THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO VARGAS VILA: Religious and Erotic Discourses within "Mara Magdalena" Author(s): Jorge Luis

Castillo Source: Romanische Forschungen, 111. Bd., H. 4 (1999), pp. 600-621 Published by: Vittorio Klostermann GmbH Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27941437 . Accessed: 17/11/2013 21:19
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Jorge Luis Castillo

/Santa Barbara CA

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO VARGAS VILA

Religious and Erotic Discourses within Mar?a Magdalena

La novela Mar?a

el hist?ri relaci?n entre los dos rostros complementarios de lamodernidad: y antag?nicos a utilizar la controvertida co y el est?tico. En Marta Vargas Vila condesciende Magdalena, en calidad de sacro a un ?m profeta, pero la transporta de la esfera de lo figura de Cristo bito secular asign?ndole lamisi?n de propagar un ideario anarquista; y, no contento con esto, los inserta a ambos so

(1860-1933) no (1911) del colombiano Jos?Mar?a Vargas Vila Magdalena entre lo sacro y lo s?lo es una muestra ejemplar de la t?picamente subversiva interacci?n sino el singular producto de la conflictiva profano traso?ada por la literatura finisecular

masas,

de fin de siglo: lo sacro y lo profano, lo bello y lo bueno, el arte minoritario y la cultura de el arte puro y el arte did?ctico. Gracias a su hibridez ideol?gica, Mar?a Magdalena un texto suma consiste en convertirse subversivo cuya paradoja constituye m?ltiplemente en una ins?lita instancia: el evangelio de un ateo.

(al profeta y su doctrina) dentro de los confines de un escandalo blasfemo y eminentemente mercadeable. Al fraguar tri?ngulo er?tico, desmitificador, una entre los discursos alianza Vila er?tico, triple religioso, pol?tico y Vargas consigue adulterar o subvertir buena parte de las categor?as conceptuales operantes en la literatura

The passage of time has not been kind to Jos?Mar?a Vargas Vila (Colom bia, 1860-1933). Though now the domain of the scholar of the obscure, in their day, his novels were loved by a public who devoured all of them; the detritus of this popularity can be found today in the copies of his novels over Latin America. settling in used bookstores all Although Vargas Vila enormous success with themiddle and enjoyed working classes, among whom his popularity lasted for at least two generations, most critics con sidered his prolific novelistic output scandalous, blasphemous and ob scene.1 Shunned by the critics, theCatholic Church, themoralists, and the academics, Vargas Vila died poor, as much the result of thewidespread,

ofhis books by the Church as of theca unofficial, although prohibition

*

to its as a lec This paper benef?tted greatly from discussions pursuant presentation ture at the at Humanities Center of the of California Santa Interdisciplinary University Barbara on October extend my thanks to the IHC for the invitation, and for 16,1996.1 to Silvia Bermudez who also and Christine Thomas, specific suggestions and criticism assisted with matters of style. 1 Consuelo Trevi?o Anzola, Jos?Mar?a Vargas Vila (Bogot?: Procultura, 1991) 26-30.

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The Gospel According to VargasVila

601

Latin American

- to valier attitude of his admiring public who this day - has no qualms in consuming the countless pirate editions of all his works.2 The main contribution of the novels ofVargas Vila to the tradition of literature resides in his almost effortless ability to blur theoretical distinctions that form the basis of literarycriticism: the differ entiation between high and popular art, and between pure and didactic a was both racy and literature. Vargas Vila created product that pontifica written and middle yet average, easily digested by ting, belletristically

even low-class readers.3 The often contrived division between art high and popular art, and utilitarian and autonomous (or pure) art is a conflict to the adversative two faces ofmoderni parallel relationship between the are a test case for these theo ty, literaryand historical. Vargas Vila's novels retical distinctions. This line of investigation is also adequate to the nature of his literary output. Since Vargas Vila's novels are not structurally - in fact, the plots and characters among the novels are varia complex on a theme or a type - a fair tions appraisal ofVargas Vila's works forces

contexts requiring investigation would literary context, the or discourses within the areas to threemain intellectual belong mainly Western world: the religious, the political and the erotic. The novels of Vargas Vila defy the common classification inwhich literaryhistorians have divided the fin-de-si?cle narrative, because in strict the obvious terms they are neither modernist, nor are they naturalistic. Despite the modernity of his highly decorative style and the decadent ethos ofmany of his works, Vargas Vila would sit unconfortably among most moderni

the critics to probe into the intellectual domain that his narratives seek to alter or abolish. In other words, the primary task ofVargas Vila's critics is to pinpoint themost characteristic traits of his novels, namely, theirmul to elucidate themanner inwhich this subver tiple subversive nature, and sive element operates both within the narratives themselves and between the texts and their intellectual contexts. In the case ofVargas Vila, beside

