1
Although I cite from the Penguin edition of 1997, the novel was originally published in 1970.
2
I apply the term «neoindigenist» to Scorza's text taking into account Antonio Cornejo Polar's study of this subgenre within the context of the Indigenist literary movement. In short, the Peruvian critic differentiates a «neoindigenist» novel from an «indigenist» text because the first one portrays: a) a perspective under the influence of magical realism that reveals the mythical dimensions of the indigenous universe; b) the intensification of the lyric quality of the text; c) the enlargement, complexity and mastery of technical devices, through a process of novelistic experimentation; and d) the expansion of the proper space for a narrative representation of the indigenous, with the real transformations of his world («Neoindigenismo» 549). I analyze Scorza's novel under these parameters and other postulates regarding neoindigenism in my article «Diglosia neoindigenista».
3
In defense of
orality, Raúl Dorra reminds us that, although our
contemporary world is reducing the survival of oral production,
«la identidad de
cada individuo como persona humana, así como la imagen del
otro como prójimo están fundamentadas sobre la
oralidad porque es la forma básica del reconocimiento y del
intercambio»
(35). Scorza seems to develop
his Indian characters in agreement with this assertion.
4
As
Moreno-Durán rightly points out, «El debate
"civilización" o "barbarie", en efecto -legítima o
artificiosamente postulado-, se halla implícito y vigente en
toda la problemática cultural
latinoamericana»
(18).
5
Inferential walks
force us to complete the meaning of what appears explicitly in the
printed page with implicit materials from our own experience. As
Eco explains, «readers, in order to
predict how a story is going to go, turn to their own experience of
life or their knowledge of other stories»
(50).
6
For a detailed analysis of this Peruvian vals and its importance as being the first musical composition that exposes class differences within the context of Lima, see Virginia Yep's «El vals peruano». To our surprise, the famous vals «El plebeyo», written by Felipe Pinglo Alva to discuss issues of class, takes a different route in Redoble por Rancas, for it is now intertwined with race elements to represent the indigenous Other.
7
I use the term
«colonized» to refer to the Indians of the Peruvian
highlands, keeping in mind that the colonized includes «women, subjugated and oppressed classes,
national minorities, and even marginalized or incorporated academic
subspecialties»
(Said 295).
8
In his Utopía arcaica
Vargas Llosa explains how Arguedas composes a language that
summarizes and transcends the linguistic multiplicity of the Andes.
It is a literary language characterized «por la
copresencia del castellano y el quechua en el
texto»
(132). Quoting Alberto Escobar, he
confirms that this relationship «puede detectarse ante la presencia de
expresiones de ambas lenguas, o en ausencia de una de ellas, pero
que está subyacente y genera un entramado
singularísimo y de distinto signo»
(132).