Ketevan Kupatadze hizo su master en cultura hispana en Georgia State University, y su doctorado en literaturas españolas e hispanoamericanas en Emory University. Ha sido docente en Emory, University of North Carolina, Charlotte, y el Georgia Institute of Technology. Además de investigadora, es traductora literaria de español, georgiano, ruso e inglés. |
How to cite this article: Kupetadze, Ketevan. "The Theme of Hospitality in Manuel Puig’s Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages". Dissidences. Hispanic Journal of Theory and Criticism. On line. Internet: 15/12/08 (http://www.dissidences/ 4KupatatzePuig.html) |
| "Here, Puig points to another significant aspect of immigration politics: the differentiation between the “desirable” and “undesirable” legal or illegal immigrant, to use Rosello’s terminology. An educated, experienced man, persecuted by a dictatorial government, can prove to be of use. He is more “recruited” by the State or academic institution than offered unconditional hospitality. Puig relentlessly criticizes here not only governmental but also academic structures that profit from the “desirable” foreigner. Here as well, the limits of hospitality are challenged by the contract based on debt and gratitude." |
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Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages is Manuel Puig’s first and only novel written in
English [1]. This deliberate use of the English language functions in the novel as an allegory
of the simultaneously violent and fascinating encounter between a foreigner and a native.
While the theme of the subject in exile has been extensively discussed, my intention is to see
the experience of exile from another perspective: as a mutual promise of hospitality between
an “I” and an “Other” [2]. This approach will take the notion of hospitality as an anticipation
of the new and as a possibility of a rebirth.
A central theme of Eternal Curse is that of encounters. There are encounters between
a foreigner and a native; between an immigrant and a host state; between a city and an
individual; between readers and texts. Manuel Puig explores the hospitable relationship born
out of the moment of encounter, examining not only the restrictions, but also the redemptive
and therapeutic functions of this moment. To immigrate, i.e. to enter the other’s house,
results in a marginal condition for not only the person seeking refuge, but for the host as
well. Hospitality points towards exteriorization and displacement implied in the process of
retrieval and intrusion. Puig questions the negativity of this state, recognizing the
vulnerability of the proper space as an opening for new opportunities. His question is: How
do the demands and rules of hospitality change if “speaking to [the] other” for an exiled
person, as well as for the native, is mutually indispensable?
Given the author’s portrayal of the vulnerability of a foreigner--his minimal rights and the
attendant powerlessness--as a challenging and even positive condition, one of the
protagonists affirms “power is detestable” (161). From the very first sentence the novel
confronts the problem of power and mastery, testing it against the powerlessness and
dispossession of those who are nomads. Inquiring as to the identity of Washington, curious
about the tradition upon which his name rests, the foreigner and the “impostor” Mr.
Ramirez defies the “master” (George Washington, Washington Square) and the native
(Larry). The foreigner, a man dispossessed of his own home, simultaneously experiences a
sense of fascination and rebellion when wishing to enter the house of the native. “I have
never been in a real home in this country […] Why don’t you invite me to your place for a
while? […] I’d like to see the interior of an American house […] Won’t you invite me?” (13)
This protracted plea points toward the foreigner’s dependence upon the native’s hospitality,
which is challenged by the latter’s fear of a loss of mastery and sovereignty. Thus, the novel
puts forward questions about the status of sovereignty straightway, establishing hospitality
as a potential space where the hierarchy--the accepted order of our mastery over certain
territorial or cultural identities--can be dismantled.
It is important to note the autobiographical circumstances in which Manuel Puig wrote
Eternal Curse. His exile from Argentina began in the 1970’s, when the publication of his
novel Heartbreak Tango placed him among authors persecuted and prohibited by
Juan Domingo Peron’s Regime [3]. After spending various years in Mexico, Puig moved to
New York. In one of his interviews he makes the following comment about his arrival to the
U.S. and his writing of the novel:
Lo que me impuso para la nueva novela fueron los años pasados en Nueva York, o sea, 1976-1977, que
fueron en realidad una experiencia desagradable. Llegué a Estados Unidos--donde había vivido en el
sesenta--en enero de 1976, sin papeles, sin departamento, con unos años más y una Nueva York menos
acogedora que antes (Corbatta 619).
Puig left Buenos Aires because of his estrangement from a society that was host to an
increasingly unacceptable socio-political life [4]. Eternal Curse is based on the
author’s personal encounter with Mark, a young North American man from whom he took
about two-hundred pages of notes during their conversations. Puig recalls his encounter with
Mark as at once “fascinating” and “violent” (Corbatta 620). Puig’s emblematic words point
toward the duality of exile: as violence accompanied by the sentiment of fascination, born
from the convergence marked with positive vitality. It is a powerless position, one that does
not guarantee the same set of “rights” that the citizen enjoys; it accentuates a foreigner’s
vulnerability. However, it is precisely for this reason that it can be seen as an alternative
space.
Puig takes testimonial notes from a North American man in order to write a novel in which
he experiments with the language of his host country. This reflects his desire to be inscribed
literally as well as figuratively within the “foreign” cultural space. The fact that the novel is
written in English shows the author’s disposition to take a leap towards the new; to
transcend his own self; and to defy the “foreign” culture, questioning and critiquing society’s
dependence and upholding of national and linguistic boundaries. These movements toward
the “other” are parts of apprenticeship and rebellion that carry certain attractions and
anxiety. It is the “foreigner” who, devoid of any possession, destabilizes the private space of
the “native.”
Puig’s use of English also underscores the author’s status in the U.S. as a foreigner. It is as if
he were a guest of the foreign tongue, asking for its hospitality. When using “el idioma del
que no [tiene] las claves” (Corbatta 620), the author pursues the experience of
disempowerment and, apparently and prophetically confronts his hosts about their lack of
hospitality. As Ronald De Feo observes, after publishing the book in English Puig was
criticized for not being entirely convincing in his use of the colloquial tongue [5].
