The Nature of Hate and the Hatred of Nature in Hispanic Literatures by Beatriz Rivera-Barnes

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Nature of Hate and the Hatred of Nature in Hispanic Literatures by Beatriz Rivera-Barnes William Flores Rivera-Barnes, Beatriz. The Nature of Hate and the Hatred of Nature in Hispanic Literatures. Lexington Books, 2021. Pp. 235. ISBN 978-1-498-59648-0. The Nature of Hate and the Hatred of Nature in Hispanic Literatures is an impressive multidisciplinary collection of eleven insightful chapters that converge on the unifying themes of hate and ecophobia in major literary and cinematic works produced in the Spanish-speaking world. The first part of the book contains three chapters related to the Iberian world, while the second part encompasses eight chapters referring to Latin American film and literature. The introduction provides a rich discussion on ecocritical theory that includes Simon C. Estok’s view on ecophobia and a synthesis of Timothy Morton’s theory of dark ecology, to help the reader understand the ecocritical approximation of the book. Furthermore, the introduction provides a valuable academic discussion on what hate and the hatred of nature are, while using a historiographical approach that includes an examination of biblical narratives, medieval events and literature, and current ecocatastrophes. For those interested in Spanish Golden Age literature, the first chapter investigates psycho-philosophical elements in Fernando de Roja’s La Celestina. The chapter presents hate as an intrinsic component of the characters’ self, being generated by love in the form of an excessively manifested passion. Concurrently, the second chapter explores the hate that comes from intimacy as portrayed in Lope de Vega’s La creación del Mundo, El robo de Dina, Fuenteovejuna, and El castigo sin venganza. The chapter highlights how these adaptations of the stories of Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Amnon raping Tamar, or the rape of Dinah exemplify the propagation of hate through generations. The third chapter studies Miguel de Unamuno’s Abel Sánchez, a work based on the biblical story of Cain and Abel. This chapter provides a reading of that book as a representation of the hate that comes from the God of the Old Testament, human hate, and the resulting curse of nature. By examining narrative techniques that include stream of consciousness and introspective mono-dialogues, chapter three highlights that hate results from intimacy and is catalyzed by an envy that consumes, devours, and destroys humans and their natural environment. Utilizing an eclectic approach, the fourth chapter studies a variety of cinematic and literary texts that describe Lope de Aguirre’s search for El Dorado and Cabeza de Vaca’s foundering in the Florida Everglades. The chapter examines films including Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, Wrath of God, Carlos Saura’s El Dorado, Roland Joffe’s The Mission, Nicolás Echevarría’s Cabeza de Vaca, Icíar Bollaín’s También la Lluvia, and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, in addition to literary works such as Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Cabeza de Vaca’s Chronicle of the Narvaez Expedition, Rivera’s La vorágine, and a selection of jungle tales written by Horacio Quiroga. This chapter successfully examines and portrays these works as “doomed expeditions” that reflect hatred for nature in an existing, created, or re-created form. The fifth chapter explores hate while examining Alonso Carrió’s Lazarillo de ciegos caminantes, and Ernesto Guevara’s Diarios de motocicleta and Otra vez. This chapter is a pleasure to read as it presents, in rich narrative style, how these literary works can be juxtaposed while analyzing journeys that explore the Latin American reality of corruption and abuse. Rivera-Barnes connects the corruption and exploitation from colonial times as presented in Carrió’s Lazarillo with the abuses of neocolonialism exposed in Che Guevara’s narratives to provide a canvas of the continuity of colonialism and its foundational hatred of indigenous peoples and their natural environment. Furthermore, in the case of Che Guevara’s accounts, hatred is also examined as a tool to fight oppression. [End Page 149] Using a historical approach, the sixth chapter studies twentieth-century narratives written by Alejo Carpentier, Manuel Zapata Olivella, and Enrique Buenaventura, to explore literary representations of hatred that portray the 1791 rebellion in Haiti and the making of Haiti...