Alejo Carpentier

Themes

Lo real maravilloso

Carpentier is widely known for his theory of lo real maravilloso. This is the notion that the history and the geography of Latin America are both so extreme as to appear fictional or even magical to outsiders. Thus, Latin America is a region where the line between magic and reality is blurred. It was in the prologue to The Kingdom of this World, a novel of the Haitian Revolution, that he described his vision of lo real maravilloso: "But what is the history of Latin America but a chronicle of magical realism?" The novel itself develops the outlandish (but true) history of Henri Christophe, first king of Haiti, as an example of how the real history of Latin America is so strange as to appear fictional. Some critics interpret the real maravilloso as being synonymous with magical realism. However, Carpentier's theory and its development in his work are more limited in their scope than is the magical realism of, for example, Gabriel García Márquez. Whereas García Márquez's works include events that the reader never mistakes for reality (rainfall of flowers, old men with wings, etc.), Carpentier, for the most part, simply writes about extreme aspects of the history and geography of Latin America, aspects that are almost unbelievable, but that are in fact true.

Music

As a young child Carpentier was exposed to a great deal of music. Carpentier himself played the piano, as did his mother; his father played cello, studying under Pablo Casals, and his grandmother played the organ. Carpentier studied music theory at the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly when he lived in Paris for the first time. Carpentier's own compositions made him an important part of the contemporary Cuban musical landscape, but he also studied the origins and political nuances of Cuban music. His devotion to the adaptations of European artistic styles into Latin American music styles can also be seen in his admiration for Afro-Cuban musical themes.

Early in his career Carpentier collaborated with other young musicians eager to explore Cuban musical roots. One such collaborator was Amadeo Roldán, a French musician of Cuban background. They helped to organize the Cuban premiere of popular orchestral music of the era Conciertos de música nueva (Concerts of New Music), featuring composers such as Stravinsky, Milhaud, Ravel, Malipiero, Poulenc and Satie. In regards to their own music, Carpentier and Roldán were far more interested in integrating African rhythms and melodies into their works and abandoned imitation of European musical styles. "¡Abajo la lira, arriba el bongó!" (Down with the lyre, up with the bongo!) was the popular slogan for their style of music. Carpentier and Roldán collaborated on numerous works, including the 1925 orchestral piece Obertura sobre temas cubanos (Overture on Cuban Themes) which was regarded as scandalous for its betrayal of what was seen as the proper European-style symphony in favor of Afro-Cuban inspired music. Other well-known collaborations between the two included Tres pequeñas poemas: Oriente, Pregón, Fiesta negra (Three little poems) produced in 1926, and two Afro-Cuban ballets: La Rebambaramba, a colonial ballet in two parts (1928) and El milagro de Anaquille (1929).

Carpentier's interest in music had great influence on his prose writing. Navarro suggests that readers of Carpentier's works are more listeners than they are readers. Lyrical use of colloquial dialects, literary rhythms such as alliteration and assonance and the theme of music within the world of the narrative (drums, footsteps, etc.) are a few examples of music's influence over Carpentier's work. In an interview the author himself was quoted as saying "Music is present in all of my work." For Carpentier, analysis of Cuban identity was grounded in the analysis of Cuban music. As such, for Carpentier to better understand Cuban identity through his work, he eagerly integrated music into his writing.

Ethnomusicology and Afro-Cubanism

With this intrinsic appreciation of music and a fascination with Cuban identity, Carpentier began investigating the origins of Cuban music in a more academic sense. In 1946, Carpentier published the ethnomusicological study La Música en Cuba which explores how European music, transplanted African music and the indigenous music of the island all blended together to create Cuban music. Carpentier took particular interest in Afro-Cuban themes.

Particularly fascinated with the overwhelming influence of African music in Cuban music, Carpentier introduced Afro-Cuban influenced music called lo afrocubano, (i.e. heavily improvised and rhythm based music) into what was deemed more formal music venues dependent on European styles, called lo guajiro. Carpentier once wrote that lo guajiro was, "very poetic, but lo guajiro is not music...On the other hand, in mestizo and black music...the rich material has an incredible wealth to it...to make it the work of national expression." Because of racial tensions between white Cubans and black and criollo Cubans, such preferences were not well received by the Cuban elite of the mid century. Carpentier devoted the majority of his musicology research to the Afro-Cuban influences present in Cuba. For example, Carpentier paid particular attention to Contradanza, a wildly popular Cuban dance derived from the European style of music and dance, Contredanse. The ample room left for musical improvisation and the element of group dance were easily adapted into African musical tradition where improvisation and dance play integral roles. Hence, a hybrid musical form unique to Cuba was created. Carpentier argued that the improvisation inherent in African influenced music allowed for varied interpretations that catalyzed regional differences and therefore regional identity, and concluded that this was why Cuba had such a varied musical identity.