Following the story of two men in New York, Eternal Curse presents an entire text (with
the exception of several letters at the end of the book) that is constructed from their
dialogues with each other. One of these men is Juan Jose Ramirez, an Argentinean who,
after spending several years imprisoned in his country, is left paralyzed and amnesiac.
Under the protection of “Human Rights International,” Mr. Ramirez is transferred to “The
Home,” a nursing facility that offered him shelter. The counterpart of the Argentinean is
Larry, a young North American man. A historian by profession, Larry is hired as Mr.
Ramirez’s personal assistant, whose duty is to take the paralyzed patient for walks around
the city [6]. The text presents several meaningful changes in the novelistic trajectory of the
author. Notably, his “mother tongue” is completely absent, as are the feminine voice and
references to popular and mass culture that are so characteristic of Puig’s earlier works.
Nonetheless, as Graciela Speranza notes, these themes appear in this novel as “repressed
aesthetics” (Speranza).
Puig considers it necessary to speak otherwise and repress certain topics and techniques in
this novel. In order to explain why, it is important to frame the novel within the postdictatorial
context. For our purposes, Idelber Avelar’s thesis on posdictatorial Latin American novels is
most revealing. As Avelar points out, the necessity to allegorize (allos-agoreuein: speaking
otherwise, speak to the other) is related to the postdictatorial mourning, which itself implies
the mourning for the literary. Fictional genre is marginalized in the (post)dictatorship,
because it doesn’t have the “social and experiential relevance” and it is substituted by more
“documental” genres, among them that of the testimony [7]. “Speaking otherwise”
according to Avelar:
[S]hould not only be understood as a mere search for alternative forms of speech but also as speaking of
the other (in double sense of the genitive) and, first and foremost, as speaking to the other, of answering
the call of the other. Postdictatorial literature speaks (the) other(wise) (232-233).
Contextualization of (post) dictatorship is needed to clarify what partly causes Puig to wish
to liberate himself from his historical and cultural identity, imposed by the accident of birth,
and immerse himself in a foreign one. For Puig, “speaking other(wise)” is an opportunity to
start over, to recuperate.
This imperative to “speak to the other” is also reflected on the narrative level of the novel.
Mr. Ramirez feels the need to encounter his ‘notes’ in order to recuperate: “All I have…,” he
says to Larry, “all I cherish is the hope of finding my notes” (75). The Human Rights
Committee sends Mr. Ramirez several books that he possessed while in prison. They are
French novels of the XVIII Century, which according to Larry have numbers on the top of
the words. As he starts to decipher the message in the books, Larry concludes that they are
Mr. Ramirez’s testimonies. However, when Mr. Ramirez hears of this he insists that they are
false: he refuses to accept them as his own, voluntarily erasing his past. As a refugee he feels
the need to be liberated from his own self, desiring instead his integration into the world of
the other. Hence, he steadfastly refuses to accept his past identity. His pain subsides when
he is given a chance to lose himself in the other’s life story: “Please, Larry,” he pleads, “say
something, show me something in the street or here in the park, anything… To make the
pain go away… I can’t stand it…” (6). Their dialogues frequently turn into dramatized
performances of Larry’s past, in which the two men exchange their roles. It is in these
moments that Mr. Ramirez is given an opportunity to “invade” the autonomy of the other,
serving as therapy sessions that improve his physical condition [8].
Larry, for his part, is a marginal and alienated character inside his own country. A young
man of leftist convictions, with neither secure employment nor family, he cannot manage to
find his place in the society in which he lives. According to Larry, his house is not worth
seeing. Larry is a “native” who is uncomfortable with his own identity, hoping to rid himself
of certain malignant moments of his past, moments that cause him physical pain. Larry
explains:
[Y]ou want to vomit the knot, discharge it. And I think there’s good reason for this feeling. The
masochistic part has to do with old identifications that have been internalized. Internalization is like
swallowing something, eating something, incorporating something. Vomiting or spitting is the reverse
process (40).
Larry’s symbolic exile offers him the possibility to liberate himself--to “spit out and vomit”
the residues of his past (dysfunctional parents, a failed marriage, disillusionment in his
profession). Larry repeats the same idea later when he tells Mr. Ramirez that he wishes to
find “[a] way out of me, out of that zone where everything rots” (203). In this sense, both
characters of the novel are displaced in order to experience re-birth in another.
Jacques Derrida’s essay Of Hospitality, furnishes a theoretical base for interrogating
the norms, potentiality and limitations of hospitality as implied in Puig’s novel, aiding our
consideration of the different manifestations of power exercised on public or private scales
that hinder the enactment of hospitality. Several observations made by Derrida can be
relevant in this case. For Derrida, the ethics of hospitality requires that the door, as a
symbolic entrance to the physical space of one’s home or the private world of the other, be
open. By inviting the foreigner home, by asking him to come in, the host turns into a guest
on his or her own territory. An act of substitution takes place--the owner turns into a guest,
while the guest appropriates the host’s dwelling place. For Derrida, this process of retrieval
makes possible the emancipation of the master in the moment of his or her return: “It is as if
[…] the stranger could save the master and liberate the power of his host; it’s as if the
master, qua master, were prisoner of his place and his power, of his ipseity, of his subjectivity
(his subjectivity is hostage)” (123). The encounter, according to Derrida, is a mutually
indispensable moment: it is a moment of vital substitution, of the displacement that enables
a return to the self, creating the space for hospitality by which the host and the guest could
be saved and restituted. This mutual dependence should establish a balance between them
and liberate them from a sense of indebtedness.
It is from the inability to acknowledge such interdependency of the participants in the act of
hospitality that the problem of debt emerges, often demanded by a host or a host country.
