Hassett, John J.

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Swarthmore College Works Spanish Faculty Works Spanish 5-1-1994 Review Of "Cobro Revertido" By J. L. Urbina John J. Hassett Swarthmore College, jhasset1@swarthmore.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-spanish  Part of the Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation John J. Hassett. (1994). "Review Of "Cobro Revertido" By J. L. Urbina". Chasqui. Volume 23, Issue 1. 124-125. DOI: 10.2307/29741084 https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-spanish/32 This work is brought to you for free by Swarthmore College Libraries' Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Spanish Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact myworks@swarthmore.edu. This content downloaded from 130.58.34.48 on Fri, 30 Jul 2021 14:15:42 UTCAll use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms124 confidence as it encloses its reader within a highly ambiguous world where time and space of the living are contin-ually usurped by the spirits of the dead. while family politics constitute the fore-ground of this text, we cannot help but perceive between the lines a commentary on the madness of political ideologies in general and their impact on the individuals that they attract. The novel leaves us with the sense that the del Pino family and, by extension, Cuba's family, will never be reunited nor whole again, if indeed, they ever were. But one thing is for certain: Pilar, its youngest member and hope for the future, recognizes now where she belongs and, unlike her elders, is no longer torn between her present and dreams of the past. John J. Hassett Swarthmore College Jose Leandro Urbina. Cobro revertido. Santiago, Chile: Editorial Planeta, 1992. 200p. In his first book, a collection of short stories entitled Las malas juntas, published in Canada in 1978, Urbina depicted the repression and violence endured by his fellow Chileans follow-ing the military coup of September 1973. What stood out in these stories was the author's total mastery of narrative technique, his success in treating a highly politicized subject without succumbing to propaganda and his ability to paint an unforgettable picture of what State terror does to people on both sides of the political fence. Almost fifteen years went by between publica-tions but the reader of his new novel, Cobro revertido, will find that the long wait was certainly worth it. Montreal, a city well-known to thousands of Chilean exiles, is the setting of Urbina's novel in which the life of one of these exiles known only as "The Sociologist" is suddenly inter-rupted by a phone call from Santiago informing him of his mother's death. The year is 1979, a period in which the military's reign of terror is at its peak. The twenty-four hours following the phone call constitute the novel's present Reseiias in which Urbina offers us a moving and often satirical account of life in exile that culminates in a grotesque act of violence during the city's Caribbean Festival. Far from the country if his birth, his mother's unexpected death unleashes in the unnamed protagonist a chain reaction of memories that have been placed on the cognitive backburner for the previous five years of his life. The deceased becomes his direct link with Chile once again, the bridge to all memory. To a great extent, the dead mother is Chile, that physical space which has left an indelible and contradictory imprint on the psyche of her sons and daughters. She is the nurturing, maternal figure that saves her son from drowning as a young child and the domineering, repressive presence that strangles his every attempt at personal independence. She is the Chile that can be both charming and alluring as well as the Chile that denounces her neighbors to the military gestapo. She is the mother whose fury, when aroused, punishes her children severely for any perceived transgressions against the established order, casting them from her bosom to the unknown. And it is into the unknown that the novel's protagonist has been hurled. In the twenty-four hours that constitute his turbulent present and his recollection of a distant past, Urbina immerses us in the vacuous world of the political exile, a world of endless political discussions interrupted only by the consumption of an equally infinite number of bottles of wine. As the author takes us through the streets, bars and smoke-filled nightclubs of Montreal, we come to understand the existential paralysis of ''The Sociologist" and his friends. Curiously, his doctoral thesis in sociology, of which he has not written a word, takes as its principal theme the integration and