the leaders of this new controlling group formed a clique which soon came to be known as the Cientificos. Claiming to be scientific positivists, they saw the future of Mexico in the reduction and obliteration of the Indian element, which they regarded as inferior and hence incapable of development, and in the furtherance of “white” control, national or international. This was to be accomplished through tying Mexico more strongly to the “developed” industrial nations, principally France, Germany, the United States, and Britain. Development, in their eyes, would thus derive from abroad, either in the form of foreign settlers or in the form of foreign capital. (13-14) Both Quirk’s and Wolf's analysis of the economic, social and political views of the Porfiriato resonate, as will be seen, with the notions of development in Mexico begun in the 19505, with the “Milagro Mexicano,” and continued through the technocracies of both the Salinas de Gortari and Zedillo administrations. That is, throughout the twentieth century, Mexico’s political and social elite pursue the ideals of a globalized, consumer economy while ignoring the elements that seem contrary to a modern identity, specifically, the peasantry, indigenous, and working class. The result is an uneven, inconsistent and unrepresentative modernity based on the exclusion of “pre-modern” sectors of society in order to 14 promote a development that benefits the upper classes. Nestor Garcia Canclini, in Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity, hints at the tension between the “pre-modern” and the “modern” ultimately leading to the marginalization of the former in a consumer society, From nineteenth-century liberalism to developmentalism, modernizing ideologies accentuated this Manichaean compartimentalization by imagining that modernization would end with traditional forms of production, beliefs, and goods. Myths would be replaced with scientific knowledge, handicrafts by the expansion of industry, books by audiovisual means of communication. [m] Modernity, then, is a mask. A simulacrum conjured up by the elites and the state aparatuses, above all those concerned with art and culture, but which for that very reason makes them unrepresentative and unrealistic. The liberal oligarchies of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries acted as if they constituted states, but they only ordered some areas of society in order to promote a subordinate and inconsistent development; they acted as if they formed national cultures, and they barely constructed elite cultures, leaving out enormous indigenous and peasant populations, who manifest their exclusion in a thousand revolts and in the migration that is bringing ‘upheaval’ to the cities. (3-7) Mexico’s quest for modernity therefore has continually failed because of the inability to reconcile the “pre-modern” with the “modern.” Mexico’s internal 15 development has always been synonymous with the desire to purge the illiterate, impoverished peasant-indigenous element stereotypically dependent on pre—Columbian myths and superstition in order to forge an intellectual, First World, urban global economy based on secular, scientific rationalism. Nevertheless, the results of such a policy have inevitably been vast poverty, a fragile economy, government corruption, police violence and widespread disillusionment with Mexican politics. The so-called “Milagro Mexicano” describes the economic prosperity derived from the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) economic agenda immediately after World War II. Begun under the ‘sexenio' (six year presidential term) of Miguel Aleman (1946—52), Mexico sought to strengthen the infrastructure and increase job opportunities through such public works projects as the construction of dams, renovation of highways, and the improvement of communications networks. Growth of the middle class, increased oil production and high rates of profit encouraged both foreign and domestic investments which lead to improved trade relations and important diplomatic ties with the United States. Perhaps most indicative of Mexico’s vision during this time was the construction of Ciudad Universitaria in 1952. Under the 16 guidance of Juan O’Gorman3, architects like Félix Candela and artists, like Diego Rivera and David Siquieros, created the home of the UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico) as a testament to Mexico's place among the intellectual, cultural elite (Meyer, The Course of Mexican History 640—650). The projects of Aleman's sexenio continued in subsequent administrations seemingly leading Mexico to a modern, urban identity and entrance into the First World. Under Adolfo Ruiz Cortines (1952-58) U.S. foreign investments grew to include contributions from such corporations as General Motors, Dow Chemical, Pepsi-Cola, Coca-Cola, Colgate, Goodyear, John Deere, Ford, Proctor and Gamble, and Sears. Later, Adolfo Lopez Mateos (1958— 1964) prompted the expansion of welfare projects, the construction of low—cost housing projects and the development of rural school systems in order to combat illiteracy (Meyer 651-53). The internal renovation of Mexico thus appeared to stimulate economic growth and stability, link rural sectors with urban centers and educate and support the peasant population. 3 Juan O’Gorman was perhaps one of the most famous architects in Mexico, born in 1905 he studied painting under Diego Rivera and worked as a draughtsman and director of the Town Planning Administration. His masterpieces include the UNAM campus as well as his own home which was built into a cave of volcanic rock. 17 Nevertheless, as the Milagro Mexicano progressed certain problems arose that revealed the shortcomings of the PRI’s economic vision and fomented a growing sense of discontent with Mexican politics that would eventually explode in 1968 with the student movement in Mexico City. Despite the modernizing projects of the 19505 and 19605, the majority of the economic changes served the interests of a minor percentage of the Mexican population. In spite of high profits and increased foreign investments, wages for the working class and teachers’ salaries continued to decrease, revealing a widening gap between the consumer class and the working class (Meyer 645). Also, a new, urbanized Mexico faced overcrowding and poverty, job shortages, health risks, sanitation issues, and pollution problems that had not been foreseen. Contrary to the economic developments, the perpetuation of a one-party system, which was a major complaint of the Porfiriato, represented the essence of “exclusionary politics” in Mexico. Dominated by favoritism, “amiguismo,” bribery and corruption, Mexican politics present a sharp contradiction to the supposed democratic ideals of modernization. Pablo Gonzalez Casanova, in his 1965 book La democracia en México, reveals a power structure underlying Mexican politics 18 comprised of a few, integrated, mutually dependent institutions and sectors of society that included: “a) los caudillos y caciques regionales; b) e1 ejército, d) el clero, e) 105 latifundistas y los empresarios nacionales y extranjeros” (27). Similar to the so-called ‘poderes facticos4' in Spain, as will be seen, these institutions guide the direction of development in accordance with their self- interests and by means of marginalization in what Gonzalez Casanova calls “el colonialismo interno” (62). He defines marginalization as a political as well as economic practice designed to deprive certain portions of the population from power. Gonzalez Casanova continues: El marginalismo, o la forma de estar al margen del desarrollo de pais, el no participar en el desarrollo economico, social y cultural, e1 pertenecer a1 gran sector de los que no tienen nada es particularmente caracteristico de las sociedades subdesarrolladas. No 5610 guardan éstas una muy desigual distribucion de la riqueza, del ingreso, de la cultura general y técnica, sino que con frecuencia~como es el caso de Mexico— encierran dos o mas conglomerados socio- culturales, uno super—participante y otro super-marginal, uno dominante-llamese espafiol, criollo o ladino—y otro dominado— llamese nativo, indio o indigena. (62) 4 The term “poderes facticos” will be discussed and defined on page 45. Although the “Milagro Mexicano” projects the appearance of a modern, urbanized and developing Mexico, its accomplishments are based on political and economic policies that favor the agenda of an elite oligarchy. Mexican leaders espoused ‘modern’ economic philosophies designed to stabilize Mexico through public works projects and foreign investments yet their political ideals revealed ‘pre-modern’ attitudes. Judith Alder Hellman, in Mexico in Crisis, views Mexico’s government as a totalitarian system under the guise of a liberal democracy, If it is not totalitarian, Mexico’s government is a far cry from what we understand to be a liberal democracy in spite of the rhetoric and the laws on the books. The Mexican Constitution provides for the separation of power among three branches of government, legal opposition parties, independent organized interest groups—~in short, most of the features characteristic of a liberal democratic system. This appearance is utterly deceptive. (97) Mexico, Gabriel Zaid states, presents a conflicting duality that advocates economic change and development, on one hand, yet upholds a centralist, pyramidist system based on political repression on the other (9). In La economia presidencial, he points out how Mexican political leaders throughout the twentieth century have 20 co-opted such notions as ‘progress’ in order to legitimize their claim to power: Paradojicamente, la sociedad moderna progresa a través del espiritu critico, y asi regresa a una especie de clerecia racional: la burocracia. El racionalismo seculariza la sociedad y destruye