For example, Mr. Ramirez often reproaches Larry and the country that offered him
hospitality for their insistence on reciprocity and their expectation that the debt will be paid:
“Don’t you realize,” he says, “I’m a foreigner, and I’m supposed to be grateful for the
hospitality?” (Puig 41-42). For Derrida, this insistence on reciprocity and indebtedness [be it
a monetary payment or verbal gratitude] is a major ambivalence of hospitality. These
contradictions make Derrida introduce a term “hostpitality,” focusing on the Latin origin of
the word: hostis, meaning both enemy and host. The Derridian notion of hostpitality is
conditioned by the coexistence of protection and control on the part of the state apparatus,
demanding from the guest the sentiment of indebtedness, of reciprocity and gratitude, if not
the need to pay. As Mireille Rosello correctly points out, “avoiding the vocabulary of
exchange may be a cynical deception when the constant reference to state hospitality tends
to hide the profoundly economic and financial logic of state-organized migrations” (35).
State initiated “invitations” for Rosello are often disguised and hypocritical equivalents of
“recruitment.”
In his novel, Puig questions and criticizes the role that the Nation-State, as the upholder of
the fixed identity of its citizens, plays in hospitality. Puig’s text vacillates between the two
roles of the State: that of protector and controller. Because it is impossible for the State to
function without exercising vigilance over a “foreigner,” its hospitality becomes cursed. In
Eternal Curse the State and the Committee are the powers that truncate the promise of
the encounter between the foreigner and the native, suppressing the promising potential of
the immigration/exile. The representatives of Human Rights Committee frequently invade
the place where Mr. Ramirez lives. It is called The Home, an ironic name for a facility for the
elderly, which is supervised at all times. It is also a metaphor frequently used to denote the
Nation-State: in accordance with the politics of hospitality imposed by the State, every host
“must visualize the threshold of the house as the equivalent of a national frontier” (Rosello
38). The Home, in State’s view, should be the focal point of its subjects’ identities.
In addition to its role as vigilante and police, the State must also undo the immigrant’s
anonymity, imposing on him an identity for cataloguing purposes. Larry’s ancestors had to
submit to this demand and become recognizable and manageable entities. Larry comments
to Mr. Ramirez: “I have an Italian grandfather, my father’s father. His name was
Giovanangelo… When my grandfather disembarked, Immigration mangled his name” (22).
In the case of Larry’s grandfather the State had to adapt the foreign last name (translate,
homogenize and catalogue it), so that later it could manage him as a citizen. The imposition
of a manageable identity not only reveals how the State exercises its control, but also offers
individuals certain privileges. By being a “manageable identity,” and having the status of a
political refugee, Mr. Ramirez receives protection from The Organization of Human Rights
International.
Throughout the novel, it becomes clear that The Organization’s as well as Larry’s motives
for protecting or taking care of the refugee are questionable. A letter to the Ministry of
Interior Affairs of the Committee makes it explicit that The Human Rights International is
extremely interested in Mr. Ramirez’s memoirs, which could give the organization more
authority and consolidate its prestige: “There is no doubt that steps will be taken for the
publication of the works,” writes a representative of the Committee, “Our organization is
deeply interested in the study of such subjects” (230). At the same time, Larry’s interest in
the memoirs of Ramirez and their possible testimonial value is guided by the impulse to take
advantage of the trauma and the tragedy of the other in order to find a good academic
position at a respectable university. The universities of various nations get involved in the
intent to use Ramirez’s documents to their advantage. Larry says:
The Institute for Latin American Studies at the university there [Montreal]. There’s a project going on
concerning political repression in Latin America… My friend at Columbia didn’t want to let the cat out
of the bag, but, in Montreal, they’re studying political repression from the time of Spanish colonialism to
today… and they need contemporary material; it’s perfect (146).
Here, Puig points to another significant aspect of immigration politics: the differentiation
between the “desirable” and “undesirable” legal or illegal immigrant, to use Rosello’s
terminology. An educated, experienced man, persecuted by a dictatorial government, can
prove to be of use. He is more “recruited” by the State or academic institution than offered
unconditional hospitality. Puig relentlessly criticizes here not only governmental but also
academic structures that profit from the “desirable” foreigner. Here as well, the limits of
hospitality are challenged by the contract based on debt and gratitude.
The only space for absolute hospitality is in Mr. Ramirez’s hallucinations. This emphasizes
the incommensurability between the real and the ideal of the encounter. In the
hallucinations, Larry enters his room from the window, without invitation. At the same time,
it is precisely during these unauthorized visits, in which Larry arrives without expecting any
monetary compensation from Mr. Ramirez, when the two characters engage in a dialogue
that permits their repressed inner selves to surface. In these hallucinated conversations the
two men occupy and cohabitate each other’s spaces, enacting absolute hospitality. For Mr.
Ramirez, the invitation presupposes identification between the host and the guest. These
encounters postulate hospitality as a sentiment that transcends the delineations of sovereign
space; it requires one to share, cohabit, include, negotiate, collaborate, dialogue, and
reciprocate. It is interesting that Manuel Puig chose to speak about hospitality in terms of
invasion of the other’s territory, considering that such activity was common to the military
regime of Argentina at that time. It gives the author a chance to reflect upon the fragility of
hospitality and the fine line that separates it from a violent and abusive act of intrusion. Puig
cautiously distinguishes between the two acts of “invasion” by viewing one as a therapeutic
motion, dependent upon mutual cohabitation and reciprocity, the dismantlement of
hierarchies and the establishment of a dialogue, while the other rests upon the premises of
differentiation, silencing, and exclusion.
