the, the authors have absorbed post-modernism.
Um-hm.
>> The authors have absorbed a critical view
of reality and a critical view of history.
There's a kind, there's a skepticism of, of history
and the idea that the historical, historical discourse is multiple.
That there are many voices.
So we begin to have.
These are people who have read Bakhtin.
>> And are they, are they, would you use the phrase
that, that Linda Hutchin uses, historiographic
metafiction, is that part of this?
>> Yes. Yes.
Very much so.
Very much so, and one thing, when I was working on this in the 90s, what I
was really struck by was that, in many
cases, I'm pretty sure that they didn't read Hutchin.
And, they didn't, they weren't aware of new historicism, as a theoretical,
you know, field. But they were doing the same things.
But it's not too mysterious because Latin American
writers have always been very Francophile, and so
they were very aware of everything that was
going on in structuralism and post-structuralism in France.
So we can assume a familiarity with Barthes, with Derrida with Lacan
>> So when, so when, one of our
students, say, is reading one of these, more complex
novels from, from the, the 80s or 90s. >> Yes.
>> Historical novel, and, and they get
that sense of self-consciousness about history about
the historical materials, a kind of critical
distance a little bit on, on written history.
Is that kind of part of the trend that they're seeing?
>> Very, very much so, and, what, in addition, they, it's, it's very,
very interesting, because what they do is they do give you an exciting
historical novel to read in which the plot
does matter, and in which the characters do
matter, but, along the way there are in
different, and there are different techniques that are used.
There are ways to make you reflect on the
historical record, and on the reporting of the historical record.
Now you will see variations of course, in the
use of the historical novel, and I could give
you a few major examples.
With a variety of countries, since we've
talked about Mexico, I'll continue with Mexico.
There is a very very well respected, and well known Mexican writer by the name of
Fernando del Paso had written many novels that have been acclaimed by critics.
When he wrote in 1987; he wrote a novel about the French invasion of Mexico.
During our civil war, Mexico, Napoleon III took advantage of the
fact that Lincoln couldn't do anything
about the Monroe Doctrine and invaded Mexico.
And he set up Maximilian from Habsburg, as the emperor of Mexico, the brother
of the emperor of Austria and his, Belgian wife, Carlotta.