e1 mito legitimador del soberano por derecho divino, pero crea un nuevo mito legitimador: e1 soberano racional, que en vez de representar la voluntad del Logos divino, es el mandatario hipostatico del Logos racional: e1 progreso, la historia, la voluntad popular. La razon que da derecho al soberano racional legitima el despotismo ilustrado, el ascenso de los universitarios al poder y la burocracia moderna: el despotismo impersonal del poder impune, cuyos dictados no son responsabilidad de nadie, no entienden de razones y nadie puede parar. Asi, desaparece la arbitrariedad aplastante del soberano personal, pero se pone en marcha la aplanadora del organismo impersonal. Asi aparecen los organisaurios del siglo xx: 105 nuevos monstruos leviatanes, duefios de vidas y haciendas, en nombre colectivo. (156) This unquestionable authority of a centralized government led Mexican university students to seek new ways of conceiving and understanding politics in the late 19605. The 1968 student movement in Mexico manifested the frustration and alienation of Mexican youths under a self—serving, self-perpetuating political system. Although it began with a dispute between two rival schools, the student movement united various sectors of 21 Mexican society—-including women, the working class, and peasants as well as students—~to defy the power structure’s authority in Mexico. Influenced by the mass movements in France, Italy and the United States in 1968, Mexicans questioned the hegemony of the State and advocated democratic changes that recognized Mexico’s social pluralism. The student movement defied the moral legitimacy as well as the political authority of the PRI by proposing a list of ‘points’ that sought to dissolve the repressive elements of the Mexican government and uphold democratic ideals (Ramirez 27). After his imprisonment, José Revueltas revealed in a letter to Martin Dorzal the essence of the student movement that defies the institutions of repression in Mexico. The movement, he states, was not directed against individuals but rather denounced the mechanisms of power and violence, Estamos en contra de esa esencia, esa institucion fisica, legal, y moral que se llama policia, y que fisicamente nos tortura y nos golpea, no por accidente, sino porque en golpear y torturar radica su esencia, su esencia moral y legal. [m] Estamos contra el Presidente, pero no contra ese senor de nombre Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, sino contra lo que representa como poder irresponsable, que no responde ante nadie de sus actos, que pasa por encima de los ordenamientos legales y que se rodea de un aparato de engafio social, de 22 sumision y de lisonja con el que ha terminado por pervertir a1 pueblo entero. Estos son apenas unos ejemplos de lo que encierra y presupone nuestro Movimiento (191-2). Nevertheless, the call for a more representative, democratic government fell on the deaf ears of the Mexican establishment. The reaction of the Diaz Ordaz regime to the student movement would simultaneously uphold Mexico’s tradition of anti-democratic repression as well as violently rip off the mask of Mexican politics. As Mexico City prepared for the Olympics, impatience with the student movement grew among the PRI leaders who wished to maintain the ‘simulacrum’ of democracy for an international audience. However, the resistance of the Diaz Ordaz administration culminated with the Massacre of the Plaza de Tlatelolco (also known as the Plaza de las Tres Culturas) on October 2, 1968. With the deaths of an estimated 800 people—-de5pite official numbers ranging between 38 and 58—-the student movement came to an abrupt end yet exposed the repressive nature of Mexican politics through this tragic climax (Parra 169). Although the student movement failed to achieve its short—term goals, the ramifications of 1968 produced rippling effects in the political, economic, social and literary realms of Mexican life. As both 23 Gilabert and Guevara Niebla note, the student movement opened a space for the masses to intervene in political processes and forever tarnished the PRI’s legitimacy. In La democracia en la calle, Gilberto Guevara Niebla asserts that the utopian ideology of 1968 inserted into Mexico a new need to question authority. The student protests and their violent end brought a demythification of PRI power: El movimiento estudiantil de 1968 cuestiono la absurda concentracion de poder en la figura presidencial (e1 presidencialismo); critico y ayudo a desmitificar la imagen del partido revolucionario institucional (PRI); desnudo a1 poder legislativo como una institucion desnaturalizada y esclavizada a los dictados del ejecutivo; puso en evidencia a1 aspecto despotico y antidemocratico de un sistema politico en donde las relaciones entre gobernantes y gobernados se hallaban mediadas por el principio de autoridad; revelo el contenido mistificador de consignas oficiales como la unidad nacional, la estabilidad, el progreso, etc. Con el solo hecho de la conquista de la calle 0 con la mera circunstancia de haber logrado cristalizar como un gran movimiento de masas, e1 movimiento de 1968 contribuyo a derribar e1 mito de la invulnerabilidad del poder y abrio cauces a nuevas formas politicas de oposicion. (47) As a result, the Massacre of the Plaza de Tlatelolco represents the beginning of the end of the ‘Milagro Mexicano,’ unleashing a downward spiral of economic, 24 political, social and even ecological crises. During the two subsequent administrations——Luis Echeverria (1970-76) and José Lopez Portillo (1976—82)—-the Mexican economy disintegrated under the pressure of a growing external debt, out of control inflation and constant capital flight due to repetitive devaluations of the peso. These twelve years became known as the “Docena tragica" ironically echoing the ten—day siege that virtually destroyed Mexico City in February 1913 known as the “Decena trégica.” Mexico, however, depended on vast oil reserves discovered in Tabasco, Chiapas and the Gulf of Mexico to avert impending economic doom. Nevertheless, when petroleum prices collapsed in 1982, the value of the peso plunged as well creating widespread panic, leaving no means for Mexico to repay its foreign debt and officially signifying the onset of “La Crisis.” During the Miguel de la Madrid sexenio (1982-88), unemployment, inflation and debt compounded with such political corruption scandals as Jorge Diaz Serrano, former PEMEX director, and Arturo Durazno Moreno, former chief of Mexico City police, heightened the disillusionment and alienation among Mexico’s population (Morris 93). Mexico, however, plummeted deeper into crisis on September 19, 1985 when an earthquake decimated 25 portions of Mexico City, killing an estimated 8000 people and leaving damages in excess of $4 billion (Meyer, Michael 688). Nevertheless, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, with his victory of the 1988 elections (amid widespread rumors of fraud), proposed a new economic strategy led by a series of technocrats educated in American universities. Graduates of such universities as MIT, Harvard, Yale and Princeton, Salinas and his cabinet members formed what Enrique Krauze calls the “Ivy League Administration” (Krauze, La presidencia imperial 419). Inspired by the expropriation enterprises of Spain’s socialist government5 led by Felipe Gonzalez, Mexico’s leaders bought unproductive businesses and re-sold them to private interests. Enrique Krauze explains the precepts of these policies in La Presidencia Imperial, “La norma era comprar—-con dinero que no pasaba por el presupuesto— —empresas quebradas de la iniciativa privada. La solucion no era invertir en ellas: la solucién era quebrarlas o venderlas a la iniciativa privada” (426—7). 5 Perhaps the most infamous expropriation in Spain was that of the Grupo Rumasa, a large holding company bought, broken up and sold by the Gonzalez Administration in 1983. For a complete history see Enrique Diaz Gonzalez’s Rumasa (Planeta 1983). 26 What is more, as part of this economic model, Salinas sought to revive the Mexican economy by integrating it with that of the United States in the trade agreement known as NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) in English and TLC (Tratado de Libre Comercio) in Spanish. Nevertheless, despite its neo—liberal economic ideals, Salinas’s administration adhered strictly to the political practices that marginalized those who were unable to participate in a global economy. While seemingly faithful to modern economic practices, the Mexican government, once again, depends on authoritarian practices to serve the interests of the social elite. Lorenzo Meyer captures the contradiction between the ‘modern' and ‘pre—modern’ ideologies of Mexico’s system in the title of his book Liberalismo autoritario in which he states: Los tecnocratas decidieron que el camino adecuado era una modernizacion selectiva: transformar 1a economia, pero preservar y usar a fondo los instrumentos politicos heredados: autoritarios, antidemocréticos y premodernos. [m] Este cambio afecto profundamente e1 tejido de la sociedad, pero e1 costo lo pagaron sobre todo aquellos que tenian menos instrumentos politicos para defender su posicion y que no estaban en condiciones de resistir e1 embate directo de competencia externa: los marginados, los indigenas, el sector agricola de temporal; los micros, pequefios y medianos empresarios e incluso algunos 27 de los grandes; los sindicatos y una clase media consumista y muy dependiente de las actividades burocraticas. (30) The effects of such policies, as Krauze had hinted at earlier, exacerbated rather than relieved the economic crisis of Mexico leading to higher unemployment, bankruptcies among banks and small businesses, skyrocketing inflation, a monstrous external debt, and, most importantly, an unequal distribution of wealth (Meyer, Lorenzo 32-5). The chasm between classes corresponds to what Lorezo Meyer sarcastically calls the ‘contramilagro,’ Hace treinta afios era comun 1a referencia al “milagro mexicano.” El término 5e usaba para describir el notable ritmo de crecimiento de la economia y la tranquilidad politica que lo prohijaba. Luego vino el 68, otras cosas y el término se olvido. Sin embargo, hoy el concepto podria resurgir como el “milagro mexicano II.” Esta vez se trata de la multiplicacion de los megamillonarios en tiempos de crisis. Claro que este nuevo milagro viene acompafiado de su contramilagro: la multiplicacion—también millonaria—de los perdedores en el reparto de la riqueza social. Ambos hechos estan ligados a la distribucion tan desigual y autoritaria del poder politico en nuestro pais. (135) The inconsistencies of Mexico’s economy and inequality among Mexico’s classes revealed the decomposition of the social structure and a system that 28 began to self-destruct in the 19905. In general, urban violence, drug trafficking, kidnappings and government corruption plague Mexico like never before. Yet, Mexico’s implosion was most evident in 1994 with the assassinations of Luis Donaldo Colosio—-the PRI’s presidential hopeful—and José Francisco Ruiz Massieu-—the Attorney General-, the subsequent arrest of Raul Salinas de Gortari—-the President’s brother——in connection with the latter murder, Carlos Salinas de Gortari’s self- imposed exile, and, finally, the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas and the emergence of Sub—comandante Marcos6. Enrique Krauze sees these events as the logical trajectory of the experiences at the Plaza de Tlatelolco in 1968, Visto desde 1a perspectiva de Tlatelolco, parecia la cronica de un desenlace anunciado: Diaz Ordaz habia recurrido a1 asesinato en Tlatelolco; Echeverria habia destruido 1a estabilidad economica; Lopez Portillo habia endeudado al pais; De la Madrid habia perdido oportunidades de oro; Salinas de Gortari, e1 mayor reformador economico del pais desde tiempos de Calles, creyo que a fines del siglo XX, y en un mundo libre y democratico, los mexicanos podian seguir gobernados por un régimen de tutela colonial. Para colmo, Salinas intento algo que ni e1 presidente empresarial Miguel Aleman 5e habia propuesto: volverse e1 accionista 6 For more detailed information on the events of 1994, see Jorge Fernandez Menéndez’s De Chiapas a Colosio: El afio que vivimos en peligro. 29 mayoritario de la empresa, su director tras bambalinas y, mas tarde, su monarca definitivo. Solo un acto faltaba en la obra: la muerte violenta del candidato presidencial (442). The words of Krauze reiterate those of Daniel Cosio Villegas who, over forty years earlier, called attention to the unfulfilled promises of the Mexican Revolution pointing to the self-serving agendas of a dishonest government. In his 1947 essay “La crisis de México,” Cosio bemoans a one—party government that sacrifices the interests of the agrarian and working sectors in favor of those of foreign investors and the social elite. He states, Asi, una corrupcion administrativa general, ostentosa y agraviante, cobijada siempre bajo un manto de impunidad a1 que solo puede aspirar la mas acrisolada virtud, ha dado al traste con todo el programa de la Revolucion, con sus esfuerzos y con sus conquistas, a1 grado de que para el pais ya importe poco saber cual fue el programa inicial, qué esfuerzos hicieron para cumplirlo y si se consiguieron resultados. La aspiracion unica de Mexico es la renovacion tajante, la verdadera purificacion, aspiracién que solo quedaré satisfecha con el fuego que arrase hasta la tierra misma en que crecio tanto mal. (Gonzalez y Gonzalez 47) Cosio Villegas’s commentary, as valid in the 19905 as it was in the 19405, allows a general vision of the crisis that has plagued Mexico throughout the twentieth 3O century. His criticism of post—Revolutionary Mexico mirrors many of the criticisms of post-1968 Mexico that suffers from the duplicitous policies of its government. That is, while espousing liberal economic philosophies, Mexico’s leaders systematically undermine political and social freedoms through a process of exclusion and marginalization. II. The Case of Spain after France The transformation of Spain actually began during the last half of the Franco regime in the 19605 and 19705. During the 19405 and 19505, Franco controlled virtually all facets of Spanish society through economic isolationism, manipulation of fear and violence, perpetuation of the social hierarchy, alliances with the Catholic church, strict censorship and the fabrication of historiography. In this way, Franco sought to supplant any sense of pluralism with a unified, homogeneous vision of Spanish culture, history and society. Jordi Solé Tura affirms the agenda of Franco’s centralized state structure in his article, “The Spanish Transition to Democracy,” One cannot seriously assert that the Franco state was really a new state. It was, more exactly, the continuation of the type of state forged in Spain during the nineteenth century and in the first years 31 of the twentieth. The Franco regime superimposed upon this state some specific elements but modified neither the structure nor its deep orientation. What it did do was take to their limits the authoritarian and centrist consequences already existent in the traits of the state. Thus, for example, it maintained centrism and reinforced its bureaucratic and exclusive character; destroyed political pluralism; carried out the greatest concentration in only one pair of hands, those of the chief of state; turned the army into a political and ideological protagonism of the Catholic church. (25) Howard Wiarda describes the power structure of Francoist Spain as “corporatist” in that “several integral, natural, functional units” comprised the controlling sector of society (39-47). Through patrimonialism, patronage and personal favors the bureaucratic center——including the military and the government—-maintained ties with the landed aristocracy and the Catholic Church. Power, then, is upheld under Franco’s rule through social categories, ranks and classes. Wiarda asserts that this structure strictly defines Spanish society and power relations under Franco’s rule. First, we have a system of social categories, rank orderings and hierarchy—a system derived in part from history, political culture, and the writings of the Church fathers, but also created in part and certainly reinforced by an emerging structure of class relations. Second, we 32 have the system of family and clan relations, dominated by patronage considerations and patrimonialism—a system in which various elite families and their retainers and clientele may compete for power and political spoils, and that overlaps with the social and class structure in various ways. And third, we have the system of corporations—a vertical structure that is distinct from the horizontal class-based one, but that also overlaps with the social hierarchy in various ways. (47) Franco’s economic policies were a calculated step in upholding the strict discipline of the social order by isolating Spain from a world economy and concentrating on the cultivation and utilization of Spain’s own natural resources. As Mike Richards states in “‘Terror and Progress’: Industrialization, Modernity, and the Making of Francoism,” the creation of a ‘closed society' afforded the Franco regime a means for controlling Spain not only economically but politically and culturally as well. Physical and economic repression in the wake of the Spanish civil war were used as a way of disciplining the lower orders of society and confirming their defeat. The political economy of the ‘New State’ was developed to maintain the basic features of existing social power while industrialization was taking place. In practice, the concept of autarky offered a potential way of achieving the essential aims of this brutal vision of modernity: repression, the concentration of economic power and industrialization. Indeed, in 33 the 19405, the Francoist state was made through economic, political, and cultural autarky. [m] Social ‘purification’ could, it was calculated by regime ideologues, be most efficiently carried out within a closed society. [m] The ‘moral force’ represented by the ideology of the Catholic Church was seen by the regime as offering a way of disciplining the work— force by granting the possibility of ‘redemption’ through total obedience to authority. (176) In coordination with the political and economic vision of the Franco regime, the dictatorship embarked on a cultural enterprise that would purge Spanish society of any ‘liberal,’ ‘communist,’ ‘republican' sentiment. Thereby, through a systematic suppression of dissension, the cultural program of the regime sought to purify the vision of Spain under the slogan “Una Espafia, una raza, una religion”. The primary instruments to carry out this cultural control were the educational system, strict censorship and falsified historiography. In close relation with the Catholic Church, the Ministry of Education sought to legitimize the regime through a process of what Alicia Alted calls the “re— Spanishification” and “re-Catholicization” of society (197). She states, Because of its origins in a military revolt against a constitutionally elected government, the New State needed to find a way of legitimizing itself; the 34 manipulation of culture offered itself as a tool: first, by controlling all cultural activities through advance censorship and the purging of cultural workers, and second, by creating a cultural model to shape the behaviour of Spanish citizens, thus guaranteeing the regime’s stability and permanence. The basis of this model was the disqualification of those who had lost the war (the ‘reds’), and the negation of everything the Republic has stood for (qualified with the prefix ‘anti-'). The prime channel for instilling this model was, of course the educational system (196). Censorship, under the control of the Oficina de Prensa y Propaganda, sought to mold Spanish culture not through the imposition of an educational model of “Spanish—mess” but rather via the exclusion of any perceived threat to Spain's cultural identity. Whereas the educational system reinforced a nationalist, Catholic notion of Spain, censorship sought to maintain the purity of that vision by banning expressions against it or the regime. This control extended to radio, public lectures, cinema, magazines, photos, novels and, most importantly, the press. Jo Libanyi, in her article “Censorship or the Fear of Mass Culture,” reveals the nature of what might have been considered detrimental to the order of Spanish society, No mention could be made of the following: individuals associated with the Republic; arrests, trials, executions; guerrilla 35 activity, strike action; the Royal Family; crimes, suicides, bankruptcies; stock exchange falls, devaluations; food and housing shortages, prices rises; industrial and traffic accidents; epidemics, droughts, flood or storm damage. [m] Most unprintable of all was mention of the existence of censorship. (209) Lastly, the Franco regime combined education with censorship by co-opting both history and memory to forge a vision of the dictatorship as a logical extension of Spain’s glorious past. In such articles as “Social Realism and the Contingencies of History in the Contemporary Spanish Novel” and “Narrating the Past: History and the Novel of Memory in Postwar Spain”, David Hertzberger has analyzed the perpetuation of power through Franco’s control of collective memory and falsification of history. In Chapter 4, I will discuss the dilemma of memory in post-Franco Spain and specifically the manifestation of the conflict between memory and amnesia within Vazquez Montalban’s Carvalho series. Nevertheless, despite the Franco regime’s tight control throughout the first two decades of the dictatorship, Spain in the 19605 began to modernize, industrialize and urbanize. Jordi Solé Tura asserts that the regime needed to open the economy and participate in 36 the world market due to the problems of Franco’s autarkic ideal, The Franco regime was incapable of answering the new problems that emerged in Spanish society and of responding to the new aspirations of vast sectors of the population after the tumultuous economic development of the 19605 and the beginning of the crisis of the 19705. In reality the Franco regime began to change in spite of itself and against the wishes of its leaders. (26) Consequently, the 19605 brought to Spain an infiltration of consumer culture that began to change the country’s internal composition. With wider access to foreign films, literature, music, philosophy and politics, Spaniards, especially students, began to question their traditional and orthodox customs. Howard Wiarda notes that the 19605 and early 19705 brought to Spain a new sense of mobilization and politicization that actually prepared the country for the vertiginous changes to come with Franco’s death in 1975. During this time Spain became more urban, developed and with its economy dependent on industry rather than agriculture, saw the emergence of a true middle class (Wiarda 55-6). Also, under the slogan “Spain is different,” tourism flourished, simultaneously creating an avenue for the 37 influx of foreign capital as well as access to ideas and cultures outside Spain. As a result, the evolution of Francoist Spain from an isolated, self-sufficient economy to a more open, industrial capitalist society caused rifts within the power structure. Conflicts emerged between the conservative and reformist sectors. As Solé Tura acknowledges, “Because of this development, contradictions from within the regime began to emerge among different groups—between the Falange and the Opus Dei, for example—and the breach between the hard-liner and reformist sectors began opening slowly” (26). What is more, the effects of this evolution were noted among the attitudes and behavior of the mass population. With wider access to information and literature, Spaniards developed a greater understanding of democratic processes, doubted the authority of the Catholic Church and demanded political reforms. Riquer i Permanyer points to the movement toward democracy, its lasting effects and the impossibility of Francoism’s continuation in the following terms, The conjuncture with a period of unparalleled growth in the western world was the principal external factor, and to this should be added the pressure from and capacity of Spanish society to emerge from 38 the isolation and underdevelopment brought about by the Franco regime’s autarkic fantasy. This made the growth of the Spanish economy incoherent to the point of chaos, prone to sharp imbalances, tensions, and deficits. And it was these tensions and inadequacies which created the conditions for the growth of new and significant mass movements, whose increasingly politicized action would undermine the regime’s prestige and solidity, rendering its continuation inconceivable after Franco’s death in 1975. (260) After the death of Franco’s prime minister Carrero Blanco in 1973 and the death of the dictator himself in 1975, the social, economic and political changes begun in the 19605 come to fruition during the period known as the “Transicion” that culminates with the “Cambio”—the Socialist Party’s ascension to the presidency7. The period immediately after Franco’s death represents a time of rapid change and euphoria as Spain passes from a centralized, dictatorial and authoritarian government to a decentralized, representative and constitutional democracy. In less than five years, from 1975—1979, Spain experienced a transition to democracy that begins with the Law of Political Reform in 1976, includes free elections in 1977, establishes a new Constitution in 1978 and culminates with the first free elections under the 39 new Constitution in 1979. With the Constitution of 1978, Spanish society seemingly embraces a bourgeois bureaucracy based on rationality that endows Spaniards with new rights. Politically, Spanish citizens enjoy freedom from censorship, freedom of religion, the freedom to organize unions, and the freedom of association, among others. Also, Spain becomes more secular and less influenced by the Catholic Church as seen by the legalization of contraception, abortion and divorce (Arango 110). Lastly, the Spanish Constitution discourages the homogeneous vision of the Franco regime and recognizes the country’s pluralism by establishing the “Autonomias”—5elf—governing, separate, autonomous, regional units within Spain. In addition to the socio-political and economic changes, Spain became an immediate participant in a globalized world and a consumer culture experiencing a cultural boom in the arts, music, theatre, book publishing, architecture, education and film (Wiarda 25- 6). For example, Such newspapers and magazines as “El Pais” and “Interviu” were founded in 1976, Picasso’s “Guernica” returned to Spain in 1980 and José Luis 7 For a highly detailed account of the events of the Transicion, see José Antonio Gonzalez Casanova’s E1 Cambio Inacabable (1975-1985) and, especially, Victoria Prego’s Asi se hizo la Transicion. 4O Garci’s film “Volver a empezar” earned the Oscar for best foreign film in 1983 as did Fernando Trueba’s “Belle Epoque” in 1992. Spain assimilated the markings of mass culture, consuming Big Macs and Coca—cola, purchasing Levi jeans, and listening to as well as producing rock music. On an international level, Spain hosted the World Cup soccer tournament in 1982, entered the European Community in 1986, and celebrated the Olympics and the 500u1anniversary of Columbus's “discovery” of America in a renovated Barcelona as well as the Expo in Seville in 1992. Nevertheless, the rapidity of these changes created an uneven development that revealed the fragility of the new democracy caught in the tension between a hope for modernity and a desire for continuity with the past. Raymond Carr notes this dual tendency in post—Franco Spain in his book Spain: Dictatorship to Democracy, The new economy changed the social structure and, less dramatically, the social mores of Spain. With rapid industrialisation, with the increase in the numbers of skilled workers and the growth of the service sector where ‘human capital’ was more important than manual labour, the occupational structure of Spain changed more in two decades than it had in the previous hundred years. A process which had taken half a century in France or Britain was telescoped into two decades. The very suddenness of the onset 41 of modernisation meant that the older values of a pre-industrial society persisted in the era of capitalist growth . (79) The divisions within Spain reveal a persistence of antidemocratic and antiliberal forces during the time of the “Transicion”. On one hand, two failed coup d’etat attempts, the “Operacion Galaxia” conspiracy in November 1978 and Tejero and Milans del Bosch's infamous 23-F in 1981, demonstrate the instability of the military’s new role within the new democracy. On the other hand, terrorism by such extremist groups as GRAPO (Grupo Revolucionario Antifascista Primero de Octubre) and separatist factions like ETA (Eusaki Ta Askatasuna—Basque Homeland and Freedom) escalated and exposed the violence and insecurity of post-Franco Spain. As José Maravall states, “The subversive violence of the right—wing extremists and the terrorism of the GRAPO and the ETA presented a serious challenge to democracy after 1977” (43). In a similar way, the transition to democracy presented uncertainties regarding the newfound notion of freedom of speech and the role of the state proving that