Some Aspects of the Contemporary Novel of Ecuador

Abstract

ditions without adequate food, shelter or medical care, the political boss supported the rich landowners, and the government, in the name of greater production, encouraged the landowners to produce by whatever means. The contrasts between wealth and poverty were black enough, but the authors, reacting violently to the extreme conservatism of their country, sought to improve upon the facts and offered revolution as an answer. Almost all the Ecuadorian novelists were communists or socialists seeking to do away with the quasi-feudal system of their country, and inspired by La Reforma Universitaria,1 they issued manifestoes calling upon the students to take part in the revolution in order to realize a platform of social betterment. The young novelists admired Manuel Gonzalez Prada as an anti-Catholic defender of the Indian, saw a reflection of Ecuadorian exploitation in Jos6 Eustasio Rivera's work, and were impressed by Alcides Arguedas and Mariano Azuela for their treatment of the Indian and revolt. Jose Vasconcelos stimulated the new novelists when he visited Ecuador in 1929, and one of them, Alfredo Pareja y Diez Canseco, claimed: Habia ejercido en mi coraz6n de 18 afios una influencia definitiva.2 But of all Spanish American influences, that of Jos6 Carlos Mariategui was the most important. His literary journal Amauta, started in 1926, which dealt also with the redemption of the Indian, influenced contemporary Ecuadorian reviews like Savia and America, and his Siete ensayos de interpretacidn de la realidad peruana, 1928, which insisted on the Indian's need for socialism, left a lasting impression on the Ecuadorian novelists who considered him, as Benjamin Carri6n says: Dentro de nuestra generaci6n, el hombre apasionado y fuerte.3 The young Ecuadorian writers accepted ideas from heterogeneous sources, many of them from older literary periods. Frank Norris' Octopus contains scenes almost duplicated in the work of Adalberto Ortiz and Joaquin Gallegos Lara, and Upton Sinclair's The Jungle also proved influential. The Ecuadorians interpreted the works of Dostoevski, Andreyev, and Gorki in the light of their own needs, seeing in Dostoevski, for example, an enemy of capitalism and a defender of the poor. Andreyev's Sashka Jigouleff, from which Pedro Jorge Vera quotes and obtains the title for his Los animales puros, was read avidly in Ecuador and touched the young writers deeply. Gorki's Mother, about a woman who awakens and goes from dumb submission to socialist idealism, reflects the symbolism loved so dearly by the Ecuadorians. Emile Zola and Henri Barbusse also excited interest, the former because his scenes of class struggle and pictures of sexual lusts appealed to the Ecuadorians who were attempting to bring about a rebirth of Naturalism, the latter because