Abstract
Robinson Crusoe, the extraordinary ship-wrecked protagonist of Defoe’s novel, is actually a modern transfiguration of the old myth of the “savage man,” a myth that this article revisits. Robinson is brought by Defoe into a savage existence because the author intends to demonstrate that it is possible to defeat savagery in one’s own land, turning Robinson into the virtuous and modern homo economicus. But there are other Robinsons that challenge the original: that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the urban Robinson, conceived in novelistic form by Antonio Muñoz Molina. Both serve as models for my reading of Felipe Delgado as a novel that exemplifies the marginal Robinson. As happens to some of the characters in Antonio Muñoz Molina’s novels, the Bolivian poet and novelist Jaime Saenz creates an urban, marginalized and eccentric Robinson that, unlike the previous mentioned, without a rational goal motivating him, secretly celebrates his incurable shipwrecks. Felipe is the Robinson born out of the lucid necessity of alcohol. Clairvoyant and repentant of his future, he is born for the night, a space and time that permits him to delve into the heart of the memory of his city.
Highlights
Robinson Crusoe, the extraordinary ship-wrecked protagonist of Defoe’s novel, is a modern transfiguration of the old myth of the “savage man,” a myth that this article revisits
Robinson is brought by Defoe into a savage existence because the author intends to demonstrate that it is possible to defeat savagery in one’s own land, turning Robinson into the virtuous and modern homo economicus
There are other Robinsons that challenge the original: that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the urban Robinson, conceived in novelistic form by Antonio Muñoz Molina. Both serve as models for my reading of Felipe Delgado as a novel that exemplifies the marginal Robinson
Summary
Un hombre de veintiseis años, nace en la ciudad de La Paz, el año de 1903. Criado en el hogar de una familia de clase media alta, no llega a conocer a su madre porque ella muere en el momento del parto. En este su caminar se le aparece repentina y repetidamente la figura del pestilente se convierte repentinamente en un lugar extraño, desagradable, asediado por la ansiedad y el peligro, en el que los seres humanos se encuentran completamente desorientados.Como sucede en la obra de Kafka, Saenz estaría de acuerdo en afirmar que no es el miedo a la muerte lo que provoca una situación grotesca entre nosotros, sino la ansiedad acerca de la vida. Felipe transita como si fuese ese Robinson peludo de los grabados antiguos, solo en las calles como en una isla donde no viviera nadie más, tropezándose con un fantasma envuelto en harapos que hace sus necesidades en zaguanes, marcando su territorio por la intensidad del hedor que despide. Me concentro en dos pasajes de la novela de Saenz para explorar la idea de que, ni funcional, ni disfuncional, el comportamiento de Delgado es una suerte de reflexión humana de la obversión lógica que parodia la modernidad, creando así un “grotesco jubiloso” que explico al final del trabajo
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