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Ruisánchez Serra, José Ramón. Historias que regresan: Topología y renarración en la segunda mitad del siglo XX mexicano. México, DF: Universidad Iberoamericana and El Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2012. 200 pp.
The fearless material in Historias que regresan flirts with themes so obvious that they threaten to turn preposterous. What narrative, from the start, isn't a "re-narration?" What narrative doesn't, in the end, ponder its present moment? And within the list of narratives that interests literary critics, how many don't include some sort of "topology" that battles "cartography" in the sense that characters question their spaces in order to rethink the places organized for them to inhabit, which also serve to inhibit and control them? If Historias que regresan turns in a surprisingly earnest yet lively analysis that reexamines topics so fundamental that they constantly risk cliché, then it seems almost natural that its creator should be perhaps the only type of writer daring enough to gamble this freely: a Mexican novelist who also holds a Ph.D. in literary criticism. In every chapter, Ruisánchez convincingly defends the essential nature of his chosen texts through subtle, playful, even tricky thought that reaffirms, against the contemporary odds, the canon. Ruisánchez's skillfully stacked deck relies on three aces, Juan Rulfo's Pedro Páramo (1955), Carlos Fuentes's La muerte de Artemio Cruz (1962), and José Agustín's De perfil (1966), as well as a wild card, Juan Villoro's El disparo de argón (1991), and the analysis rotates these high cards through winning combinations. The new literary poker also benefits from other genres: José Emilio Pacheco's brief novel and short stories in El principio del placer (1972; 1997), Elena Poniatowska's journalistic hybrid La noche de Tlatelolco (1970), and Carlos Monsiváis's chronicles from Entrada libre (1987). Ruisánchez's cardsharp skill in reshuffling the masterpieces is not ultimately trumped by the usual theorists (Agamben, Bauman, Benjamin, Bhabha, Butler, Certeau, and Zizek), because Ruisánchez runs his own game. The stakes- social justice and the course of Mexican history-are real for him. The canon never looked so edgy.
Consider this estimation...