Major works

Carpentier's major works include:

Novels

• ¡Écue-Yamba-O! (1933) (Praised Be the Lord!)
• El reino de este mundo (1949) (The Kingdom of this World)
• Los pasos perdidos (1953) (The Lost Steps)
• El acoso (1956) (The Chase, American English translation 1989 by Alfred Mac Adam)
• El siglo de las luces (1962) (Explosion in a Cathedral)
• Concierto barroco (1974) (Concierto barroco; English: Baroque Concert), based on the 1709 meeting of Vivaldi, Handel and Domenico Scarlatti, with cameo appearances by Wagner and Stravinsky, and fictional characters from the new world who inspire the Venetian composer's opera, Motezuma.
• El Recurso del método (1974) (Reasons of State)
• La consagración de la primavera (1978) (The Rite of Spring; Le Sacre du Printemps, ballet by Igor Stravinsky)
• El arpa y la sombra (1979) (The Harp and the Shadow) dealing with Columbus.

Short stories

• El sacrificio (1923) (The Sacrifice)
• Viaje a la semilla (1944) (Journey to the Seed)
• Oficio de tinieblas (1944) (Office of Darkness)
• Guerra del tiempo (1956) (War of Time)
• Otros relatos (1984) (Other Stories)

Essays

• La música en Cuba (1946) (The Music of Cuba), an ethno-musicological study of Cuba starting from the 16th century, the arrival of European explorers, till the present day of publication, the mid-20th century.
• Tristán e Isolda en tierra firme (1949) (Tristan and Isolde on the Mainland)
• Literatura y conciencia en América Latina (1969) (Literature and Consciousness in Latin America)
• La ciudad de las columnas (1970) (The City of Columns)
• América Latina en su música (1975) (Latin America in its Music)
• Razón de ser (1976) (Reason for Being)
• Afirmación literaria americanista (1979) (Americanist Literary Affirmation)
• El adjetivo y sus arrugas (1980) (The Adjective and its Wrinkles)
• El músico que llevo dentro (1980) (The Musician in Me)
• Conferencias (1987) (Conferences)

El reino de este mundo (The Kingdom of This World)

Carpentier's El reino de este mundo (1949) highlights the Haitian Revolution of the 18th century when the African slaves fought the French colonists for their freedom and basic human rights. The novel combines not only historical references of the event with aspects of African faith and rituals, most notably Haitian vodou; but also the connections between corporeal and spiritual self. The story is seen through the eyes of the protagonist Ti Noël, a black slave. Being a white, European/Cuban writer who published on the subject of the Haitian Revolution, it has been implied that Carpentier chose to write from Ti Noël's point of view so that he would avoid being criticized for any racial stereotyping. Carpentier incorporates symbolic architecture throughout the novel; representing the dictatorship of colonial rule with structures such as the Sans-Souci Palace and the fortress of La Ferrière.

La música en Cuba (The Music of Cuba)

La música en Cuba (The Music of Cuba) is an ethno-musicological study of the Music of Cuba starting from the sixteenth century with the arrival of European explorers, until the present day of publication, the mid-twentieth century. The blending of different cultures—black, white, mulattoes, criollos and natives—mirrors the blending of Cuba's two main musical styles, the Christian European music and the elemental percussion and rhythm-based music of the transported Africans and aboriginal peoples of the island. The book includes a general history of music in colonized Latin America but mainly focuses on Cuban styles of music and dance, influential Cuban musicians and Cuban musical identity. Carpentier devotes a great deal of his study to exploring the influence African descendants had on Cuban music. He has an entire chapter titled, "Los Negros" ("The Blacks") that explores the many substantial ways African music influenced all of Latin American music. According to Carpentier, the African influence on Cuban music in particular was deliberately concealed by the colonist prejudice of 18th- and 19th-century Cuba. At the time of the book's publication many white Cubans were reluctant to even acknowledge the blending of the cultures much less investigate it. Carpentier, though, was eager to do so and by making bold statements about Cuba's past and integral relationships with a wide range of cultures he succeeded in giving back to Cuba an in-depth academic perspective of its own cultural identity through its music.

Guerra del tiempo (The War of Time)

Guerra del tiempo (The War of Time) is a set of surrealistic short stories, in a variety of styles, which evidences Carpentier's ability to work with the fantastic and the surreal. The most important is the first one, "El Camino de Santiago" (The Way of Santiago), which narrates the adventures of a commoner, a Spaniard in the Age of Discovery, who is today a soldier, tomorrow pilgrim, then a sailor, a colonizer, prisoner, and so on; he pursues every dream and suffers every disappointment. The second tale is called "Viaje a la semilla" (Journey Back to the Source). This narrative is striking for the function of the time inversion that the narrator operates to tell the life of the main character, Don Marcial (Marqués de Capellanías).

