Roberto Bolano’s Amulet certainly transcends the world of transnational spatiality. Although this book takes place within almost exclusively Spanish-speaking communities, the fact that many instances of language barriers arise within these communities of Uruguayan, Mexican, Spanish, and Chilean individuals indicates the fact that, even within the same language, the problematic “untranslatability” still arises and impedes cross-cultural connection.
When Auxilio Lacouture first explains her background as a Uruguayan self-exile in Mexico City, she says, “…I come from Montevideo—although when I get nostalgic, when homesickness wells up and overwhelms me, I say I’m a Charrúa, which is more or less the same thing, though not exactly, and it confuses Mexicans and other Latin Americans too” which reinforces the idea of her identity as a member of an imagined community in the sense that Charrúa, as an identity, only exists within the imaginations of a very select group of Spanish-speaking individuals (2). The fact that this word not only “confuses Mexicans and other Latin Americans” and that it is “more or less the same thing” as someone who comes from Montevideo can only manifest itself as doubt and confusion for a reader who is not also from Montevideo, Uruguay.
This self-identification confirms that A) a non-Uruguayan, even a Spanish-speaking reader cannot completely comprehend her meaning nor her identity and B) that the untranslatability of the niche of this Uruguayan slang where Auxilio finds her identity, therefore impedes our understanding of her as a character. I believe that Bolaño purposely elects to maintain this untranslatable word in his novel exactly because it cannot be translated. If Auxilio were to say that she is more or less from Montevideo or even this sentence’s translation in Spanish (in the original text), the reader would create a false intimacy and false comprehension of Auxilio’s identity. The fact that this text was originally written in Spanish only furthers the idea of the untranslatable, as, even in its native language this word is marginalized, much like Auxilio herself.
Auxilio Lacouture’s status as a Uruguayan immigrant is only the first in a myriad of degrees of separation that exist between her transnational identity and the reader’s comprehension of it. Auxilio’s frequent references to herself—to her greying blond hair, to her blue eyes—create a giant question mark in the reader’s mind in regard to her age and her ethnicity, further complicating her identification. For me, gender and nationality were also elusive. The name Auxilio was unfamiliar to me and the fact that its final letter is an “o” led me to believe that she was a male character for the first few pages of the novel. Auxilio’s surname only complicates matters of her identification, as, although she says she “comes from Montevideo,” Lacouture is a traditionally French name, which, therefore, lends yet another dimension to Auxilio’s already muddled though thoroughly transnational identity.
Auxilio’s nomadic existence, her close bonds with the male Spanish poets in Mexico City, and her masculine name bestow on her a certain amount of gender androgyny as well. When coupled with her mysterious age which is never indicated clearly but given somewhat contradictory references—she has greying hair but lives a nomadic life usually undertaken by youth and she hangs out at the university—this androgyny creates a cloud of ambiguity that, as a reader, I was not able to penetrate throughout the rest of the book.
Whether he does so accidentally or intentionally, Bolaño’s creation of Auxilio as a transnational and otherwise diversified protagonist seems almost too appropriate in such an intercultural and global narrative. Bolaño, as a male Chilean author, writing a book about a Uruguayan woman with a French surname living in Mexico City but spending the majority of her time with illustrious Spanish poets is also extremely reminiscent of Teju Cole’s novel, Open City. Like Julius, Auxilio lives a marginalized existence as someone who seems to exist on the border of every identity: she is neither young nor old, neither nomad nor citizen, neither overtly gendered to be masculine nor feminine and her story, like Julius’, exists more as the manifestation of others’ stories than her own. As Julius recounts the stories of his past, of his parents, neighbors, and international acquaintances as well as 9/11, terrorism, and war, Auxilio talks more about the Spanish poets than herself and, ultimately, her story becomes the voice for the 1968 student massacres in Mexico.