See Gilberto

G?mez

that Vila? AIRActas Irvine (1992)259-267. G?mez Ocampo apdy remarks gas despitehis
unqualified

Ocampo,

?Secularizaci?n,

liturgia y oralidad died penniless

en Jos?Mar?a

Var

success as a

It shouldbe awell known factthatthepopular (in thedualmeaning of the word)

Santos (1916-1992) singer Daniel inwhich the Inquieto Anacobero wrote and recorded a catchy bolero entitled revels in the Colombians relentless miso

Vila professional writer, Vargas

(259-62).

Puertorrican ?Vargas Vila,?

writerof theperiod (withthepossible Vila.? I do not know of anyotherLatinAmerican

exception of Dar?o) who has had such an honor.

en mi mente vez que me dices que no me It quieres/ gynistic feelings. begins thus: ?Cada se transforma y se a lasmujeres/ el colombiano llamado Vargas perfila/ el odio que ten?a

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602

Jorge Luis Castillo

stas.4Unlike many of them (Dar?o, Silva and Herrera y Reissig readily come tomind), he did not envision art as an epistemologica! tool; Vargas Vila was a rationalist in that he never entertained any notion of using art as a means of probing into themetaphysical realm. In his attitude toward and the sacred, Vargas Vila stands apart from the idealistic cur religion tomoder literarymodernity. Although his style belonged nist aesthetics, his Weltanschauung opposed it, embracing instead the of the Naturalist school thatmost modernistas outlook pseudoscientific shunned and openly despised. His atheism was totally at home with the rentswithin bleak and repulsive events that his novels comprise, the very fabric ofNa turalism, however much he embroidered themwith his trademark poem

atic prose. This positivistic, down-to-earth attitude, the common coin of the late nineteenth century,was doubtless a contributing factor toVar gas Vila's success, and demonstrates his marketplace wisdom in departing from the strictmodernista standards. Yet neither his mannered, ential style nor his pseudopoetic way of telling a story would red him to themeticulous and observant followers of Zola, have endea

self-refer

since Vargas evanescent his narra the of conceived vague, rarely (if ever) setting tives or the stock characters that inhabit them according to the formula of that is, as products of the interaction among three key fac Naturalism, no tors: h?r?dit?, moment, and milieu: ?En hay Vargas Vila simplemente huellas de la trama de descripciones, fechas y expedientes que se exig?a en la teor?a naturalista y que hall? un profundo eco en la novela de fin de Vila siede? (Meyer-Minnemann 211). Depth and individuality are precisely qualities that his characters sorely lack: starting with the infamous Ibis (1900), the protagonists and antiheroes of his novels become one-dimen sional avatars of theNietzschean Ubermensch (on occasions they even act

not as a combination of both. femme fatale, if In aesthetic terms,Vargas Vila was a true eclectic, a bricoleur o? sorts;5
4 berto Vital Minnemann See Klaus Meyer-Minnemann, D?az (1979; M?xico: states La Fondo novela hispanoamericana de Cultura Econ?mica, to be placed the usage among de fin de siglo, trans. Al 1991) 204-212. Meyer the modernistas, despite L?vi-Strauss bestows

as perverse deviations of the Rodosian most of their fe Pr?spero) while male counterparts are modeled after the perennial archetypes of the or the virginal, but frail, donna angelicata voluptuous, but immoral,

his obvious 5 The term does

Vargas Vila's reluctance indebtedness to them. not follow too closely

that Claude

work The Savage of Mind {Lapens?esauvage)(Chicago:University upon it inhis famous

Chicago ?whose individuals Press, 1966). In broad terms, the word bricoleur describes norm identified and in opposition thought tends toward the utilitarian by L?vi-Strauss, to those who em attempt to rigorously order their conscious world under the umbrella of

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The Gospel According to VargasVila