civil liberties were not fully developed. Maravall, in The Transition to Democracy in Spain, points to the trials of Juan Luis Cebrian (editor of El Pais), Miguel 42 Angel Aguilar (editor of Diario 16), Ricardo Cid (from La Calle) and Pilar Miro (film director) as proof of the persistence of censorship in Spain. Conversely, the suit brought jointly by the socialist party, PSOE, and the communist party, PCE, sought to break the state’s monopoly of Radio Television Espanola in an effort to eliminate the temptation of censorship (57). Yet, the major inconsistency of the new democracy lies in the “politics of compromise” that brought about the “Transicion” and upheld the institutions and oligarchic power structure of the Franco regime. The “Pacts of Moncloa” in 1977 reveal what Robert Martinez calls a “ruptura pactada” (117) in which the president- elect Adolfo Suarez, of the UCD (Union de Centro Democratico), negotiated with the Socialist and Communist parties the assimilation of democratic reforms within the existing capitalist structure. In this strategy of “reform from above” (Maravall 11), change was brought about by “consensual negotiation” (Arango 104). Clearly, the Pacts proposed important economic changes, including tax reform, unemployment insurance and social security as well as social reforms including the decriminilization of adultery, the legalization of contraceptives and the modification of rape status (Arango 104). Nevertheless, 43 as Manuel Redero San Roman acknowledges in his conclusions to Transicion a la democracia y poder politico en la Espafia postfranquista, the process of the Pacts of Moncloa sustained a ‘continuismo’ of Francoism by perpetuating the hierarchy of power that guides the direction of Spanish society. En efecto, de alguna forma, la politica de negociacion entre élites, con las consiguientes limitaciones a las movilizaciones populares alejaba a las masas de la actividad politica y favorecia el paulatino asentamiento de una perspectiva institucional de los asuntos publicos. Ello contribuia a fomentar e1 desinterés por la participacion activa, a1 tiempo que los partidos politicos se iban convirtiendo en organizaciones cada vez mas oligarquicas y burocratizadas con escaso debate interno, con frecuencia alejadas de las realidades cotidianas de la poblacion. Por lo demas, en el peculiar proceso hacia 1a democracia en Espafia, la liquidacion del regimen franquista no supuso la desaparicion, ni siquiera un cambio esencial de muchos de los aparatos e instituciones del antiguo Estado, lo que explica que toda la Administracion Publica, e1 aparato judicial, e1 Ejército, la Policia y la empresa publica apenas sufrieran transformaciones en los decisivos afios de la transicion politica, y escasamente reformados 5e incorporaran a1 nuevo regimen democratico. Al terminar la transicion, el proceso de consolidacion democratica tenia que contar necesariamente con todo lo que esta realidad significaba, con el telon de fondo de la crisis economica, de los problemas de vertebracion social y politica de sectores importantes de la 44 sociedad, y de la actividad terrorista. (86—7) The privileged groups of the Franco regime, which Martinez calls the ‘poderes fécticos’—the military, the Church and the business community— maintain their position of influence under the democratic system. Wiarda supports this assertion stating, Many Spanish and Portuguese institutions have hardly been touched, and certainly not purged or reformed, by the democratizing changes following the Portuguese revolution and Franco’s death. These institutions include the armed forces (still wary of civilian politicians wanting to continue to play a ‘moderating’ role), the bureaucracy (where the same persons who served Franco and Salazar are still often in control), the Church (now more moderate but still with strong right— wing elements), and the elite business community (which is still not fully reconciled to democracy). (61) The rapid industrialization, sudden assimilation of a democratic bureaucracy, unbridled modernization and the flood of consumer culture have created an atmosphere in Spain that Felix Ortega calls “dinamismo y desplome" (dynamism and downfall) (44). On one hand, the democratic changes have opened opportunities for gender equality, developed social programs, transformed the educational system and normalized international relations (Alfonso 7). Nevertheless, what has proven detrimental 45 to Spanish democracy’s stability, as Raymond Carr notes, is the velocity with which these changes have occurred, “As with everything else in modern Spain, it was the rate of change that is important” (Carr 100). The metamorphosis of Spain from a closed, agrarian and traditional culture to an open, urban-industrial and modern (or even postmodern) in such a short period of time has brought a series of problems never before seen in Spanish society. In a secularized Spain, abortion, drug addiction, divorce, pornography and prostitution reveal the difficulty of reconciling a sense of morality with a new modern identity. The diminished authority of the police and military combined with Spain’s economic crises have likewise given way to juvenile delinquency, unemployment, urban violence and heightened terrorist threats. As Spanish citizens attempt to define themselves collectively and individually in the new society, the Spanish government itself strives to reconcile its past history of repression with democratic freedoms. Nevertheless, the post—Franco democratic government has revealed political corruption and financial scandals ranging from the clandestine, state—funded GAL (Grupos Anti-terroristas de Liberacion) to the infamous 46 embezzlement scandal involving the ex—director of the Guardia Civil, Luis Roldan. Alfonso Guerra mentions the problems plaguing Spain after ten years of Socialist rule in “La década del cambio,” Ademas, e1 desempleo, con una tasa de poblacion activa aun baja, 1a droga, la vivienda, la admiracion por el dinero y el consumo, las tendencias a la burocratizacion, e1 peligro corporativo, los posibles brotes de xenofobia, la preservacion del medio ambiente, la defensa de la lengua, la necesidad de responsabilidad en la derecha politica economica y de los medios de comunicacion, 1a vertebracion de la sociedad, con la participacion activa de todos los agentes sociales, economicos, culturales, son problemas que habiéndose abordado, aun permanecen. (10) With the disappearance of the strict control and rigid structure of the Franco regime, Spain has been propelled into the contradictions of a society struggling to define its modernity. In other words, Spain’s crisis of “dinamismo y desplome,” corresponds to Michael Berman's notion of modernity expressed in All That Is Solid Melts Into Air, To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the worldeand, at the same time, that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are. [m] It is a paradoxical unity, a unity of disunity: it pours us all into a maelstrom of perpetual disintegration and 47 renewal, of struggle and contradiction, of ambiguity and anguish. (15) Contrasting with the Spain’s euphoria in the early years of the post-Franco era, the uncertainty and skepticism have resulted in a sense of political apathy among the Spanish people commonly known as “desencanto”. In other words, the unfulfilled promises of Spain’s rapid modernization have created a feeling of powerlessness and disillusionment with democratic changes among the middle and lower classes. The sense of “desencanto” arose in Spain toward the end of the 19705 as the country entered economic crisis, then dissipated with the election of Felipe Gonzalez in 1982, yet has re-emerged showing the frustration with Spain’s democratic institutions. José Ramon Montero defines “desencanto” in his article, “Revisiting Democratic Success: Legitimacy and the Meanings of Democracy in Spain,” Towards the end of the 19705, the consolidation of democracy in Spain was marked by the so~~called desencanto (disenchantment)--a stage of disillusionment which followed the frustration of expectations that had been aroused earlier in the transition from authoritarianism. [m] This desencanto was manifested in a variety of symptoms: most commonly, it was linked to demobilization and apathy, negative perceptions of democracy and of democratic institutions, perceived inefficacy and ineficiency of government, frustrated political and 48 economic expectations, a decline in voting turnout, and the growth of antidemocratic attitudes. (143) Thus, the contradictions of this post-Franco identity create a sense of disillusionment with Spain’s new modern, urban democracy as well as a sense of nostalgia among certain members of society for a past in which the problems of democracy did not exist. III. 1968, La Transicién and “Novela Negra” Much like the Mexican Revolution inspired literary production that questioned the country's modern identity, 1968 and the Massacre of Tlatelolco represent a watershed that marked the literary conscience of a new generation. Certain novels after the Mexican Revolution, such as Azuela’s Los de abajo (1915), Guzman’s El aguila y la serpiente (1928), Yafiez’s Al filo del agua (1947), and Rulfo’s Pedro Paramo (1955) are decidedly historical yet artistically innovative. Whereas these authors combined narrative fragmentation with historical introspection, writers from the “Onda” generation of the mid—19605, like José Agustin, Gustavo Sainz and Salvador Elizondo sought a release from history. For example, Agustin’s De perfil (1965) and Inventando que suefio (1968), Sainz’s Gazapo (1965) and Elizondo’s Farabeuf (1965) explore the rebelliousness of a younger generation that embraces 49 counter-culture values of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. Through the manipulation of language—-slang, word games, neologisms—-the youth in Mexico City differentiate themselves from older generations yet affirm their affiliations with their peers. By combining, in many cases, first person narrations with narrative fragmentation, these novels demonstrate the non- conformist and anti-establishment attitude of Mexico’s youth yet also convey their sense of alienation and marginalization (D’Lugo 163-66). Nevertheless, with the events of 1968, the weight of history was brought to bear on Mexican writers once again. Authors in Mexico after 1968 turn inward to examine the contradictions of modern Mexico. Essays, documentary texts, novels, short stories, poetry and even new genres, such as the ‘testimonial’ literature of Elena Poniatowska, all serve as vehicles for authors to “keep Tlatelolco within the Mexican consciousness” (Young 76). From Poniatowska’s La noche de Tlatelolco (1971) and Luis Spota’s La plaza (1971) to René Avilés Fabila’s El gran solitario de palacio (1971) and Fernando del Paso’s Palinurio de México (1980) put Mexican politics and history under a literary microscope. Sara Sefkovich, in México: Pais de ideas, pais de novelas, sees literary 50 production after 1968 as a revival of the political tradition in the Mexican novel, stating, “Tlatelolco revivio la tradicion critica, politica y totalizadora de la novela mexicana, porque obligo a replantearse las preguntas: acomo pudimos ocultar la verdad? gen qué momento nos creimos la mentira del progreso y nos olvidamos de entender a Mexico?” (217)8. Paco Ignacio Taibo II, in a very specific and original way, captures the disillusionment of post—1968 Mexico through his develOpment of “noir” detective fiction which he dubs the “novela neo-policiaca.” Taibo, the founder of the “neo—policiaco” novel, leads a group of writers—-such as Rafael Heredia, Sergio Pitol, Rolo Diez and Juan Hernandez Luna—-in projecting a dystopic view of Mexico City in the years since the Tlatelolco Massacre. By appropriating the North American genre, Taibo combines realism and cynicism with irony and politics to question the institutionalization of crime in Mexico. With Dias de combate (1976), Paco Ignacio Taibo II introduces the detective Héctor Belascoaran Shayne 8 Tlatelolco sparked diverse interpretations of the literary production after 1968 as well. Such critics as Luis Leal see more socially aware literature whereas John Brushwood focuses on experimental tendencies. Theda M. Herz, in “Mexican Fiction in the 19705 and the Critical Controversy on Artistry versus Significance,” gives a good overview of these critical tendencies. 51 who, through the process of the investigation, “hunts down” the truth amid the shadows and lies of Mexico City. Nevertheless, the investigation, doomed from its beginning, invariably links crime to the government, police, big business, and drug traffickers. Since those elements that hold power are also responsible for Mexico’s crime—like the Plaza de Tlatelolco—“truth,” also under their control, mutates and ultimately disappears, dissolving along with it the possibility for justice. Throughout the Belascoaran Shayne series, including such novels as Cosa facil (1977), No habra final feliz (1981) and Regreso a la misma ciudad y bajo la lluvia (1989), Taibo establishes the “neo-policiaca” novel that simultaneously accepts and rejects the tenets of “noir” detective fiction. Viewing literature as a “subversive subversion,” Taibo adheres to the revolutionary politics of 1968 to not only democratize novels in a combination of “serious” and “popular” tendencies or undermine the borders of genre distinction but also to articulate the social function of the writer (Stavans 146). In an interview with Vicente Francisco Torres, Taibo acknowledges that the disenchantment after the Tlatelolco tragedy directly influenced his decision to import the North American genre to Mexico. According to the Mexican 52 author, a genre based on crime fits perfectly into a society characterized by repression, violence and government fraude. Linking this literature to his experiences in 1968, Taibo states, Cuando me planteaba la escritura de una novela policiaca, sabia que por su misma naturaleza, por el hecho de plantear un problema criminal, traerla a México era apasionante, porque la criminalidad estaba frente a nosostros todos los dias. Yo queria hacer una novela social y contar mis experiencias como naufrago del 68; y lo que mas se acercaba a mi punto de vista era la novela policiaca. (Torres 195) The figure of a solitary, cynical detective working against a corrupt political machine within an investigation of “truth” offers Taibo a means to expose the double morality of the PRI as well as sustain the revolutionary attitudes of the student movement of 1968. Taibo’s detective Belascoaran Shayne upholds the ideals of resistance espoused in 1968 by vindicating the utopian ideals of the student movement through his “curiosidad” (curiosity) and “terquedad” (stubbornness). A combination of revolution and utopian vision informs his detective fiction and stem from the effects of 1968 that Taibo understands “como elemento energético, 1a gasolina emocional e historica de una generacion que lucha por el barrio. [m] Mis personajes nunca se mueren del pesimismo 53 sino que después de la derrota retornan. Y creo que la clave es ésa. Yo escribo historias de derrotados pero de derrotados que no se rinden” (Nichols 221). The radical changes in Spanish society also inspire new cultural, ideological and literary manifestations-- much like the events of 1968 in the cultural scene of Mexico——that reflect and question the “Transicion.” As Spaniards progress from euphoria to “desencanto” in a democratic post-Franco Spain, another type of “transicion” occurs simultaneously with the political and social changes. Such texts as Raymond Buckley’s La doble transicion: Politica y literatura en la Espafia de los afios setenta, Samuel Amell’s Literature, the Arts and Democracy: Spain in the Eighties, and Santos Alonso’s La novela de la transicion evaluate the effects of the “Transicion” on the literary sensibilities of Spanish writers and artists. With the disappearance of censorship, Spanish authors abandoned the exhausted experimental, avant-garde novel, known as the “novela ensimismada,” in favor of such new genres as the “novela femenina-feminista,” “novela historica,” the “novela de la memoria,” and the “novela negra.” The crisis, disillusion and uncertainty of the Transicion contribute to the development of the North 54 American model of detective fiction in Spain. The genre known as “novela negra” or “novela policiaca” offered authors a means to tell a story, establish a vision of Spanish society and question the roles of government, police and big business in the new democracy. In his article, “Novela criminal espafiola de la transicion,” Juan Tébar points to the important role of detective fiction in a new, democratic Spain, Cuando en Espafia 5e sospechaba ya la democracia, algunos escritores comenzaron a poder contar historias de escandalos politicos y financieros, de turbias relaciones sexuales que conducian a la muerte, se hizo posible la figura literaria del policia corrupto o torpe [m] y la novela que en otros paises se ha llamado “negra” o simplemente policiaca empezo a construir en castellano su propia tradicion. (4) José Colmeiro agrees that the pervasive sense of crisis during the Transicion served as a determining factor in the emergence of the “novela negra” as a means for examination, evaluation and criticism of a democratic Spain. He states in La novela policiaca espanola: Teoria e historia critica, La situacién de crisis social en el orden econémico, politico y civico de los afios de la transicién, unida a la necesidad colectiva de airear una problematica anteriormente silenciada y ahora en cambio favorecida en los medios de comunicacion tras 1a desaparicion de la censura, 55 originan un campo fértil para la aparicion de una narrativa como el género policiaco negro, que se distingue por su presentacion de los ambientes urbanos donde prevalecen la violencia, el crimen y el miedo, su testimonio critico de la sociedad y su denuncia de los abusos y de la violencia del poder. (213) In a similar vein, Paul Preston, in “Materialism and Serie Negra,” links the emergence of a “noir” poetic with the incorporation of an unregulated capitalism rife with greed and corruption, The transition was a transaction in smoke- filled rooms. Accordingly, with the coming of democracy in Spain, there arrived a world identifiably afflicted with the corruption which is the subject of much American fiction. Spanish writers began to turn to a genre which is popular and pays well, yet also permits them an oblique, deeply moralistic, albeit ultimately impotent, comment on the corruption and materialism of politics, a view no doubt confirmed by the evident materialism of the Socialist elite, with their Thatcherite economics, their beautiful people and the Juan Guerra episode. (13) If the social circumstances after Franco’s death fomented the development of a “noir” vision in Spain, then the revolutionary attitude of 1968 opened the door for new narrative strategies. Just as the movements in Fralnze, Prague and the United States questioned the hegEHnony of the established order, so to did writers, in Spajll and around the world, begin to seek new avenues of 56 understanding language, writing, and discourse. In the preface to La doble transicion, Ramén Buckley notes the ideological transition brought about by the various movements in 1968: El Mayo francés, 1a primavera de Praga y las revueltas—estudiantiles y raciales—de Estados Unidos eran 5610 la manifestacion o epifania de algo que se estaba produciendo a un nivel mucho mas profundo, la revolucion dentro de la revolucion misma, 1a revolucion que ponia fin a una “revolucion” (la marxista) para iniciar una “nueva” revolucion. Esta revolucion fracaso a nivel politico pero triunfo a nivel ideologico. (x) Manuel Vézquez Montalban exemplifies this break with the past when he abandons the exhausted techniques of the avant-garde novel in favor of a return, though with an ironic attitude, to seemingly traditional narrative strategies. In his “periodo subnormal,” Vézquez Montalban created experimental, iconoclastic, metafictional texts—such as Recordando a Dardé (1969), M2fl£§iesto subnormal (1970) and Happy end (1974)—that attacked capitalism’s abuse of mass media and its SUbsequent “subnormalization” of the population “anpitello 194). Nevertheless, facing a “callejon sin salida,” the Spanish author abandons the avant-garde “OVFEL and opts for a combination of politics and COmITulnicability. In La literatura en la construccion de 57 la ciudad democrética, Vézquez Montalban asserts the social importance of writing that communicates with its public: Hacia e1 futuro, la literatura que nosotros conocemos y practicamos escogera probablemente dos grandes caminos: el del ensimismamiento y el de la comunicabilidad. Es decir, una literatura autojustificada, legitimada por un sujeto lector buscador de Singularias (Sic), sin el requerimiento de la sancion del publico, y una literatura que entroncara con la funcion tradicional de lo literario: la relacion escritor—lector. La funcion historica de la literatura no tiene por qué ser cambiar e1 gusto o la historia, aunque puede intentarlo mediante la buena escritura. Pero si alguna funcion social tiene la literatura es la lectura, ese momento de la verdad en que el sujeto emisor se ve definitivamente realizado por el sujeto receptor. (176) Thus, with Tatuaje (1974), vazquez Montalban imports the North American hard-boiled genre to Spain and establishes Pepe Carvalho as a Spanish private eye, a ‘VOyeur’ who observes and analyzes the Spanish transition to democracy. The Spanish author adopts the realism and cynicism of the genre to create “social chronicles” that cormnunicate with a reading public through the mass appeal enui ludic nature of popular literature. Nevertheless, by endOwing texts throughout the Carvalho series with irony, self“reflection, intertexuality, and fragmentation, VéZCDJez Montalban’s appropriation of detective fiction 58 questions cultural codes, defies genre categorization and confuses distinctions between “high” and “low” art. Such novels as Los mares del sur (1979), Asesinato en el comité central (1980), La rosa de Alejandria (1986), and, more recently El premio (1996) utilize the basic frame of a detective’s investigative process to expose the mechanisms that generate meaning as well as portray the crisis of post-Franco Spain. In conclusion, both contemporary Mexico and Spain suffer from a series of economic, political and social crises that stem from an uneven, inconsistent and unequal modernization. High unemployment, urban violence, government corruption, and drug trafficking plague both countries and compromise the legitimacy of their respective democracies. Within this context, such authors as Paco Ignacio Taibo II, in Mexico, and Manuel Vézquez Montalban, in Spain, import the “noir” detective fiction as a means for social criticism. Born during the crises of the 19205 and 305 in North America, this genre’s dark realism provides these authors with a means to chronicle the disenchantment and disillusionment of their respective societies. In this way, both Taibo and Vazquez Montalban explore the promises, failures and 59 crises of development in post—1968 Mexico and post—Franco Spain. 60 CHAPTER II Violation of a genre: Irony, Ideology and the Assimilation of Detective Fiction by Paco Ignacio Taibo II and.Manuel Vazquez Mbntalban The Traditional Detective Story: The Genesis of a Genre The genre known as the “classic” or “traditional” mystery was founded in the middle of the 19U1century by Edgar Allan Poe, with such short stories as “The Murders at the Rue Morgue” and “The Purloined Letter.” Later, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle perfected the art with the investigations of Sherlock Holmes. In the first part of the 20”1century, Agatha Christie continued to popularize mysteries with the adventures of her Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot series. The classic detective story, also known as the “whodunit,” developed in accordance with a bourgeois legal system and the positivist and rationalist attitude of the era which is reflected in the creation of stories that aim to delight the reader with the sleuth’s ability to bring order to confusion. By proceeding from crime to solution by means of the intense scientific lOgic of the investigation, the detective reaffirms the Inorality, legality and legitimacy of the social order. This fiction is typically very straightforward beginning 61 with a crime, almost always a murder, and following the investigation of the sleuth whose primary function is to piece together “the truth”, solve the crime and bring the guilty party to justice by relying on impeccable induction and reason. In other words, the primary narrative importance in the traditional mystery is the investigation and solution of the crime. Structurally, the traditional mystery story depends on a backward construction of events which implies two separate narratives that Donna Bennet describes as “seen” and “unseen” (Bennet 240) and that Tsvetan Todorov calls the “first” and “second” story (Todorov 46). The “unseen” narrative corresponds to the actions of the crime that remain hidden from the reader whereas the “seen” narrative relates the process of reconstruction in which the detective moves from the discovery of the crime to the collection of clues and concludes with the solution to the crime and the revelation of the hidden narrative. The primary narration consists of the detective’s investigation that treats the crime as a Puzzle to be solved and ultimately ends with the disclosure of the “unseen” narration that exposes the murderer, his means and his motives. Dennis Porter maintains that the appeal of detective fiction centers on 62 IIIIIIIIII--_____ the reader’s desire to know the solution of the crime, yet the narrative itself creates suspense by simultaneously promoting and impeding the detective’s investigation. In Porter’s words, “The art of narrative is the art of misleading” (33). He enumerates five devices used in detective novels for the purpose of diverting the direction of the narration away from the final solution: 1) “peripeteia”—-paralle1 investigations that rival the detective’s inquiry; 2) the antidetective— —blocking figures such as the criminal, uncooperative witnesses, and false suspects; 3) the “Taciturn Great Detective” whose thought processes are not revealed to the reader; 4) false clues mixed with true clues that confuse the path of investigation and 5) the narrator himself who is normally the detective’s assistant yet lacks the mental acumen of the investigator and leads the reader down false paths because of his own misinterpretations. Such assistants as the archetypal Watson or the unnamed narrator in Poe’s “The Murders at the Rue Morgue” possess a dual function in that they both Outline the ratiocinative steps the detective follows yet manipulate and mislead the reader through their own inability to follow the scientific logic of the lnvestigation. Their structural responsibility lies in 63 I'll-IIIl-—____ narrating the progress of the investigation yet postponing the solution. Since the narrative structure hinges on the process of investigation, the obvious central figure is the detective. With the appearance of C. Auguste Dupin in “The Murders at the Rue Morgue,” Edgar Allan Poe establishes the figure of the amateur sleuth who utilizes his high powers of reason to reconstruct a crime through a narration characterized by its backward motion. Utilizing an intense scientific approach, Dupin is able to glean profound details from the most casual facts in order to reconstruct not only actions but thoughts as well. Nevertheless, the detective's rational thought and scientific curiosity is combined with a gothic air of poetic intuition that allows him to both analyze and create in order to reach the solution. In “The Murders at the Rue Morgue,” the detective derides the chief of police for his inability to exploit both reason and creativity in his investigative techniques, The results attained by them are not unfrequently (sic) surprising, but, for the most part, are brought about by simple diligence and activity. When these qualities are unavailing, their schemes fail. Vidocq, for example, was a good guesser, and a persevering man. But, without educated thought, he erred continually by the very intensity of his 64 investigations. He impaired his vision by holding the object too close. He might see, perhaps, one or two points with unusual clearness, but in so doing he, necessarily lost sight of the matter as a whole. Thus there is such a thing as being too profound. Truth is not always in a well. In fact, as regards the more important knowledge, I do believe that she is invariably superficial. The depth lies in the valleys where we seek her, and not upon the mountain-tops where she is found. (486) The detective, therefore, approaches seemingly inexplicable circumstances that others have failed to understand and applies positivism, reason and deduction as well as genius, creativity and intuition to return the world from a state of disorder to one of order. This combination of traits continues in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective Sherlock Holmes, the archetypal amateur problem—solver. Holmes often refers to himself as a “consulting detective” to whom Scotland Yard comes when faced with a complex mystery that offers no foreseeable Solution. Early in the first Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, the