Belonging Beyond Borders by Annik Bilodeau

Abstract

Reviewed by: Belonging Beyond Borders by Annik Bilodeau Maia Fernández Lamarque Bilodeau, Annik. Belonging Beyond Borders. U of Calgary P, 2021. Pp. 254. ISBN 978-77385-159-4. Bilodeau’s recent publication, Belonging Beyond Borders (2021), aligns with the current educational trends in US universities on multiculturalism and globalization, that proposes these aspects of higher education as part of their academic mission and values. [End Page 307] Belonging Beyond Borders’ central theme is cosmopolitanism as an aesthetic in Latin American literature. The book is divided in 3 major parts where Bilodeau discusses the role of transculturation cosmopolitism and globalism in three Latin American authors: Elena Poniatowska, Mario Vargas Llosa and Jorge Volpi. The introduction gives an overview of cosmopolitanism and its two-sided conceptualization as an “imperial connotation” and as a more traditional notion of pluralism. The author embraces the most recent articulation of the term as “rooted cosmopolitanism” in the context of Latin American culture. For Bilodeau, decoloniality and rooted cosmopolitanism are not purely philosophical or theoretical but are, in fact, practices. As shown in the analyses of the works of these three prominent writers, cosmopolitanism is the engagement with your own identity and locality but at the same time the creation of a dialog and links with the world community. Chapter 1 examines Elena Poniatowska’s novel La flor de lis (1988) and the parallelism with Poniatowska’s own biography in the center of conscientious cosmopolitanism. The main character in La flor de lis is also born in Europe as Poniatowska herself and moves to Mexico as an adolescent. The author articulates three main ideas in this chapter: transculturation, acculturation and hybridism in the context of Latin American culture. Bilodeau bases her arguments upon the theoretical ideas of Fernando Ortiz, Octavio Paz and N. García Canclini. Hybridism, for example, is discussed in this chapter as the mixture of cultures and byproduct of colonialism according to Octavio Paz, and the combination of elite and popular cultures, to Canclini. Bilodeau affirms that through these concepts engrained in the history and evolution of Mexico and its relationship with Europe, flor de lis represents “the rejection of cosmopolitanism and the adoption of cultural hybridity” (61). Chapter 2 examines another “cosmopolitan” author, Mario Vargas Llosa. As in chapter 1, Bilodeau recounts and compares Vargas Llosa’s life and ideological transformation to that of his characters. The analysis is made between two central notions: political and aesthetic cosmopolitanism. The analysis of Flora Tristán and grandson artist Paul Gauguin, main characters in El paraíso en la otra esquina (2003), and Roger Casement’s protagonist in El sueño del celta (2010), as two examples of Vargas Llosa’s variations of cosmopolitism, are the axis of the chapter. The author compares Tristán’s cosmopolitanism and her commitment and engagement with other experiences and cultures around the world along with her utopian views as unattainable and chimerical. Gauguin’s cosmopolitanism, argues Bilodeau, is also related to his utopian search for artistic inspiration but falls into his individualistic quest for the unreachable ultimate aesthetic form. At the same time, Gauguin, unlike his grandmother’s altruistic views of humanity, is anti-cosmopolitan when he superposes his own hedonistic sexual pleasures unto others needs and/or health. Both characters fail in their attempt to reach their utopia, asserts Bilodeau. In El sueño del celta, the character contains the ambiguity of being cosmopolitan but also a nationalist. Nationalism and patriotism are two terms that the author asserts are ingrained in this character and in Vargas Llosa himself. In his Nobel Prize Literature speech in 2010, Vargas Llosa made it explicit that the former is negative, abstruse, the root of racism and other social maladies. The latter, patriotism, on the other hand, only enriches our experience as humans. In the third and most extensive chapter, Bilodeau analyzes Mexican author Jorge Volpi’s two novels: El fin de la locura (2003) y No será la tierra (2006) in the context of “global novels.” Again, the author relates Volpi’s personal experiences as a citizen of the world with his approach to literature. Volpi has been criticized for being not “Mexican enough” since his literary universe depicts characters...