Mr. Ramirez’s death marks the end of the novel, the final note of which indicates that Larry
still cannot find a job, as Mr. Ramirez’s memoirs fall into the hands of Human Rights
International. Puig points out in his interview with Nora Catelli that he wanted to finish the
novel on an optimistic note. The optimism, regardless of the novel’s seemingly tragic ending,
is reflected in the sacrifice of the Argentinean man. Thanks to Mr. Ramirez, Larry is left
outside the circle where the calculative game of power is carried out. If hospitality is
unrealizable in a space possessed by the need for sovereignty, by the calculative minds of
those whose actions are determined by a pragmatic hope for future compensations, Mr.
Ramirez saves Larry from entering this space. Although Manuel Puig might have thought of
this ending as optimistic, given its suspension of the character’s incorporation into a system
that rests upon the measure of interests, Larry’s subsequent misery and Mr. Ramirez’s
death definitely point at hospitality as unrealizable in the society described or imagined by
the author. Puig’s optimism rests only upon the future as an undetermined and potential
space for hospitality.
Notes
[1] The novel was first published in Spanish translation done by the author. For the history of
publishing of the two versions of this novel and also for a discussion about Manuel Puig’s
works written in foreign languages, see Kerr, Lucille. Suspended Fictions: Reading the
Novels by Manuel Puig. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987.
[2] For an elucidating discussion of a political and psychological exile of a postmodern
subject and the rupture in his/her unity, see Chamberlain, Lori. “The Subject in Exile: Puig’
s Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages”. Novel-A Forum on Fiction. 20.3 (1987):
260-275.
[3] Suzanne Jill Levine discusses in great detail the years of Puig’s exile in her recent
biography of the author titled Manuel Puig and the Spider Woman: His Life and Fictions.
As Levine notes: “Symptomatic of the ‘erasure’ of Puig in the Argentine cultural sphere of
the seventies after his initial runaway success with Heartbreak Tango was the absence of
his name in Crisis, the most important intellectual and political journal from May 1973
to August 1976, which cited new and established writers of all political and aesthetic
persuasions from Borges and Bioy Casares to David Viñas, Sábato, Cortázar, Ricardo Piglia,
Osvaldo Soriano, and Jorge Asís. In 1980, César Aira, a young novelist who admired Manuel
Puig’s work enormously, commented that at this time Puig provoked ‘a tremendous anxiety,
rejection, repulsion’”(214).
[4] During his interview with Nora Catelli talking about the political situation in Argentina
that forced him to leave the country, Puig says the following: “Cuando hicieron salir a
Cámpora y propusieron la fórmula Perón-Perón y fue aceptada, yo dije: yo no tolero esto, no
puede ser… yo me sentí tan ajeno (23).
[5] Ronald De Feo mentions Gregory Rabassa’s comment in his review of the novel. He
writes: “In his Newsday review of the book, Gregory Rabassa raised questions (noting,
particularly, the way Larry often unconvincingly avoids using contractions) and hoped that
in Puig’s next English venture he would pay more attention to ‘medium and milieu’” (17).
[6] For a discussion on the importance of the repetition of the protagonists’ names (John,
Larry’s last name and Juan, Mr. Ramirez’s first name) see Tittler, Jonathan. Manuel Puig.
New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993: 80.
[7] One could look at Puig’s notes taken from the young North American man as
testimonies. Although the text itself reflects upon the testimonial genre, exploring its limits
and the boundaries between the testimonial and fictional narrative, I am not arguing that it
can be viewed as Mark’s or Puig’s testimonies. As Lucille Kerr points out, in contrast to the
(co)authors of testimonial texts, Puig appears here as the sole author of his novel. Kerr views
the problem of authorship as central to this novel (“Reading between the Lines, Reading
between the Lies” 617-24). Ricardo Piglia also underscores the importance of testimonial
genre in this novel suggesting that Puig “ficcionaliza lo testimonial y borra sus huellas”
(Piglia).
[8] Lucille Kerr underscores the therapeutic function of the conversations between the two
characters. Kerr writes: “Larry’s role could be read as that of a psychoanalyst, whose
exchange with the analysand would lead to the lifting of repression. However, given the
identification of the one subject with the other and the attention paid to Larry’s life story
throughout the dialogues, it could be argued that the roles are reversed; indeed, Larry’s final
optimism might even be read as indicative of a “cure,” effected by their sessions together”
(“Reading between the Lines, Reading between the Lies” 623).
Works Cited
Avelar, Idelber. The Untimely Present: Postdictatorial Latin American Fiction and the
Task of Mourning. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1999.
Catelli, Nora. “Entrevista con Manuel Puig: Una narrativa de lo melifluo.” Quimera. 18
(1982): 22-25.
Chamberlain, Lori. “The Subject in Exile: Puig’s Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages”.
Novel-A Forum on Fiction. 20.3 (1987): 260-275.
Corbatta, Jorgelina. “Encuentros con Manuel Puig”. Revista Iberoamericana. 49 (1991):
591-620.
De Feo, Ronald. “Manuel Puig’s Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages.” Review.
31 (1982): 16-18.
Derrida, Jacques. Of Hospitality. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000.
Herrero-Olaizola, Alejandro. “Condenados por leer: Lectura y lectores de Puig en Maldición
eterna a quien leas estas páginas”. Hispanic Review. 61.4 (1993): 483-500.
Kerr, Lucille. “Reading between the Lines, Reading between the Lies: Manuel Puig’s
Maldición eterna a quien lea estas páginas”. World Literature Today: A Literary Quarterly of
the University of Oklahoma. 65.4 (1997): 617-624.
----. Suspended Fictions: Reading the Novels by Manuel Puig. Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1987.
Levine, Suzanne Jill. Manuel Puig and the Spider Woman: His Life and Fictions. New York:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000.
Panesi, Jorge. “Manuel Puig: Las relaciones peligrosas”. Revista Iberoamericana. 49.125
(1983): 903-917.
