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José Agustín is a Mexican writer. His first novel, La Tumba (The Tomb) was the brief but provocative story of a Mexican upperclass teen, deemed indecent by the public but gathering praise from older writers. This and his most famous work, De Perfil (Profile view), a fast and detailed view of three days in the main character's life, show stylistic similarities to James Joyce's work, especially A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

He was considered a member of the so-called Onda literature, onda (wave) being slang for current and fashionable views in the eyes of young people.

A common technique in his work is mixing character's speech with narrative, without making any kind of distinction. Thus the reader finds a long dialogue written in a single sentence, and is expected to realize which character is speaking as he reads the words. He also makes use of the stream of consciousness technique.

[edit] Novels

[edit] La Tumba

"The Tomb" is a short novel, originally written as a series of tales ("Tedium") in a literary workshop. Situated in Mexico City in the 1960s, its main character, Gabriel Guía, is a teenager holding a somewhat cynic and disenchanted view of life and himself. He has the usual adventures of a Mexican rebellious teen in the 1960s, told in slang and a direct tone. He knows French, loves the good music (clearly references from Wagner's Lohengrin but also Stravinsky, jazz and rock and roll) writes tales and poetry, and makes many references and citations of authors like Arthur Rimbaud and Chekhov, some of his more intellectual friends sharing his interest.

The "good people" rejected the novel because it freely touched (and portrayed) topics like abortion and sex, but the writers' community praised it inmensely. Despite Gabriel´s intellectual tone, the book was a huge editorial success, establishing Jose Agustin as a respected and profitable writer.

Being his first work, the novel has some flaws. A distinguished writer said at the time that he liked it, but it was "naively pedantic."

[edit] De Perfil

"Profile view" is possibly the best work of Jose Agustin. Placed in Mexico City, specifically in an urban middle class neighborhood in the 1960s, the novel covers in detail three days in the life of the main character, an unnamed young man who is going to enter high school. It opens with the phrase "Behind the rock is the world I live in" and the reader finds him smoking cigarettes in his home's garden, hiding from his parents behind a big rock. (It should be noted that in Mexico it is common but not compulsory to live with one's parents until marriage, even if one has the means to support oneself).

The son of a psychiatrist and a housewife, he has a younger brother he can't stand because he is acting like his psychiatrist father all the time. Also, he assume that his parents could divorce and have doubts about his birth (X jokes that he's adopted). His friend Ricardo is timid and naive, having bold ideas he never dares put to practice, and when he does, he usually makes a joke of himself. Ricardo is very attached to X, the closest thing to a name the main character gets in the novel (given by Ricardo in one of his "confidential" plans in his diary), but X thinks Ricardo is too childish. No one can thinks that Ricardo have a crush on X, but it's a fact that he have an absence in the father figure pattern, substituting in X even if he tortures all the time. X meets many kinds of people: a fledging music group about to make their first record (Los suásticos) and their homosexual manager, a young and rich female singer (Queta) with which he have an affair, his flamboyant and cynical neighbor(Octavio)who don't have any aspirations but only to be a rockstar (the fact is that he don't belongs to any band), his intellectual cousin (Esteban) who fights X' for his conventional lifestyle and more characters, most with some artistic or intellectual aspiration, including student leaders, highly politicized (a future vision of events that will happen in the next five years in Mexico).

Despite this complexity, the novel is more polished and natural to the reader than La Tumba. It also has a greater length. It doesn't have a particular theme or purpose, following the main character most of the time, in the present, first person. X is rebellious but his naivety and inexperience embarrasses him from time to time. To protect himself he would assume an experienced or indifferent air, but he is aware of his hypocrisy. By the novel's end, the reader has felt what is like to be X, and reads a kind of wild dream of his future as boyfriend of Queta and student leader, and of his past as a tiny baby in his mother's arms.

The narrative is fluid and changing, most of the time X's thoughts in the first person, written in different styles. There are also memories, the point of view of a different character, a few flashbacks from his family past, and finally a technique very common in Jose Agustin's work: mixing the character's speech with the narrative, without making any distinction, typographical or punctuation, leaving it to the reader to discern which character is speaking. Other times spacing and font size delineate speech.

Like La Tumba, De Perfil was a best-seller, and furthered Jose Agustin's reputation as a writer.

[edit] Ciudades Desiertas

"Empty cities" is the story of a Mexican couple of writers attending an international workshop in the USA. Their marriage problems run alongside their feeling of nostalgia watching those empty cities (because people work in a different city from which they live) and living in the American society, highly regulated compared to their own. This is, however, a fun novel to read. The clash of Latin American writers, wild members of a wild society (in the American view, at least), with a more regulated American society gives raise to many situations. The fact that the workshop is only open to third world writers (not europeans who would look down on the tiny city) isn't unnoticed.

