does become pregnant and the novelnends with an explosion ofblood from thenSorcerer’s bed which presumably signalsnthe birth.n1 he Sorcerer is not simply a run-ofthe-millnvillain. His gustatory pleasuresninclude eating newborn infants servednwith apples in their mouths and havingnhis eunuch aide urinate in his mouth. Henhas a penchant for dismemberment. Hensaves a sawed-ofif foot as a trophy, decapitatesndrovwied bodies, and amputates anyoung woman’s finger because he happensnto need one to fijrther his plans. Hentakes pride in his torture skills andndreams of new and refined methods. Hisnmanual of torture, used by the militaryngovernment, was the product of muchnexperience, beginning in his youth withnthe unimaginative practice of dabbingnthe victim with honey and staking him tonan anthill. For sexual thrills he likes tonlash maidens with a leather whip callednthe lizard’s tail, and he delights innsodomy. He takes visual pleasure innpecked skulls and seeing brains fly whenna bullet enters a human head. As a boy henwatched contentedly as a body wasneaten by scavengers, a body whichnhappened to be his father’s. He daydreamsnof such things as using a straw tonsip blood from a maiden’s jugular,nwrenching the bowels from his enemies,nand inventing a solution that wouldndissolve uteri, thereby solving thenoverpopulation problem and makingnwar a pleasure, not a necessity. Valenzuelanhas a fertile imagination and noncompunctions when it comes to horrors,nsadomasochism, and scatology.nThe military leaders are as evil as thenSorcerer. They simply lack his genius fornwickedness. He has weapons they lack,nweapons of the spirit. For this reasonnthey try to use him in thefr exploitationnof superstition. Like the Sorcerer, theynabhor doubt: “Doubt has to be eradicatednby decree. There’s no room forndoubt in history.” The plan for “NationalnReconstruction” requires that “the authoritarianntradition” and martial valuesnbe infiised into all areas of national life.nThe generals find inflation and undernourishmentndesirable as a means ofnsubjugating the people. In addition tontraflBcking in cocaine, they raise taxes innorder to buy new weapons, which pleasenthem the way toys please little boys.nThey make people disappear, torturenbabies in front of their parents to makenthe parents confess, and beat pregnantnwomen until they miscarry. The dustnjacket refers to this portrait of thengenerals as “piercingly accurate.”nThe author thrusts herself into thenstory in the second of its three parts,nwhich begins, “I, Luisa Valenzuela, swearnby these writings that I will try to donsomething about all this, become involvednas much as possible, plunge innhead-first, aware of how little can bendone but with a desfre to handle at leastna smaU thread and assume responsibilitynfor the story.” She says the Sorcerer isnwriting a novel that superimposes itselfnon hers and is capable of nuUifying it. Shenfeels her story slipping from her hands,ntaken over by him. This begins a patternnof clever narrative games in which thenauthor is absorbed into the events of hernown story. She is the creator of it and yetnunable to control it. She self-consciouslynmentions that she is inventing thisnbiography, but then claims that thennnSorcerer is taking control and doing thenwriting: “There’s an affinity in the voicenas I narrate him, sometimes our pages arenindistinguishable.” Perhaps she wouldnhave us believe that the Sorcerer representsna dark side in aU of us. In any case,nshe wonders why fiction and reality getnso entwined within her, or at least withinnher writing, why she can’t keep themnseparate. She is alarmed that she mustncompete with the Sorcerer in telling thenstory because he invents more skillfiiUy.nShe considers killing him off with anstroke of the pen but cannot bringnherself to do it: “He’s our reverse face,nthe dark side of our struggle. Thenarouser. I couldn’t kill him if I wanted to,nand I hate him for that reason, too.”nValenzuela is obviously more interestednin experimenting with narrativenthan in making a telling criticism ofnpolitical corruption and social injustice.nShe is fescinated with what can happennwhen the barrier between fiction andnreality is eliminated and when meaningnin both realms becomes indeterminate.nShe is clearly influenced by radical versionsnof contemporary literary theory.nApparently as a way of tipping us offnabout this she sprinkles a couple of shortnchapters with terms from recent criticaln11nDecember 1984n
January 1975July 26, 2022By The Archive
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