Piglia, Ricardo. “Manuel Puig y la magia del relato”. Literatura argentina contemporánea.
10 April 1997. <http://www.literatura.org/Puig/Puig_por_Piglia.html>
Puig, Manuel. Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages. New York: Random House, 1982.
Rosello, Mireille. Postcolonial Hospitality: The Immigrant as Guest. Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2001.
Speranza, Graciela "La sonrisa de un enigma", Clarín Digital. Argentina, 2 July, 2000.
<Clarin.com.ar/indexhtm>
Tittler, Jonathan. Manuel Puig. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993.
English [1]. This deliberate use of the English language functions in the novel as an allegory
of the simultaneously violent and fascinating encounter between a foreigner and a native.
While the theme of the subject in exile has been extensively discussed, my intention is to see
the experience of exile from another perspective: as a mutual promise of hospitality between
an “I” and an “Other” [2]. This approach will take the notion of hospitality as an anticipation
of the new and as a possibility of a rebirth.
A central theme of Eternal Curse is that of encounters. There are encounters between
a foreigner and a native; between an immigrant and a host state; between a city and an
individual; between readers and texts. Manuel Puig explores the hospitable relationship born
out of the moment of encounter, examining not only the restrictions, but also the redemptive
and therapeutic functions of this moment. To immigrate, i.e. to enter the other’s house,
results in a marginal condition for not only the person seeking refuge, but for the host as
well. Hospitality points towards exteriorization and displacement implied in the process of
retrieval and intrusion. Puig questions the negativity of this state, recognizing the
vulnerability of the proper space as an opening for new opportunities. His question is: How
do the demands and rules of hospitality change if “speaking to [the] other” for an exiled
person, as well as for the native, is mutually indispensable?
Given the author’s portrayal of the vulnerability of a foreigner--his minimal rights and the
attendant powerlessness--as a challenging and even positive condition, one of the
protagonists affirms “power is detestable” (161). From the very first sentence the novel
confronts the problem of power and mastery, testing it against the powerlessness and
dispossession of those who are nomads. Inquiring as to the identity of Washington, curious
about the tradition upon which his name rests, the foreigner and the “impostor” Mr.
Ramirez defies the “master” (George Washington, Washington Square) and the native
(Larry). The foreigner, a man dispossessed of his own home, simultaneously experiences a
sense of fascination and rebellion when wishing to enter the house of the native. “I have
never been in a real home in this country […] Why don’t you invite me to your place for a
while? […] I’d like to see the interior of an American house […] Won’t you invite me?” (13)
This protracted plea points toward the foreigner’s dependence upon the native’s hospitality,
which is challenged by the latter’s fear of a loss of mastery and sovereignty. Thus, the novel
puts forward questions about the status of sovereignty straightway, establishing hospitality
as a potential space where the hierarchy--the accepted order of our mastery over certain
territorial or cultural identities--can be dismantled.
It is important to note the autobiographical circumstances in which Manuel Puig wrote
Eternal Curse. His exile from Argentina began in the 1970’s, when the publication of his
novel Heartbreak Tango placed him among authors persecuted and prohibited by
Juan Domingo Peron’s Regime [3]. After spending various years in Mexico, Puig moved to
New York. In one of his interviews he makes the following comment about his arrival to the
U.S. and his writing of the novel:
Lo que me impuso para la nueva novela fueron los años pasados en Nueva York, o sea, 1976-1977, que
fueron en realidad una experiencia desagradable. Llegué a Estados Unidos--donde había vivido en el
sesenta--en enero de 1976, sin papeles, sin departamento, con unos años más y una Nueva York menos
acogedora que antes (Corbatta 619).
Puig left Buenos Aires because of his estrangement from a society that was host to an
increasingly unacceptable socio-political life [4]. Eternal Curse is based on the
author’s personal encounter with Mark, a young North American man from whom he took
about two-hundred pages of notes during their conversations. Puig recalls his encounter with
Mark as at once “fascinating” and “violent” (Corbatta 620). Puig’s emblematic words point
toward the duality of exile: as violence accompanied by the sentiment of fascination, born
from the convergence marked with positive vitality. It is a powerless position, one that does
not guarantee the same set of “rights” that the citizen enjoys; it accentuates a foreigner’s
vulnerability. However, it is precisely for this reason that it can be seen as an alternative
space.
Puig takes testimonial notes from a North American man in order to write a novel in which
he experiments with the language of his host country. This reflects his desire to be inscribed
literally as well as figuratively within the “foreign” cultural space. The fact that the novel is
written in English shows the author’s disposition to take a leap towards the new; to
transcend his own self; and to defy the “foreign” culture, questioning and critiquing society’s
dependence and upholding of national and linguistic boundaries. These movements toward
the “other” are parts of apprenticeship and rebellion that carry certain attractions and
anxiety. It is the “foreigner” who, devoid of any possession, destabilizes the private space of
the “native.”
Puig’s use of English also underscores the author’s status in the U.S. as a foreigner. It is as if
he were a guest of the foreign tongue, asking for its hospitality. When using “el idioma del
que no [tiene] las claves” (Corbatta 620), the author pursues the experience of
disempowerment and, apparently and prophetically confronts his hosts about their lack of
hospitality. As Ronald De Feo observes, after publishing the book in English Puig was
criticized for not being entirely convincing in his use of the colloquial tongue [5].
Following the story of two men in New York, Eternal Curse presents an entire text (with
the exception of several letters at the end of the book) that is constructed from their
dialogues with each other. One of these men is Juan Jose Ramirez, an Argentinean who,
after spending several years imprisoned in his country, is left paralyzed and amnesiac.
Under the protection of “Human Rights International,” Mr. Ramirez is transferred to “The
Home,” a nursing facility that offered him shelter. The counterpart of the Argentinean is
Larry, a young North American man. A historian by profession, Larry is hired as Mr.
