Estudios de Teoría Literaria (Mar 2017)
La aventura de los bustos de Eva by Carlos Gamerro: Initiatory trip without initiation or Che lives (in a country)
Abstract
Our study proposes a critical approach to La aventura de los bustos de Eva (The Adventure of the Busts of Eva, 2004), the fourth novel by Argentinian writer Carlos Gamerro, in light of the othernesses born to the Justicialist Nationalist Movement around the mid-1970s. As we understand it, the historical-literary revision put forward by this author may be spotlighted not only through his unique use of a humorous register, but also through an analysis focusing on the configuration of the Revolutionary Tendency centered around the taxonomy of an “us” and a “them” outlined by Eva Perón in Mi mensaje (My Message, 1952). Starting from that point, we will follow the “initiation journey with no initiation” made by Ernesto Marroné, the protagonist of the novel diptych made up of La aventura... and Un yuppie en la columna del Che Guevara (A Yuppie at the Column of Che Guevara, 2011). We will particularly stop by the character’s subjective universe and his patent tension between two legacies, a biological one and an adoptive one, so as to look at possible convergences and/or divergences of literate vs illiterate, or high-brow vs low-brow, cultural paradigms (which in our country have come to be matched to different racial modalities and political projects), on this journey that will go through epiphany, revelation, deception, and treason.
