The Novels of Sergio Galindo: Planes of Human Relationship

Abstract

S ERGIO GALINDO'S four novels have established him firmly in the panorama of present-day Mexican letters, yet his chronological age allows us to expect worthy additions to what he has already accomplished. His literary age places him in a group that is older than the stridently innovative novelists who have appeared in the last three years. At the same time, we must not overlook the fact that he is strongly revisionist with regard to generally accepted values. His work is not a vociferous protest, nor does it deny the relevance of the past. Rather, it shows a deep and calm concern for man's ability to recognize and cope with the total reality in which he exists. Galindo was born in Xalapa, Veracruz, in 1926. Some of the best moments of his fiction are based in that region, but his concern for the region is only the artist's concern for what he has experienced. The broader implications of his work are not limited by any geographical boundaries. His own experience has been wide. He studied in Mexico and in France. He held a fellowship at the Centro Mexicano de Escritores. Later he directed the publishing activities of the Universidad Veracruzana, and is now Jefe del Departamento de Coordinaci6n of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes. After a silence of several years which followed a volume of short stories, Galindo published his first work of consequence in 1958, a short novel entitled Polvos de arroz. The scene is both his native region and Mexico City. His second novel, La justicia de enero (1959), takes place largely in the capital and is based on the author's experience as an immigration official. El Bordo (1960) is set in the Xalapa area, and the scene of La comparsa (1964) is specifically the city of Xalapa. These novels show the author's knowledge of the region, the city, and the university community. Galindo is currently working on a fifth novel, and we may expect that it too will be a work born of its creator's experience. But it should be quite clear that this experience serves only to suggest the work. The artist takes over, and reality is seen, explored, and created. The most striking quality of Galindo's novels is the exactness of his insight into human reactions and relationships. We become aware of this precision first through recognizing his accuracy in choosing just the right detail to communicate the feeling of a circumstance or of a reaction to a circumstance. Then our immediate impulse is to share the moment with someone else.