Abstract
This article contends that Mexican writers have drawn on the picaresque to ponder what they regard as the precariousness of intellectual labor in Mexico. It analyzes the role that the afterlives of the picaresque have played in the portrayal of writers as disenfranchised and vulnerable subjects, two of the most relevant features of the archetype ofpícaros. In addition, this project also suggests that picaresque narratives embody a discourse of precarity that goes beyond pícaros and applies to all subjects who engage in the production and circulation of literature, turning the picaresque in a suitable form in which Mexican writers can reflect on the value of literature in Mexican society.
Highlights
On August 30, 2016, the New York–based nonprofit organization Electric Literature published on its website a short piece titled “Planes Flying over a Monster: The Writing Life in Mexico City.” The text, by Mexican poet and novelist Daniel Saldaña París (2016), appeared as part of a series in which authors reflect on “their working lives and their literary communities.” In a witty tone, Saldaña París tells of a trip to Mexico City twelve months after having emigrated to Montreal
This article contends that Mexican writers have drawn on the picaresque to ponder what they regard as the precariousness of intellectual labor in Mexico
It analyzes the role that the afterlives of the picaresque have played in the portrayal of writers as disenfranchised and vulnerable subjects, two of the most relevant features of the archetype of pícaros. This project suggests that picaresque narratives embody a discourse of precarity that goes beyond pícaros and applies to all subjects who engage in the production and circulation of literature, turning the picaresque in a suitable form in which Mexican writers can reflect on the value of literature in Mexican society
Summary
“Nobody writes for a living in Mexico,” he asserts in what rapidly develops into a narrative on the perils of intellectual labor in a damaged country: It’s impossible to find the time to write if you’re working nine or ten hours a day, and given the state of the Mexican economy, it’s impossible to survive if you’re not working nine or ten hours a day In this context, writers from well-off families have more opportunities. Satirizing the practice of patronage, he details the approximate amount that a single person should have to invest for the book to be printed: “A cuatro mil y ciento y tantos pesos, por ahí, por ahí” (2008, 90–91); and he forcefully laments the isolated state of the book market in New Spain His nameless friend suggests the future readers as the ideal collective to be addressed as dedicatees and investors—an idea that appeals to Fernández de Lizardi—he sums up the conversation in the following terms: “Es gana, hijo, los pobres no debemos ser escritores, ni emprender ninguna tarea que cueste dinero” (2008, 93). Before delving into the portrait of writers as displaced and marginalized subjects, a discussion is in order of what it is at stake when one reads a literary form such as the picaresque within a national confine
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