Los recuerdos del porvenir english
Los recuerdos del porvenir
Un relato lleno de imágenes maravillosas —un vestido rojo encaminándose al cementerio, una fiesta desdichada y siniestra…—, de frases preciosas — “Debajo de la almohada guardaba la risa de Nicolás”, “Elvira tomaba precauciones antes de irse a la cama: le daba miedo su cara dormida”—, de frases terribles —“Otra mañana pasaba inadvertida para los hombres que bebían café antes de ir a organizar más muertes” —, de grandes y tristes verdades — “La compasión abolió al tiempo remoto que eran sus padres, lo volvió cuidadoso con sus semejantes y le quitó la última posibilidad de eficacia” —, de gritos desgarradores —“¡Yo no quepo en este cuerpo!”, “¿Por qué había de matar siempre a lo que amaba?”—.
La maravilla empezó con el narrador, el espíritu del pueblo de Ixtepec, del lugar y de sus gentes, ambos al tiempo, de las gentes que en él vivieron, de las que ahora viven y de las que vivirán en un futuro eterno y de las que ya tenía memoria, “solo soy memoria y la memoria que de mí se tenga.”
“Hay días como hoy en los que recordarme me da pena. Quisiera no tener memoria o convertirme en el piadoso polvo para escapar a la condena de mirarme.”No se tiene en gran estima este espíritu narrador, por muy preciosa y precisa que sea la lírica con la que nos cuenta lo que sucedió en Ixtepec allá por el tiempo de los cristeros.
“Llegaron las mujeres vendiendo chalupitas y aguas frescas; nosotros comemos antojitos, mientras los gobernantes patriotas nos fusilan.”Un pueblo sometido, humillad
Recollections of Things to Come
by Elena Garro
THE LITERARY WORK
A novel set in Mexico in the 1920s; published in Spanish (as Los recuerdos del porvenir in 1963, in English in 1969.
SYNOPSIS
A small town in southern Mexico is gradually decimated by the forces of revolution and rebellion.
Events in History at the Time the Novel Takes Place
The Novel in Focus
Events in History at the Time the Novel Was Written
For More Information
Elena Garro (1920-98) was born in Puebla, Mexico, to a Mexican mother and a Spanish father, but she spent most of her childhood in the nearby southern state of Guerrero. As a young woman she worked briefly as a reporter and took on the cause of society’s poor and marginalized. Garro showed particular concern for Mexico’s Indian population and, for one notable story, even had herself incarcerated in a women’s prison in order to expose the substandard living conditions endured by the inmates. In 1937 Garro married the Mexican writer and diplomat Octavio Paz, with whom she spent much of the 1940s and 1950s abroad, traveling through Europe and the United States. It was sometime around 1950, while weathering an illness in Switzerland, that Garro wrote Recollections of Things to Come. Set after the Mexican Revolution of the 1910s and during the Cristero rebellion, the novel draws on history as well as myth, distinguishing itself especially in its portrayal of women caught in the circumstances of the era.
Events in History at the Time the Novel Takes Place
The Porfinato
In the first part of Recollections of Things to Come, the people of the southern Mexican town of Ixtepec debate and reconsider the long series of intrigues, assassinations, and betrayals that resulted from the 1910 overthrow of president Porfirio Díaz, an event that signaled the formal beginning of the Mexican Revolution. The predicaments of the townspeople (caught in the murderous grip of a northern general) and of the agrarian Indians (who are hanged Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. La obra emblematica de una de nuestras escritoras canonicas, acompanada de un dossier critico. Ixtepec es un pequeno poblado que ha sobrevivido los embates de la violenta presencia de las tropas de los ejercitos revolucionarios enfrentados en una lucha fratricida y sin tregua. Sus pobladores, desencantados porque la revolucion no les llevo justicia ni progreso, llevan una vida anodina y nostalgica que se fractura otra vez ante un nuevo conicto armado, la Guerra Cristera, que promete proximas desgracias. Las autoridades han designado al general Francisco Rosas para que se haga cargo de mantener el orden y haga cumplir las disposiciones que el gobierno central disponga, en especial lo relativo al cese del culto religioso. Las vidas del general Rosas, asi como las de sus colaboradores mas cercanos y las de sus amantes, las de las prostitutas, beatas, perros callejeros, locos y de los miembros mas conocidos de las familias pudientes de Ixtepec, se veran mezcladas y llevadas a un destino tragico, donde no tienen cabida ni la ilusion ni el amor. Esta obra, considerada por muchos dentro de la corriente del realismo magico, sustenta la fuerza de la narracion en recursos poeticos que, lejos de confundir, potencian la trama; contada a traves de varias voces, nos muestra un complejo entramado de planos narrativos entretejidos por la voz petrea y sombria de los pobladores de Ixtepec, dejando al descubierto sus mas intimos y oscuros deseos.ENGLISH DESCRIPTIONThe emblematic work of one of Mexicos canonical writers, accompanied by a critical analysis. Ixtepec is a small village that has survived the battering of the violent presence of revolutionary troops pitted against each other in a ceaseless, fratricidal fight. Its residents, disillusioned because the revolution brought them neither justice nor progress, lead dull, nostalgic lives that are fractured again in the face of a new armed conflict, the Cristero War, which promises further mi Home » Mexico » Elena Garro » Los recuerdos del porvenir (Recollections of Things to Come) Surprisingly enough, this novel has been translated into English and is in print in both Spanish and English. Despite that it is little known outside Mexico, which is very sad as it really is a first-class novel, using touches of magic realism four years before Cien Años de Soledad (One Hundred Years Of Solitude) was published and showing that women, particularly Mexican women, were just as capable as men in that area. The book was actually written in 1950, while Garro was convalescing from a long illness in Switzerland, but it was not published till 1963. It tells the story of a small town in the South of Mexico called Ixtepec during the Cristero War, a counter-revolution against the Mexican government, led, as the name implies, by Catholics who felt persecuted by the anticlericalist Mexican government. Ixtepec, presumably based on Iguala, where Garro lived, has been occupied by the army, under General Francisco Rosas. The rule of Rosas and his men is despotic. The inhabitants often go out in the morning and find men hanging from the trees, the excuse being that they were rebels or rustlers but all too often they are poor Indians who resisted the theft of their land. Garro was very much opposed to the exploitation of the native population and the theft of their land and her concern for them can be seen by the brutally racist treatment they receive in this book. Many of the characters, and not just the army, consider them less than human and feel they are inherently dishonest and shiftless and that harsh treatment is what they deserve. But it is not only the Indians who are victims. One young woman is abducted purely for the pleasure of one of Rosas’ officers. There is a brothel in town, whose main if not only customers are the soldiers. The unusual nature of the novel can be seen from the v Elena Garro: Los recuerdos del porvenir (Recollections of Things to Come)