Ramirez’s personal assistant, whose duty is to take the paralyzed patient for walks around
the city [6]. The text presents several meaningful changes in the novelistic trajectory of the
author. Notably, his “mother tongue” is completely absent, as are the feminine voice and
references to popular and mass culture that are so characteristic of Puig’s earlier works.
Nonetheless, as Graciela Speranza notes, these themes appear in this novel as “repressed
aesthetics” (Speranza).
Puig considers it necessary to speak otherwise and repress certain topics and techniques in
this novel. In order to explain why, it is important to frame the novel within the postdictatorial
context. For our purposes, Idelber Avelar’s thesis on posdictatorial Latin American novels is
most revealing. As Avelar points out, the necessity to allegorize (allos-agoreuein: speaking
otherwise, speak to the other) is related to the postdictatorial mourning, which itself implies
the mourning for the literary. Fictional genre is marginalized in the (post)dictatorship,
because it doesn’t have the “social and experiential relevance” and it is substituted by more
“documental” genres, among them that of the testimony [7]. “Speaking otherwise”
according to Avelar:
[S]hould not only be understood as a mere search for alternative forms of speech but also as speaking of
the other (in double sense of the genitive) and, first and foremost, as speaking to the other, of answering
the call of the other. Postdictatorial literature speaks (the) other(wise) (232-233).
Contextualization of (post) dictatorship is needed to clarify what partly causes Puig to wish
to liberate himself from his historical and cultural identity, imposed by the accident of birth,
and immerse himself in a foreign one. For Puig, “speaking other(wise)” is an opportunity to
start over, to recuperate.
This imperative to “speak to the other” is also reflected on the narrative level of the novel.
Mr. Ramirez feels the need to encounter his ‘notes’ in order to recuperate: “All I have…,” he
says to Larry, “all I cherish is the hope of finding my notes” (75). The Human Rights
Committee sends Mr. Ramirez several books that he possessed while in prison. They are
French novels of the XVIII Century, which according to Larry have numbers on the top of
the words. As he starts to decipher the message in the books, Larry concludes that they are
Mr. Ramirez’s testimonies. However, when Mr. Ramirez hears of this he insists that they are
false: he refuses to accept them as his own, voluntarily erasing his past. As a refugee he feels
the need to be liberated from his own self, desiring instead his integration into the world of
the other. Hence, he steadfastly refuses to accept his past identity. His pain subsides when
he is given a chance to lose himself in the other’s life story: “Please, Larry,” he pleads, “say
something, show me something in the street or here in the park, anything… To make the
pain go away… I can’t stand it…” (6). Their dialogues frequently turn into dramatized
performances of Larry’s past, in which the two men exchange their roles. It is in these
moments that Mr. Ramirez is given an opportunity to “invade” the autonomy of the other,
serving as therapy sessions that improve his physical condition [8].
Larry, for his part, is a marginal and alienated character inside his own country. A young
man of leftist convictions, with neither secure employment nor family, he cannot manage to
find his place in the society in which he lives. According to Larry, his house is not worth
seeing. Larry is a “native” who is uncomfortable with his own identity, hoping to rid himself
of certain malignant moments of his past, moments that cause him physical pain. Larry
explains:
[Y]ou want to vomit the knot, discharge it. And I think there’s good reason for this feeling. The
masochistic part has to do with old identifications that have been internalized. Internalization is like
swallowing something, eating something, incorporating something. Vomiting or spitting is the reverse
process (40).
Larry’s symbolic exile offers him the possibility to liberate himself--to “spit out and vomit”
the residues of his past (dysfunctional parents, a failed marriage, disillusionment in his
profession). Larry repeats the same idea later when he tells Mr. Ramirez that he wishes to
find “[a] way out of me, out of that zone where everything rots” (203). In this sense, both
characters of the novel are displaced in order to experience re-birth in another.
Jacques Derrida’s essay Of Hospitality, furnishes a theoretical base for interrogating
the norms, potentiality and limitations of hospitality as implied in Puig’s novel, aiding our
consideration of the different manifestations of power exercised on public or private scales
that hinder the enactment of hospitality. Several observations made by Derrida can be
relevant in this case. For Derrida, the ethics of hospitality requires that the door, as a
symbolic entrance to the physical space of one’s home or the private world of the other, be
open. By inviting the foreigner home, by asking him to come in, the host turns into a guest
on his or her own territory. An act of substitution takes place--the owner turns into a guest,
while the guest appropriates the host’s dwelling place. For Derrida, this process of retrieval
makes possible the emancipation of the master in the moment of his or her return: “It is as if
[…] the stranger could save the master and liberate the power of his host; it’s as if the
master, qua master, were prisoner of his place and his power, of his ipseity, of his subjectivity
(his subjectivity is hostage)” (123). The encounter, according to Derrida, is a mutually
indispensable moment: it is a moment of vital substitution, of the displacement that enables
a return to the self, creating the space for hospitality by which the host and the guest could
be saved and restituted. This mutual dependence should establish a balance between them
and liberate them from a sense of indebtedness.
It is from the inability to acknowledge such interdependency of the participants in the act of
hospitality that the problem of debt emerges, often demanded by a host or a host country.
For example, Mr. Ramirez often reproaches Larry and the country that offered him
hospitality for their insistence on reciprocity and their expectation that the debt will be paid:
“Don’t you realize,” he says, “I’m a foreigner, and I’m supposed to be grateful for the
hospitality?” (Puig 41-42). For Derrida, this insistence on reciprocity and indebtedness [be it
a monetary payment or verbal gratitude] is a major ambivalence of hospitality. These
contradictions make Derrida introduce a term “hostpitality,” focusing on the Latin origin of
the word: hostis, meaning both enemy and host. The Derridian notion of hostpitality is
conditioned by the coexistence of protection and control on the part of the state apparatus,
demanding from the guest the sentiment of indebtedness, of reciprocity and gratitude, if not
the need to pay. As Mireille Rosello correctly points out, “avoiding the vocabulary of
exchange may be a cynical deception when the constant reference to state hospitality tends
to hide the profoundly economic and financial logic of state-organized migrations” (35).
