“Exemplary contraband”, don’t cry for yourself, Argentina

The immense territory of mixtures that is Argentina, where Italians and Spaniards, breeders and soldiers, but also smugglers different fur, the novel proposes to explain it through two main narrative procedures.

The first is the manuscript entitled “El contraband exemplario” written by Eduardo de la Puente, an Argentinian who emigrated to Spain in the sixties and lived in Madrid until his death due to the pandemic. He gives it to Pablo, the much younger narrator, who takes advantage of it. In such a manuscript it goes back to 17th century Buenos Airesthrough the stories of three characters named Méndez, Malaespina and Belazán.

• Author
  Pablo Maurette
• Editorial
  Anagram, 2025
• Pages
  339

The adventures of a historical novel mingle with the mythical ones of the existence of a three-headed monster, the result of childbirth, and characters who seem to come from Garcia Marquezlike Teruca, who is the mother of such a three-headed monster. The conclusion with Argentina, more than crying over its destiny, relates the proof that there is no project that can give unity and express so many contradictions. Alongside the 17th century novel, other stories are also told, such as the exile in Spain of Juan Domingo Perón and his triumphant return with Evita. Eduardo revealed himself to be an unrepentant Peronist, aware of the political contradictions of a movement that united workerist and fascist elements.

Sometimes the novel takes place in hippie environments in the neighborhood of Malasana in the 80s of the last century and in previous times, the poor neighborhoods of greater Buenos Aires, where Pablito spent his childhood.

The reader must accept the reading pact which continually derails him and makes him experience adventures of a fifty characterswhere temporal jumps are superimposed on narrative stylistic jumps, since the initial driving realism is broken down into excursions.

A very remarkable element is that it goes from the heterogeneous baroque world due to Mújica Laínez (as it is forgotten) to pointed reflections on Borges, as well as on Sarmiento, Cortázar and Manuel Puig. There are many previous publications, evident in the form of very specialized nods. Some I captured and others were surely left without relevant decoding. However, these constant games between history, literature, oral stories and ancestral mythssome pre-Hispanic, constitute a fabric of links which open and open.

At some point, the reader must leave the novel and return to it later, because the tiles that make up the stories require a reading agreement that must be accepted if they want to enjoy them. The notion of postmodern novel this could only be brought together here by the shameless mixture of materials where irony and laughter perpetuate other directly parodic elements. The narrator himself is not trustworthy, perhaps in the old category of W. Booth. In my opinion, the character of Eduardo stands out, whose personal story supports one of the most powerful plot threads.

Romanticism

I was interested in this story of the initially repressed homosexual, who achieves his freedom outside the rigid conventions of his traditional education. She is a character full of humanity, just like Chiquita, emblem of the deceived romantic young woman. Because in the current part, the novel develops modern elements, but underneath there is an undisguised romanticism. This greatly benefits the book historical documentation with elements of art and history, and at the same time detailed spatiality, since Buenos Aires and its metro lines are covered as Valjean traveled through the Parisian sewers in “Les Miserables”.

Faced with the inveterate solipsism so common in recent literary prizes, this almost distorted mosaic It is received by the reader like fresh air, precisely because it ties in with the novel’s unbridled writing style.