El Acoso (The Chase)

Carpentier's El Acoso was originally published in Spanish in 1956. It was translated into American English by Alfred MacAdam as The Chase and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1989, after over three decades of suppression in the United States for Carpentier's affiliation with Fidel Castro's Cuba (Carpentier had been Cuba's ambassador to France during this time). The novel is one of the most influential novels in contemporary Latin American literature, cited by authors such as Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, José Donoso and others as a major influence in the movement known in North America as Latin American Magical Realism, though this identification is somewhat misleading (see section above on Carpentier's theory of Lo real maravilloso) as Carpentier, in his lo real maravilloso, makes a point of referring to actual events that are so fantastic they seem magical, while the Magic Realists used Surrealist techniques and invent completely imaginary events with only the most tenuous connection to history or real events. As for El Acoso, the novel is highly compressed, richly atmospheric, philosophical, stylistically brilliant, and non-linear; plot is treated almost as an inconsequential side-effect. Though short (121 pages in its English translation), the novel exhibits a certain labyrinthine quality as its fragmented narrative cycles and circles in upon itself. Ostensibly a man is being chased by somewhat shadowy, probably sinister, perhaps governmental, forces. The action starts on a rainy night at a symphonic concert and music plays a part in the clues necessary to piece together what is happening. The Chase is perhaps Carpentier's strongest novel, and easily one of the better novels written in the 20th century, though it is almost unknown in the English-speaking world in spite of MacAdam's superb 1989 translation.

El arpa y la sombra (The Harp and the Shadow)

The Harp and the Shadow is a historic novel (also considered the first novel in the literary style of La nueva crónica de Indias) published in 1979. It follows two attempts by popes Pius IX and Leo XIII to beatify Christopher Columbus, both of which eventually fail. The second part of the novel, which is considerably longer than the other two, is a confession by Columbus, to be given to a Franciscan confessor. Raymond L. Williams sees the novel as "a fictional narrative about the life of Christopher Columbus and his fate as a historical figure. This novel is laden with allusions to Western literary tradition, from classical antiquity to modern Caribbean". James J. Pancrazio writes that "the confession is ironic because it never occurs; when the priest arrives to administer the Last Rites, Columbus, after painstakingly contemplating his life, decides that he has nothing to confess. In this regard, the mediation of guilt, not repentance, is what structures the confession."

Style

Baroque

The Baroque style dates back to the cultural period of the 17th and early 18th centuries. It is most often defined as "the dominant style of art in Europe between the Mannerist and Rococo eras, a style characterized by dynamic movement, overt emotion and self-confident rhetoric". Carpentier first became fascinated with this style in architecture and sculpture; however, he later describes el barroco as un espíritu, and not un estilo histórico ("a spirit, not an historical style"). Wakefield insists that this attitude towards the Baroque stemmed from Carpentier's background in both Europe and Latin America which allowed him to take on a superior front in the face of post-colonialism and ultimately have the literary upper-hand where he could use European style to tell the Latin American story. Carpentier developed his vision of the baroque in his early works before he described himself as a baroque writer. He experimented with the technique in several developmental stages: "first as a cultural style of aesthetic fascination, later as a literary device to create period ambiance, and finally as a weapon of postcolonial pride, defiance and one-upmanship".

This style strongly presents itself when comparing works such as the early Ecue-Yamba-O to the celebrated El reino de este mundo, regarding Carpentier's use of more historically eloquent vocabulary in the latter, instead of the authentic language of the ethnically inspired characters. Here he escapes the stereotype of "nativism" by incorporating European standards, but continues to achieve a sense of normalcy without the expected use of the colloquialisms which the protagonist Ti Noel would undoubtedly use.

Kaup claims that Carpentier utilizes what is known as the "New World Baroque", since Latin America didn't come into contact with the Enlightenment or "European modernity". This contraconquista (counter conquest) allows the New World authors to experiment with new identities and the manners of expressing them. As such, Carpentier observed in his 1975 essay that "American Baroque develop[ed] along with criollo culture ...: the awareness of being Other, of being new, of being symbiotic, of being a criollo; and the criollo spirit is itself a Baroque spirit." This criollo of the New World Baroque is often seen as the dominant style of European literature emerging as a subordinate literary construction in Latin America.

Influence of travel

Wakefield notes that Carpentier's diverse travels were motivated by his need to incorporate the sights he experienced into familiar descriptions within his novels. Carpentier's El reino de este mundo was inspired by his 1943 trip to Haiti, and Los pasos perdidos drew on his visit to Venezuela in 1949. Similarly, his travels to Guadeloupe and the Gulf of Santa Fe inspired El siglo de las luces, and Vera and Enrique's firsthand descriptions of Baku and Mexico in La consegración de la primavera were drawn from Carpentier's trips to those places.

Surrealism

During his visit to France early in his life, Carpentier met and collaborated with many figures of the French Surrealist movement. Taken with Surrealist theory, Carpentier absorbed much of it from his contemporaries, mainly his friend and colleague, the Parisian journalist Robert Desnos. Striving to portray unlikely beauty, termed, "the third beauty", Surrealist theory embraced unique perspectives of the world. Within the Surrealist theory was the concept of Primitivism or a reverence for presiding folkloric tradition. Carpentier, inspired by French Surrealists, learned to view his Cuban home in this new light. He left France with a bursting sense of Cuban and Latin American pride and the artistic goal to capture what it meant to be both.