State initiated “invitations” for Rosello are often disguised and hypocritical equivalents of
“recruitment.”
In his novel, Puig questions and criticizes the role that the Nation-State, as the upholder of
the fixed identity of its citizens, plays in hospitality. Puig’s text vacillates between the two
roles of the State: that of protector and controller. Because it is impossible for the State to
function without exercising vigilance over a “foreigner,” its hospitality becomes cursed. In
Eternal Curse the State and the Committee are the powers that truncate the promise of
the encounter between the foreigner and the native, suppressing the promising potential of
the immigration/exile. The representatives of Human Rights Committee frequently invade
the place where Mr. Ramirez lives. It is called The Home, an ironic name for a facility for the
elderly, which is supervised at all times. It is also a metaphor frequently used to denote the
Nation-State: in accordance with the politics of hospitality imposed by the State, every host
“must visualize the threshold of the house as the equivalent of a national frontier” (Rosello
38). The Home, in State’s view, should be the focal point of its subjects’ identities.
In addition to its role as vigilante and police, the State must also undo the immigrant’s
anonymity, imposing on him an identity for cataloguing purposes. Larry’s ancestors had to
submit to this demand and become recognizable and manageable entities. Larry comments
to Mr. Ramirez: “I have an Italian grandfather, my father’s father. His name was
Giovanangelo… When my grandfather disembarked, Immigration mangled his name” (22).
In the case of Larry’s grandfather the State had to adapt the foreign last name (translate,
homogenize and catalogue it), so that later it could manage him as a citizen. The imposition
of a manageable identity not only reveals how the State exercises its control, but also offers
individuals certain privileges. By being a “manageable identity,” and having the status of a
political refugee, Mr. Ramirez receives protection from The Organization of Human Rights
International.
Throughout the novel, it becomes clear that The Organization’s as well as Larry’s motives
for protecting or taking care of the refugee are questionable. A letter to the Ministry of
Interior Affairs of the Committee makes it explicit that The Human Rights International is
extremely interested in Mr. Ramirez’s memoirs, which could give the organization more
authority and consolidate its prestige: “There is no doubt that steps will be taken for the
publication of the works,” writes a representative of the Committee, “Our organization is
deeply interested in the study of such subjects” (230). At the same time, Larry’s interest in
the memoirs of Ramirez and their possible testimonial value is guided by the impulse to take
advantage of the trauma and the tragedy of the other in order to find a good academic
position at a respectable university. The universities of various nations get involved in the
intent to use Ramirez’s documents to their advantage. Larry says:
The Institute for Latin American Studies at the university there [Montreal]. There’s a project going on
concerning political repression in Latin America… My friend at Columbia didn’t want to let the cat out
of the bag, but, in Montreal, they’re studying political repression from the time of Spanish colonialism to
today… and they need contemporary material; it’s perfect (146).
Here, Puig points to another significant aspect of immigration politics: the differentiation
between the “desirable” and “undesirable” legal or illegal immigrant, to use Rosello’s
terminology. An educated, experienced man, persecuted by a dictatorial government, can
prove to be of use. He is more “recruited” by the State or academic institution than offered
unconditional hospitality. Puig relentlessly criticizes here not only governmental but also
academic structures that profit from the “desirable” foreigner. Here as well, the limits of
hospitality are challenged by the contract based on debt and gratitude.
The only space for absolute hospitality is in Mr. Ramirez’s hallucinations. This emphasizes
the incommensurability between the real and the ideal of the encounter. In the
hallucinations, Larry enters his room from the window, without invitation. At the same time,
it is precisely during these unauthorized visits, in which Larry arrives without expecting any
monetary compensation from Mr. Ramirez, when the two characters engage in a dialogue
that permits their repressed inner selves to surface. In these hallucinated conversations the
two men occupy and cohabitate each other’s spaces, enacting absolute hospitality. For Mr.
Ramirez, the invitation presupposes identification between the host and the guest. These
encounters postulate hospitality as a sentiment that transcends the delineations of sovereign
space; it requires one to share, cohabit, include, negotiate, collaborate, dialogue, and
reciprocate. It is interesting that Manuel Puig chose to speak about hospitality in terms of
invasion of the other’s territory, considering that such activity was common to the military
regime of Argentina at that time. It gives the author a chance to reflect upon the fragility of
hospitality and the fine line that separates it from a violent and abusive act of intrusion. Puig
cautiously distinguishes between the two acts of “invasion” by viewing one as a therapeutic
motion, dependent upon mutual cohabitation and reciprocity, the dismantlement of
hierarchies and the establishment of a dialogue, while the other rests upon the premises of
differentiation, silencing, and exclusion.
Mr. Ramirez’s death marks the end of the novel, the final note of which indicates that Larry
still cannot find a job, as Mr. Ramirez’s memoirs fall into the hands of Human Rights
International. Puig points out in his interview with Nora Catelli that he wanted to finish the
novel on an optimistic note. The optimism, regardless of the novel’s seemingly tragic ending,
is reflected in the sacrifice of the Argentinean man. Thanks to Mr. Ramirez, Larry is left
outside the circle where the calculative game of power is carried out. If hospitality is
unrealizable in a space possessed by the need for sovereignty, by the calculative minds of
those whose actions are determined by a pragmatic hope for future compensations, Mr.
