{"id":1293,"date":"2024-05-15T11:55:05","date_gmt":"2024-05-15T15:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/hispanic-studies-3257-spring-2024\/?p=1293"},"modified":"2024-10-15T16:56:14","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T20:56:14","slug":"post-1-memoria-en-chilean-electric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/hispanic-studies-3257-spring-2024\/country\/chile\/post-1-memoria-en-chilean-electric\/","title":{"rendered":"Post #1: Memoria en Chilean Electric"},"content":{"rendered":"

Corriendo el riesgo de decir lo obvio, el tema m\u00e1s importante en\u202f<\/span>Chilean Electric\u202f<\/span><\/i>es la memoria. El libro explora la memoria en todas sus formas: recuerdos infantiles, fotograf\u00edas, relatos familiares y fantasmas.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u202f<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mi parte favorita de esta exploraci\u00f3n es la inclinaci\u00f3n valiente de Nona Fern\u00e1ndez a tejer una tela casi infinita de la memoria, mostrando la capacidad de los recuerdos de cambiar, distorsionarse, conectarse con otros recuerdos y fluir entre las esferas p\u00fablicas y personales. En un momento, Fern\u00e1ndez, o su narradora, est\u00e1 hablando del entierro p\u00fablico de Salvador Allende, y en el siguiente, est\u00e1 cont\u00e1ndonos sobre sus recuerdos de ni\u00f1ez sobre su abuela. Esta equivalencia entre la importancia de las historias personales y nacionales es poderosa.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fern\u00e1ndez tambi\u00e9n hace otro tipo de equivalencia a trav\u00e9s de la historia\u2014entre lo real y lo ficcional. Su narradora b\u00e1sicamente funciona como una versi\u00f3n de ella misma, y muchas de las historias representan diferentes momentos de la vida de su abuela, pero hay elementos impl\u00edcita y expl\u00edcitamente ficticios\u2014como los fantasmas en la escena final, o la abuela sin ombligo. En un libro que intenta enfrentar las fallas de la memoria directamente, podemos interpretar esta mezcla de lo ficcional y real como una nueva definici\u00f3n de la memoria hist\u00f3rica.\u202f Es decir, una definici\u00f3n que valora la experiencia personal\u2014incluso si es parcialmente incorrecta\u2014y sus consecuencias m\u00e1s que datos vac\u00edos sin emoci\u00f3n.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

M\u00e1s que nada, este permite que veamos lo que existe a los l\u00edmites de lo racional, pero que necesitamos ver y recordar para sanarnos y obtener un progreso verdadero dentro de la historia\u2014por ejemplo, los fantasmas de los desaparecidos presentes en la \u00faltima escena. Solo por ver estos fantasmas, Fern\u00e1ndez puede \u201cIluminar la oscuridad temible con la letra.\u201d (Fern\u00e1ndez, 91) Es decir, reescribir la historia para dar luz a lo que no hemos reconocido antes\u2014lo traum\u00e1tico, lo asqueroso, y lo doloroso.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u202f<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

En ingl\u00e9s:\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At risk of stating the obvious, the most important theme in <\/span>Chilean Electric<\/span><\/i> is memory. The book explores memory in all its forms: childhood recollections, photographs, family narratives, and ghosts.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My favorite part of this exploration is Nona Fern\u00e1ndez’s attempt to weave an almost infinite fabric of memory, showing the capacity for memories to change, distort, connect with other memories, and flow between public and personal spheres. At one moment, Fern\u00e1ndez, or her narrator, is discussing Salvador Allende’s public burial, and in the next, recounting childhood memories of her grandmother. The equivalence that she creates between the importance of personal and national stories is powerful.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fern\u00e1ndez also makes another kind of equivalence through the narrative\u2014between the real and the fictional. Her narrator essentially functions as a version of herself, and many of the stories represent different moments in her grandmother’s life, but there are implicitly and explicitly fictional elements\u2014like the ghosts in the final scene, or the grandmother without a belly button. In a book that directly confronts the failures of memory, we can interpret this blending of fiction and reality as a new definition of historical memory. That is, a definition that values personal experience\u2014even if partially incorrect\u2014and its consequences more than emotionless empty data.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

More than anything else, this allows us to see what exists at the limits of the rational and reminds us that we need to see and remember to heal and make true progress within history\u2014for example, the ghosts of the disappeared present in the final scene. Simply by seeing these ghosts, Fern\u00e1ndez can “Illuminate the dreadful darkness with writing” (Fern\u00e1ndez, 91). In other words, rewriting history to shed light on what we haven’t recognized before\u2014the traumatic, the repulsive, and the painful.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nona Fern\u00e1ndez,\u202f<\/span>Chilean electric<\/span><\/i>\u202f(Chile\u202f: Alquimia Ediciones, 2015)<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Corriendo el riesgo de decir lo obvio, el tema m\u00e1s importante en\u202fChilean Electric\u202fes la memoria. El libro explora la memoria en todas sus formas: recuerdos infantiles, fotograf\u00edas, relatos familiares y fantasmas.\u202f\u00a0\u202f\u00a0 Mi parte favorita de esta exploraci\u00f3n es la inclinaci\u00f3n… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1622,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,46,28,69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chile","category-chilean-electric","category-nona-fernandez","category-resenas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/hispanic-studies-3257-spring-2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/hispanic-studies-3257-spring-2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/hispanic-studies-3257-spring-2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/hispanic-studies-3257-spring-2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1622"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/hispanic-studies-3257-spring-2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/hispanic-studies-3257-spring-2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1293\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/hispanic-studies-3257-spring-2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/hispanic-studies-3257-spring-2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/hispanic-studies-3257-spring-2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}