The Monstered Self

Viewing stories and novels from an ethnographic perspective, Eduardo Gonzaacute;lez here explores the relationship between myth, ritual, and death in writings by Borges, Vargas Llosa, Cortaacute;zar, and Roa Bastos. He then weaves this analysis into a larger cultural fabric composed of the works of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Joyce, Benjamin, H. G. Wells, Kafka, Poe, and others. What interests Gonzaacute;lez is the signature of authorial selfhood in narrative and performance, which he finds willfully and temptingly disfigured in the works he examines: horrific and erotic, subservient and tyrannical, charismatic and repellent. Searching out the personal image and plot, Gonzaacute;lez uncovers two fundamental types of narrative: one that strips character of moral choice; and another in which characters' choices deprive them of personal autonomy and hold them in ritual bondage to a group. ThusThe Monstered Selfbecomes a study of the conflict between individual autonomy and the stereotypes of solidarity. Written in a characteristically allusive, elliptical style, and drawing on psychoanalysis, religion, mythology, and comparative literature,The Monstered Selfis in itself a remarkable performance, one that will engage readers in anthropology, psychology, and cultural history as well as those specifically interested in Latin American narrative.