Abstract
Grande Sertão: Veredas (João Guimarães Rosa, Brazil, 1956) and Pedro Páramo (Juan Rulfo, Mexico, 1955), despite myriad differences, both portray regions that are both experiential and spatial, and do so through the translation of those regions into experiential, spatial narratives. In both works, the telluric spaces of the Brazilian sertão and the Mexican llano become narrative ones in threefold translation: (1) their narratives are spatially forged through temporal ambiguity, (2) the novels are participatory spaces, inviting reader collaboration through bridges and lacunae, and (3) the narratives’ paradoxes and unreliability reflect their translated regions’ spatial complexity. These regions are geographically placed, culturally inscribed, and spiritually felt: Grande Sertão: Veredas’ sertão is an immanent transcendence, and Pedro Páramo’s Comala, an immanent history of cruelty. Traditionally celebrated for being innovative despite being regional, these novels are, in fact, innovative in their relationship to their regions. Through parallel innovations in spatiality, these works invigorate their readers’ connections to the land as both its interlocutors and its dwellers.
Resumo
Abstract
Grande Sertão: Veredas (João Guimarães Rosa, Brazil, 1956) and Pedro Páramo (Juan Rulfo, Mexico, 1955), despite myriad differences, both portray regions that are both experiential and spatial, and do so through the translation of those regions into experiential, spatial narratives. In both works, the telluric spaces of the Brazilian sertão and the Mexican llano become narrative ones in threefold translation: (1) their narratives are spatially forged through temporal ambiguity, (2) the novels are participatory spaces, inviting reader collaboration through bridges and lacunae, and (3) the narratives’ paradoxes and unreliability reflect their translated regions’ spatial complexity. These regions are geographically placed, culturally inscribed, and spiritually felt: Grande Sertão: Veredas’ sertão is an immanent transcendence, and Pedro Páramo’s Comala, an immanent history of cruelty. Traditionally celebrated for being innovative despite being regional, these novels are, in fact, innovative in their relationship to their regions. Through parallel innovations in spatiality, these works invigorate their readers’ connections to the land as both its interlocutors and its dwellers.
- © 2016 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
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