El arte de irse por las ramas: la digresión en La novela luminosa de Mario Levrero

Abstract

This article examines the use of digression in La novela luminosa (2005), by the Uruguayan writer Mario Levrero, as a narrative strategy that constantly suspends and displaces the main story. On the border between fiction and diary, Levrero's discourse tends to dialogue with an incomplete novel that he must finish after obtaining a Guggenheim Fellowship. Considering digression also as a transgressive practice aimed at questioning the construction of discourse itself, I analyze how in his daily records the detours and wanderings introduced by this technique define a hybrid aesthetic. Furthermore, I focus on the subversive dimension of digression and how, like desire, it tends to destabilize the order of the story.