Ramirez saves Larry from entering this space. Although Manuel Puig might have thought of
this ending as optimistic, given its suspension of the character’s incorporation into a system
that rests upon the measure of interests, Larry’s subsequent misery and Mr. Ramirez’s
death definitely point at hospitality as unrealizable in the society described or imagined by
the author. Puig’s optimism rests only upon the future as an undetermined and potential
space for hospitality.
Notes
[1] The novel was first published in Spanish translation done by the author. For the history of
publishing of the two versions of this novel and also for a discussion about Manuel Puig’s
works written in foreign languages, see Kerr, Lucille. Suspended Fictions: Reading the
Novels by Manuel Puig. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987.
[2] For an elucidating discussion of a political and psychological exile of a postmodern
subject and the rupture in his/her unity, see Chamberlain, Lori. “The Subject in Exile: Puig’
s Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages”. Novel-A Forum on Fiction. 20.3 (1987):
260-275.
[3] Suzanne Jill Levine discusses in great detail the years of Puig’s exile in her recent
biography of the author titled Manuel Puig and the Spider Woman: His Life and Fictions.
As Levine notes: “Symptomatic of the ‘erasure’ of Puig in the Argentine cultural sphere of
the seventies after his initial runaway success with Heartbreak Tango was the absence of
his name in Crisis, the most important intellectual and political journal from May 1973
to August 1976, which cited new and established writers of all political and aesthetic
persuasions from Borges and Bioy Casares to David Viñas, Sábato, Cortázar, Ricardo Piglia,
Osvaldo Soriano, and Jorge Asís. In 1980, César Aira, a young novelist who admired Manuel
Puig’s work enormously, commented that at this time Puig provoked ‘a tremendous anxiety,
rejection, repulsion’”(214).
[4] During his interview with Nora Catelli talking about the political situation in Argentina
that forced him to leave the country, Puig says the following: “Cuando hicieron salir a
Cámpora y propusieron la fórmula Perón-Perón y fue aceptada, yo dije: yo no tolero esto, no
puede ser… yo me sentí tan ajeno (23).
[5] Ronald De Feo mentions Gregory Rabassa’s comment in his review of the novel. He
writes: “In his Newsday review of the book, Gregory Rabassa raised questions (noting,
particularly, the way Larry often unconvincingly avoids using contractions) and hoped that
in Puig’s next English venture he would pay more attention to ‘medium and milieu’” (17).
[6] For a discussion on the importance of the repetition of the protagonists’ names (John,
Larry’s last name and Juan, Mr. Ramirez’s first name) see Tittler, Jonathan. Manuel Puig.
New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993: 80.
[7] One could look at Puig’s notes taken from the young North American man as
testimonies. Although the text itself reflects upon the testimonial genre, exploring its limits
and the boundaries between the testimonial and fictional narrative, I am not arguing that it
can be viewed as Mark’s or Puig’s testimonies. As Lucille Kerr points out, in contrast to the
(co)authors of testimonial texts, Puig appears here as the sole author of his novel. Kerr views
the problem of authorship as central to this novel (“Reading between the Lines, Reading
between the Lies” 617-24). Ricardo Piglia also underscores the importance of testimonial
genre in this novel suggesting that Puig “ficcionaliza lo testimonial y borra sus huellas”
(Piglia).
[8] Lucille Kerr underscores the therapeutic function of the conversations between the two
characters. Kerr writes: “Larry’s role could be read as that of a psychoanalyst, whose
exchange with the analysand would lead to the lifting of repression. However, given the
identification of the one subject with the other and the attention paid to Larry’s life story
throughout the dialogues, it could be argued that the roles are reversed; indeed, Larry’s final
optimism might even be read as indicative of a “cure,” effected by their sessions together”
(“Reading between the Lines, Reading between the Lies” 623).
Works Cited
Avelar, Idelber. The Untimely Present: Postdictatorial Latin American Fiction and the
Task of Mourning. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1999.
Catelli, Nora. “Entrevista con Manuel Puig: Una narrativa de lo melifluo.” Quimera. 18
(1982): 22-25.
Chamberlain, Lori. “The Subject in Exile: Puig’s Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages”.
Novel-A Forum on Fiction. 20.3 (1987): 260-275.
Corbatta, Jorgelina. “Encuentros con Manuel Puig”. Revista Iberoamericana. 49 (1991):
591-620.
De Feo, Ronald. “Manuel Puig’s Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages.” Review.
31 (1982): 16-18.
Derrida, Jacques. Of Hospitality. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000.
Herrero-Olaizola, Alejandro. “Condenados por leer: Lectura y lectores de Puig en Maldición
eterna a quien leas estas páginas”. Hispanic Review. 61.4 (1993): 483-500.
Kerr, Lucille. “Reading between the Lines, Reading between the Lies: Manuel Puig’s
Maldición eterna a quien lea estas páginas”. World Literature Today: A Literary Quarterly of
the University of Oklahoma. 65.4 (1997): 617-624.
----. Suspended Fictions: Reading the Novels by Manuel Puig. Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1987.
Levine, Suzanne Jill. Manuel Puig and the Spider Woman: His Life and Fictions. New York:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000.
Panesi, Jorge. “Manuel Puig: Las relaciones peligrosas”. Revista Iberoamericana. 49.125
(1983): 903-917.
Piglia, Ricardo. “Manuel Puig y la magia del relato”. Literatura argentina contemporánea.
10 April 1997. <http://www.literatura.org/Puig/Puig_por_Piglia.html>
Puig, Manuel. Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages. New York: Random House, 1982.
Rosello, Mireille. Postcolonial Hospitality: The Immigrant as Guest. Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2001.
Speranza, Graciela "La sonrisa de un enigma", Clarín Digital. Argentina, 2 July, 2000.
<Clarin.com.ar/indexhtm>
Tittler, Jonathan. Manuel Puig. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993.
| Ketevan Kupatadze, Emory University |
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| The Theme of Hospitality in Manuel Puig’s Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages |