El enigma de las montañas reales: propuesta narrativa de David Toscana

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to reflect on some features of David Toscana’s novel Los puentes de Königsberg. In this contribution by the Northern Mexican writer there are unusual parallelisms between different realities of the cities of Monterrey (Mexico) and Königsberg (East Prussia), which become the basis of the structure of the novel. In this framework the author situates certain eccentric characters, providing them with a “double life”, a real Mexican one and an imaginary East-Prussian one, in order to contrast the cities and validate the superiority of Königsberg, the actual protagonist of the novel. Toscana uses selected criteria, such as scientific and cultural contributions by the cities, their different historical fates, and the moral attitudes of their inhabitants towards discrimination, war crimes and gender violence, which implies a severe critique of Monterrey’s society. The set of parallelisms between the cities is totally convincing as a fictional structure and emphasizes the most prominent quality of Toscana’s analysed prose.

Keywords

• Los puentes de Königsberg
• David Toscana
• novel structure
• Monterrey
• Königsberg
• narrative of Northern Mexico