Even though they are both novels, both Open City and Amulet have contained a lot of this genre hybridization where the author represents real events—9/11, the student massacres, etc.—through a fictional, androgynous, almost neutral narrative and I wonder if this sort of hybridization will become more and more popular as the world grows in its transnationalism.
I really like the way you talked about identity in your post. I just want to contribute a couple of ideas that complement what you said relating them with transnationalism. Regarding some formal aspects, I also think that “Auxilio” is not an arbitrary name in Amulet. First of all, “Auxilio” means “help”. The protagonist describes “other shadows appeared in that street, which could have become the epitome of all the terrifying streets I had ever walked down, and call out to me: Auxilio, Socorro, Amparo, Caridad, Remedios Lacouture”. This implies that the protagonist adopted some other names that, paying attention to the meaning in Spanish, are synonyms of her name “Auxilio”. As a result it reinforces the meaning of her name which indicates one more time that is not alleatory. I also consider important the surname “Lacouture”. As you mentioned, it is French but it means “seam” in English which it could be interpreted as “limit, border, frontier” that links two parts to get one fixed/ piece. This could be analyzed as a sign of “transnationalism”.
Secondly, some other aspects which could be studied from a transnational theory discourse perspective. The author of the novel, Roberto Bolaño is Chilean and spent his youth in Mexico. Moreover, Auxilio Lacouture is a Uruguayan exile who ambulates and who relates to the writers of that moment (Mexico 68) when the Tlatelolco massacre occurred. The protagonist is based on a real person named: “Alcira Soust” an Uruguayan pedagogue who was in the bathroom of the last floor of the Faculty of Philosophy. Alcira Soust Scaffo travelled to Mexico and met Bolaño in 1970. Likewise the protagonist is based on a real person, Arturo Belano is the alter ego of the writer (these two characters also appear in another Bolano’s novel Los Detectives Salvajes). But the writer and the protagonist are both foreigners, both exiled, so to what extend could they feel identify with Mexico 68? Or could they be both considered part of Mexico 68 from a transnational perspective?
Moreover, the book opens with a Petronius quote: “Queríamos, pobres de nosotros, pedir auxilio; pero no había nadie para venir en nuestra ayuda.” (In our misery we wanted to scream for help, but there was no one there to come to our aid) Bolano used a classic from Ancient Rome who appeals “help-auxilio” in his quote, evoking from the beginning the name of the main character. But Petronius is a Roman writer, politician and philosopher. Is this another strategy to broaden frontiers and overstep the limits of time?
Amulet is a novel-testimony of Mexico 68, it is a claim of a voice that wants to be listened to and wants to empathize with the reader. But this particular voice is from an exiled person who was caught in the bathroom when the tragedy was occurring in Tlatelolco plaza. But we could question to what extent she could represent a collective memory of the period because it is a transnational testimony. Or, on the contrary, we could think about to what extent Mexico 68 crossed the national borders and affected people who belonged to a different place because this particular example is a testimonial voice from a place outside of Mexican national borders.
To conclude, I also think that we should pay attention to the date of publication of this novel: 1999, 31 years after Mexico occurred, so it could be analyzed as a way of remembering and re-writing Mexico 68.
I appreciate that you emphasized this notion of ‘untranslatability’ that Bolaño introduces in his novel. I agree that this concept stands out, especially considering that it has sprung up numerous times in our discussion of other transnational texts this semester. For example, in Borderlands we saw Anzaldua describing that even within Chicano Spanish, different variations of a dialect within a dialect may force her to speak English with other Chicanas. This is in line with your argument that ‘even within the same language, the problematic untranslatability’ still arises. When we compare both novels, it is quite interesting that both authors appear to include untranslatable elements intentionally. This brings the questions as to why such an untranslatability would intentionally be included. I believe that we agree that a direct translation would imbue a false sense of comprehension in the reader, which would undermine the goal of the story-teller. Neither novel could be considered truly transnational if language choice of the author was based on expectations of readers. The retelling of lived experience and culture would no longer be authentic if the often untranslatable language were redacted for the sake of clarity.