detective informs his new assistant Watson, Well, I have a trade of my own. I suppose I am the only one in the world. I'm a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is. Here in London we have lots of government detectives and lots of private ones. When these fellows are at fault, they come to me, and I manage to put them on the right scent. They lay all the evidence before me, and I 65 am generally able, by the help of my knowledge of the history of crime, to set them straight (23). During a metafictional moment in The Sign of Four Holmes denounces Poe’s Dupin as too showy and superficial invoking instead a colder approach to criminal investigation, “Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner” (137). A few pages later he establishes his credo: “Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth” (139). By combining the ideals of Comte’s positivism with Darwin's scientific vision, Holmes emerges as a super-sleuth whose mind absorbs clues and facts that, when woven into a logical tapestry, enunciate an interpretation leading to the solution of the mystery and ending with the guilty party’s detainment by the authorities. The tradition of Dupin and Holmes is carried on in the classic detective story by other detectives such as Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, Dorothy Sayer’s Lord Peter Wimsey and the American 8.8. Van Dine's Philo Vance. All of these detectives elaborate investigations that delve little into the social, political or economic Circumstances surrounding the crime, focusing instead on the details and minutia of the murder to be solved. 66 ¥ Obviously, the presence of the detective is meaningless without the existence of a victim and a murderer both of whom represent a disruption in society’s aristocratic class order. To avoid any emotional attachments with the reader and to create a number of suspects, normally the victim is endowed with some hidden secret that violates the social or ethical codes of British society. George Grella points to several possibilities for the victim such as a blocking character who opposes the natural joining of a young couple, the negative father or mother who makes an unfair will, the deceitful mate, a gentleman with a dark and unacceptable secret, or simply a character whose flaw lies in their un—English status as an outsider (“The Formal Detective Novel” 96—98). The victim, in other words, possesses a certain amount of guilt that demands their expulsion from society owing to some social or ethical violation. W.H. Auden affirms the ambiguous status of the victim stating, “The victim has to satisfy two contradictory requirements. He has to involve everyone in suspicion, Which requires that he be a bad character; and he has to make everyone feel guilty, which requires that he be a 900d character” (18). Auden goes on to state that the murderer is a purely negative creation who is a “rebel 67 _ who claims the right to be omnipotent” (19). In this sense, the murderer, like the victim, is an outsider who, on one hand, has attempted to infiltrate the social order and has attempted to undermine and destroy its harmony. Grella, however, diverts from Auden’s totalizing condemnation of the murderer stating, The murderer, though technically a criminal, is more interesting than his victim and consequently occupies an ambivalent position. On the one hand, he has removed an obstacle, destroyed a rotter posing as a gentleman, or expelled a social evil. On the other hand, he has committed the gravest of human crime, an offense against both society and God, and has placed the other members of his group under suspicion. In short, he has created a complication which demands his own dismissal. Because he is intelligent enough to commit an ingenious crime and elude detection for most of the novel, he earns admiration. However, since ‘good’ (i.e. socially valuable) people cannot permanently suffer in comedy, the murderer must turn out somehow to be undesirable himself. Usually the culprit is a more acceptable person than his victim, because he comprehends the elaborate social ritual well enough to pose as an innocent. (98) The presence and status of both murderer and victim underscore the disrupted harmony of society’s order and the urgent need for the detective to re—establish the State of grace through his own affiliation with the Status quo, morality and official justice. In this sense, the detective’s progression from mystery to 68 ¥ solution corresponds to an effort to legitimize the moral superiority and correctness of the ruling bourgeois order. Herein lies the ideology of the traditional detective novel that reinforces the hegemony of the established order. Ideology, according to Roland Barthes in 51;, begins with words and language that create the illusion of reality through their utterances: Structurally, the existence of two supposedly different systems—denotation and connotation—enables the text to operate like a game, each system referring to the other according to the requirements of a certain illusion. [m] Doesn’t a sentence, whatever meaning it releases, subsequent to its utterance, it would seem, appear to be telling us something simple, literal, primitive: something true? (9) In Mythologies, Barthes refers to this “illusion” as myth, a symplified, purified vision of a world purged of its contradictions, In passing from history to nature, myth acts economically: it abolishes the complexity of human acts, it gives them the simplicity of essences, it does away with all dialectics, with any going back beyond what is immediately visible, it organizes a world which is without contradictions because it is without depth, a world wide open and wallowing in the evident, it establishes a blissful clarity: things appear to mean something by themselves. (143) 69 Antonio Gramsci, however, politicizes the notion of ideology connecting it with hegemony. By controlling the arts, specifically popular arts, the elite classes can mold the collective consciousness and frame a sense of national identity. Nevertheless, key to Gramsci’s understanding of hegemony is the means by which the established order secures the consent of the underclass, Ultimately, it is always a question of ‘rationalism’ versus the individual will. Therefore, coercion is not the issue but whether we are dealing with an authentic rationalism, a real functionalism, or with an act of the will. This is all. Coercion is such only for those who reject it, not for those who accept it. If it goes hand in hand with the development of the social forces, it is not coercion but the ‘revelation’ of cultural truth obtained by an accelerated method. (Selections from Cultural Writings 130) Culture, therefore, becomes the means by which the bourgeois order imposes its ideology and, consequently, its hegemony. Subsequently, such cultural theorists as Louis Althusser have analyzed the means by which power is controlled and “identity” is fixed through culture. In the essay “Ideology and Ideological State Aparatuses,” Althusser defines ideology as the “system of the ideas and representations which dominate the mind of a man or a social group” (158). These ideas, Althusser maintains, present the means for the State Apparatus to control the 70 ¥ collective consciousness through the interpenetration of illusion and allusion. Although they seem to convey “truths” about the world, ideologies are imaginary yet have an effect in reality, While admitting that they do not correspond to reality, i.e. that they constitute an illusion, we admit that they do make an allusion to reality, and that they need only be ‘interpreted’ to discover the reality of the world beyond their imaginary representation of that world (ideology=illusion/allusion). (162) Gary Hoppenstand, in In Search of the Paper Tiger, asserts that formula fiction, like the traditional mynstery genre, acts prescriptively affecting soczialization processes by fixing accepted human behavior tjirwough its strict narrative structure: Formula fiction, then, is not fantasy or escapism, but an active and effective method for maintaining the mechanisms of social control. It is, in part, a process by which reality is imposed on members of society. Formula fiction is first and foremost a language system. Language is the product of human invention over time. Formulaic stories, as a specific development of the English language, possess an objective reality for their readers with prescribed texts for human action. These stories are vehicles for discourse and understanding of mores and norms, and of the natural world. They offer ready-made niches for the individual to inhabit. (20) 71 The “whodunit,” therefore, projects an ideology that upholds the moral legitimacy and, consequently, hegemony of the established order. As Dennis Porter asserts, The deep ideological constant of the genre, therefore, is built into the action of the investigation. The classic structuring question is always “Whodunit” and secondarily, how will justice be done. In the beginning of a detective story is a crime that implies both a villain and a victim of villainy, but the action itself always focuses on the acts of a hero who is summoned in order to pursue and punish the villain and, wherever possible, to rescue the victim and restore the status quo ante as well. [m] The point of View adopted is always that of the detective, which is to say, of the police, however much of an amateur the investigator may appear to be. In a detective story the moral legitimacy of the detective’s role is never in doubt. (Porter 125) Both the location of the murder as well as the idearltity of who committed the crime accentuate the idescxlogical belief of an inherent goodness in society thaft. is temporarily disrupted by the intrusion of OUt43:Lders. The ‘locked room’ that appears in Poe’s “The Mur