Freddy Lambert as "Narractor" of "Cambio de Piel"

Abstract

The fact that Freddy Lambert is really a narractor and not simply a narrator seems to trigger a chain reaction within the novel, one which affects both the novel's structure and language. As important as the internal reaction itself is the effect which this interaction produces on the reader. Principally because of the narrative role which Freddy Lambert assumes, the notion of reader as passive observer is challenged and denied. Freddy Lambert may be designated a narractor because of his ambiguous position in the novel. He is a seemingly omniscient, moralizing voice who can reveal hidden aspects of the characters' lives. Simultaneously he is a person who sees and who is seen by the characters: a person who involves himself in their fate in an active way. Freddy the narrator is also an actor. Moreover, he is a narractor who is concerned as much about his own personal search for meaning as he is with relating the events in the lives of his characters. This duality contributes to a fragmentation of structure and a difficulty of language which Freddy is unable or unwilling to clarify. Consequently, the reader's function must be an active one. Such active and creative participation is provoked both by the novel's difficulty and by the sense that the work is communicating an experience whose richness requires stylistic complexity. The central action of this difficult novel involves four characters: Javier, a university professor; Elizabeth, Javier's wife (an American Jewess); Franz, Elizabeth's lover; and Isabel, Javier's lover. This happy foursome is on their way from Mexico City to the coast when they are forced to make an unscheduled stop in Cholula because of car trouble. The reader is permitted to observe interaction among the four on the way to Cholua and is also given insight into their pasts. Even before the plot becomes clear, however, the importance of the narrator in its formation is apparent. From the beginning of Cambio de piel one is aware that Freddy Lambert is not a traditional narrator limiting his role in any traditional way. In the novel's first part, which describes the arrival of the four principal characters in Cholula, the narrator is physically present and comments on the reactions of both Elizabeth and Isabel to him: T'i, Elizabeth, te hiciste la disimulada cuando pasaste junto a mi, pero t-6, Isabel, te detuviste, nerviosa, y lo bueno es que nadie se fij6... (p. 17) From this scene the reader assumes that the narrator is a character and, therefore, will limit himself to describing only what a character can describe. As the second part of the novel begins, however, the scene which the narrator describes is the hotel room of Eliza-