A more mature work, this is set in a small city in the United States, around the early 1980s.

[edit] Coloquial Language

The language in Ciudades Desiertas, ranges from very professional/erudite to a street/vulgar language because the professional Spanish can be understood by simply looking in a dictionary, this paragraph will only concentrate on some slang words in order to help the reader decipher the meaning and usage of words. The word pedo for example is a great way to begin. Keep in mind that the only concern when dealing with slang words is the semantics of it. The translation of the word pedo is fart(flatulence). The connotation of this word changes depending on the circumstance and it can almost be used invariably. The duality of these words regularly ranges from an insult to a compliment. For example, if you want to say I had a problem, you can replace the word problem with pedo. If you want to say what’s up, you can replace the word up with pedo. It is completely unnecessary to continue this endless journey of explaining the different meanings of this word, especially because there is an endless list of words that can be used in similar forms, i.e. Madre(Mother), Chinga(%#ck), Cabron(#%ucker). Instead, for Ciudades Desiertas and of course with any other type of slang in any other work, the reader must be attentive when the slang is used and be very flexible.

[edit] Conflicting Relationship Between Mexico and the USA

[edit] Paradoxical Representation of the Other

Susana and Eligio criticize each other throughout the novel for characteristics that they have in common. Eligio, for example, is bothered by Susana’s feminist traits, while Susana constantly points out Eligio’s macho attitude – a term whose connotation is stronger than the word “chauvinist.” Implicitly, one of their greatest complaints is that the other person is more interested in their self. An example of this is the opinions that they have toward the respective times that they spend with each other’s incompetent friends. Also, both accuse each other of seeking self-autonomy even though they are married; however, even though they want independence, they search for each other in different countries, and both seem to accept their spouse after being abandoned. Eligio condemns his wife for having a relationship with Slawomir and then has a relationship with one of the authors. The ultimate paradoxical representation is presented in the last chapter when he spanks his wife after she returns to Mexico. The comical action and the submissive behavior are contrary to both characters.

[edit] Feminism

Feminism is the social movement of women wanting better equality in the world, where they want the right to express their ideas and opinions openly in a world controlled by men. José Agustín uses this idea to create interaction among characters in Ciudades Desiertas. Susana is in a relationship with Eligio, and at one point Susana tries to express herself openly about societal issues. Eligio then hits her as a means to control her due to his machismo on-look he learned from Mexico. Many Latin American societies in the past set norms for women, and felt it was out of place that women talk back or give their opinion. Women did not have the right to express concerns about aspects that occurred within their society. Using contemporary writing, Agustín is able to show a reader the thought and opinions of women through character interaction. The world has changed, and Latin American countries have to realize that. Women have to adapt their role within society as a means to survive where there is a need that they must work outside the home to help support the family. Culturally, countries get set in their ways and forget that the world is a different place than it was in the past. Women, such as Susana, must be able to voice their opinion because they too can help a country to better economically just as men can. It may be difficult for Eligio, and other men in Latin American countries to accept change, but women too our people that should be respected and that can have an impact. Agustín shows that the tension between men and women exits today because men feel they are losing control. Feminism helps to argue women are not objects, and that they are people who deserve respect and have an impact in society. In conclusion, the role of women is changing to meet the changes of a new and modernizing world, and Latin American countries must accept that.

[edit] Criticism of Machismo

In this book, the term “machismo” seems to be a territorial term. That is, it is only effective in certain situations and certain territories. Eligio, the traditional “machista”, finds himself struggling to rescue his wife. After arriving to the United States, Susana seems to reverse roles; she gains more independence making her less dependable on Eligio. This is something very different to what used to happen in their native country of Mexico. Back home, Eligio was able to suppress his companion with his “machista” traits. He would drink all the time and ignore Susana’s complaints. All these bad treatments were allowed because of his material and emotional control. This attitude forced Susana to depart toward the U.S. There, she reverses the roles, when Eligio arrives, she is now in control, she owns her own place, she has no dependence on him, rather, he is the one staying in her property and obeying her rules. Also, her emotional side seems to be filled by another participant of the program she attends, Slawomir. As a result, Eligio is no longer needed for emotional purposes. This situation and control is challenged by his “machista” husband; who tries to employ the same “machista” attitude to get her back on his side. Nevertheless, he fails due to his territorial powers. He is no longer the nucleus of the relation. In the United States Susana has no dependency on him; she can live fine with or without him. Consequently, Eligio chooses to return to his native land. His “machismo” dies in the United States, and it is only revived, at the end, once they both return to Mexico.es:José Agustín fr:José Agustin