603

moder otherwise, adhered to the notion of high art defended by literary as a was to in writer the able succeed money nity, and yet professional driven and disenchanted world created by historical modernity. In this society,most of his contemporaries, the modernistas, had been forced to some cases, to abandon the practice of their true vo compromise and, in cation as writers. Unlike them, Vargas Vila was savvy enough to be able to his crea tomarket his unique products advantage. In the process, he ted a loyal, although, perhaps, undiscriminating public who fed on the twomain

the practical side of his self-proclaimed genius not only becomes appa rent in the choice of his (but enticing) topical or stylistic unscrupulous P?ladan, Barr?s or Loti but on his aggres borrowings fromD'Annunzio, sivemarketing strategies. Vargas Vila was among the very few turn-of the-century authors in the Spanish-speaking world who, stylistically and

two key elements ofmost popular ingredients of his novels, the sex since the of time: and violence. genres beginning In his saucy mixture of sex and violence, Vargas Vila's recipe for suc

of the ornate, overwrought, hyper-modernist prose inwhich Vargas Vila wrote, but both authors used styles sanctioned by the aesthetics of their own and and render palatable the objectionable events of their racy novels. Neither of these two authors used shocking sex and violence for its own sake, but to illustrate as well as to promote a subversive, ideological program among a public who otherwise might times to embellish

cess was not unlike the scandalous novels penned by Sade. The transpar ent, correct, neoclassical prose of theDivine Marquis was the opposite

sex and violence did not constitute the pri pornographers: in their novels means were of exemplifying and disseminating a the mary objectives, but rationalist philosophy of theworld, thus combining the useful and the a manner of which any Aristotelian rhetori et agreeable {utile dulce) in cian would not have disapproved except on moral grounds.

have found itunpalatable, or simplywould not have cared about it at all; both authors professed extremely radical ideas in sociopolitical and reli were not gious issues. Contrary to popular belief, Vargas Vila (and Sade)

he was what he despised most of all: the author of a dogmatic, religious text and therefore, a credulous, pious soul - a true believer. He was rather
pirical science or philosophical logic. ? William H. Katra, Domingo F. Sarmiento, Public

of thisessay.It impliesthat Vila would be shocked by thetitle Vargas

Arizona:Arizona State Writer(Between 1985)43.Un 183p andi$$2) (Tempe, University,

derstood describe

the type of the bncoleurhzs proven itself useful to in this metaphorical manner, a the cannibalistic literary practices of great many Latin American writers like Sarmiento, Dar?o, and Borges.

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604 the opposite

LuisCastillo Jorge - or so he claimed. Early in his literary career, since the of Fior defango (1898), Vargas Vila became the self-appointed

monstrosity of his ego, the lurid topics of his novels (liberally doused with adultery, incest, suicide, and murder), his virulent misogyny, and was the dated self-indulgence of his flamboyant style.7 Vargas Vila guilty ofmany of these seemingly faulty traits; but a religious man he certainly
was not.

publication scourge of all religions, especially theCatholic.6 Defiantly, he revelled in the notoriety brought by the accusations of indecency and pornography levelled at him. His numerous enemies thrived on the self-proclaimed

zed and its mystical and irrational elements replaced by popularized ver sions of current theories of political philosophy. The profane element of erotic love, on the other hand, is elevated to a higher plane, one threat ening ultimate perdition and offering superterrestrial salvation. Vargas Vila has a political message that he wants to disseminate, but needs to in in a context that makes itmore palatable; fuse this message in other Maria Magdalena is a story that unravels a words, within a love story. doctrinal body within an erotic text.

a novel written title of this essay refers to Maria Magdalena, by a text in which the biblical back circa Vila is This work 1911. Vargas as a pre-text, in the double sense of the ground is indispensable, serving we see term. In it, so Vila Vargas uniting the features thatmade his novels to sex are a treatment irresistible his public: religion and combined in that, at the same time, popularizes and disseminates some of the leading currents of thought in the nineteenth century. The novel shows Vargas Vila to be a child of his time; characteristically of this period, the sacred and the profane are reversed. Religion becomes secularized and rationali The

In this novel, however, love should not be understood in the idealistic sense of a our author, love Sunday School tableau. Far from it! Typical of means the free flow of intense, even criminal, passions here focused around an unthinkable erotic triangle: Mary Magdalene's sexual favors lead to a scandalous fight to the death between Jesus and Judas, the savior and the traitor.The crucifixion, the central event of salvation history, here becomes the unfortunate fallout of a misbegotten love affair. As can be seen, the bizarre plot oscillates between familiar and unex

a statuesque Flor de is rural teacher, whose fango tells the story of Luisa, reputation utterly ruined by the vicious slanders of a scorned, lecherous priest. 7 Max Fondo de Cultu Ure?a, Breve historia del modernismo (1954; M?xico: Henr?quez ra Econ?mica, 331-332. 1978)