assimilation of exiled groups into a dominant culture. His inability to write reflects his inability to find his niche in a world that will never be his entirely, a world that he will always be looking at from the outside. We follow this protagonist into the depths of a present that will link up with a no less tragic past Structurally Urbina Cbasqui - Revista de literatura latinoamericana This content downloaded from 130.58.34.48 on Fri, 30 Jul 2021 14:15:42 UTCAll use subject to https://about.jstor.org/termsReseiias creates a tension-filled counterpoint between the two temporal levels of his story. Through the use of two distinct narrators he underscores how events of the remote and immediate past are fundamental to our understanding of ''the Sociologist's" tragic present. The novel's crisp and laconic prose talces us on a whirlwind journey into the dark regions of political exile, confmning our original suspicion that the protagonist will never return to Chile and that, given the nightmarish events at the end of the novel, his homeland, perhaps has come to him in all of its violent and irrational behavior. John J. Hassett Swarthmore College 125 medica argentina Cecilia Grierson, y unos afios despues recibi6 el primer dtulo de abogada Maria Angelica Barrera" ... (18). Nueva manera de pensar tallada sobre el replanteo que se buscaba ya en diversos lugares del mundo, y finalmente vino su repercusi6n en la Argentina y, mis adelante, la reper-cusi6n que el movimiento en la Argentina tendrla en otros lugares. Es innegable que la influencia mis determinante en el movimiento feminista de la Argentina hay que buscarlo en el feminismo radical norteamericano. El capftulo m es uno de los mejor logrados, ya que al ser tan detallada su informaci6n, permite al lector ampliar su conocimiento sobre el tema. Es adem4s este capftulo, una especie de recapitu-Leonor Calvera. Mujeres y feminismo laci6n del primer libro sobre el femi-en la Argentina. Buenos Aires: Grupo nismo de Leonor Calvera-que le llevara Editor Latinoamericano, 1990. 15lp. cinco afios de trabajo-titulado: Genero A fines del otoiio del aiio 1990 mujer, que apareciera en 1982 publicado Leonor Calvera di6 punto final al libro en Buenos Aires por la Editorial que nos ocupa. Este se tennin6 de Belgrano. imprimir en el mes de septiembre y ya En este libro, Genero mujer, Calvera estaba en venta para las Navidades. Es establece, crea. la denominaci6n genero interesante notar que el Grupo Editor mujer, en contraposici6n al genero Latinoamericano haya inclufdo este femenino, por lo que tiene de relaci6n libro en su colecci6n Controversia. con su opuesto masculino. Esta "inven-En la introducci6n se anuncia el tema ci6n" tiene un error gramatical, que la a desarrollar: la historia de UFA, o sea la autora reconoce, pero le sirve para Union Feminista Argentina, que fue proponer " .. .formas altemativas para que fundada a fmes del '60. "Procur4bamos el genero var6n reconociera al yo encontrar explicaciones al cercenamiento femenino como sujeto, y juntos resuci-que la sociedad hacfa de nuestras taran en una humanidad mejor'' (66). ansias ... " (lntroducci6n). Es importante notar la detallada Leonor Calvera conoce a fondo los relaci6n de hechos, personas y lugares. problemas y dificultades sobrellevados, Calvera, ademu, nos hace partfcipes de desde el momento que fue partfcipe del todo ese conocimiento por su activa grupo de fundadoras de la UFA. Esta funci6n como miembro de ta1 asociaci6n asociaci6n serfa una especie de segunda feminista que aunque abogue por los ola feminista, porque como veremos mis derechos de la mujer como individuo no adelante reconoce como de gran impor- se circunscribe a un "ismo" en tancia la obra de las mujeres del siglo decadencia. XIX quienes marcaron defmitivamente Es innegable que el feminismo debe el comienzo de una nueva manera de aspirar a que haya un cambio en una pensar. Ya en 1850 la maestra argentina sociedad en vfas de destrucci6n moral. Juana Manso inculcaba la presencia Algunos derechos proclamados an indispensable de la mujer para la ciertos sectores como "de valor educacion del pueblo. "Ella, junto con innegable en las luchas feministas", en Juana Manuela Gorriti, insistieron en la realidad no lo son. necesidad de la educaci6n obligatoria El derecho de ir a la guerra no es una para la mujer .... En 1889 jur6 la primera conquista. "La mujer conseguirt su Cbasqui - Revista de literatura latinoamericana 

Review Of  Cobro Revertido  By J. L. Urbina

https://works.swarthmore.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1031&context=fac-spanish

Review Of Cobro Revertido By J. L. Urbina

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