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The Gospel According to VargasVila

605

be pected situations. At the beginning of the novel, Mary Magdalene comes tired of her life as a rich, courtesan and themerely sought-after sexual love that her rich lover Judas offers her. She craves a pure, spiritual love that Judas dismisses as a nonsensical folly.One evening she sees Jesus on the streets and becomes immediately infatuated with him. preaching

back. The novel ends with Jesus' crucifixion and Judas' sui Magdalene for her part finds a new lover in a Roman centurion, cide. The Magdalene a that echoes Petronius' tale, ?TheWidow of Ephesus.? cynical episode an Mar?a Magdalena is the gospel of atheist. It finds purely human causes for the events of the life of Jesus, and entwines these events with the exposition of a doctrine thatVargas Vila wants to put on the lips of Jesus.Vargas Vila uses Jesus' voice to press forward his own agenda, and the result is a very personal brand of Christianity. Vargas Vila uses Jesus' name to advocate a society inwhich every coercive element has been re moved:

joins the crowd Ignoring Judas' warnings and threats,Mary Magdalene of disciples and eventually manages, in the completely physical sense, to seduce Jesus, who, despite himself, had been attracted to her enticing the jealous Judas swears revenge on the Meanwhile, beauty from the start. to trust and seeks with the intention of betraying him gain Jesus' couple to the Roman authorities. In the end, to win the though, he still fails

a or Church and without their utopie world without any State moral and legal restrictions, a world without social classes and without pri vate property or any sort of inequality thatwould hamper individual free dom. In other words, a vision of Christianity compatible with the views of the Communist Manifesto, but even closer to the essence of Anarchist

not thought. The dogma of the gospel is political, religious, although this in receives the wisdom divine this work. worldly imprimatur In taking these libertieswith the story of Jesus,Vargas Vila is in com plete harmony with the intellectual milieu of the end of the nineteenth century. A brainchild of a utilitarian, rationalistic society and its capi talistic foundations, secularization is one of the key words in nineteenth century thought, not just in the fields of history or sociology, but also in the sciences, in philosophy, literature and the arts; to put itvery simply, secularization is not only the process that empties reality of the religious by rendering the sacred profane and the transcendent, immanent. It achieves the opposite effect as well: once the previously holy has been cleared from the stage, the profane becomes sacred, and the immanent, transcendent.8 Michel Foucault has referred to the immanent ethos of
8 Rafael Guti?rrez de Cultura Girardot, Modernismo. 1988). Supuestos hist?ncosy culturales (1983; M?xico: Fondo

Econ?mica,

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606 modern

LuisCastillo Jorge of

culture as one marked by the transition from a metaphysics the infinite to an analytic of finitude:

Where

there had formerly been a correlation between a [...] metaphysics of representation of the infinite and an analysis of living beings, of man's desires, and of the words of his we find [...] an to and human existence, and in opposition language, analyticfinitude it [...] a perpetual tendency to constitute a of and life, labour, metaphysics language.9

Similarly, Charles Taylor writes of the same immanence of modernity when he posits the affirmation of ordinary life as one of the principal traits of contemporary society. In his own words, by ?ordinary life,? he means, ?roughly to designate the life of production and the family,? affirmed again and again as the central reality.10 The ultimate consequence of this process is embodied in the concept of the ?religion ofman.? According to itsfirst proponent, Ludwig Feuer bach, ?there is no other essence which man can think, dream of, imagine, feel, believe in,wish for, love and adore as the absolute, than the essence a of human nature itself.? Since traditional religion is just primitive form of human consciousness, it should take second place to the new religion of man, the first principle of which proclaims, ?Homo homini Deus
est.?11

In the realm of the specialists in the sacred, nineteenth-century theo logians differed little from their background, also falling prey to similar rationalizations regarding the sphere of supernatural occurrences. They were not so far from in spirit. Following Vargas Vila's Maria Magdalena theworks of Reimarus at the end of the eighteenth century, a succession of scholars attempted towrite lives of Jesus based on historical data and a rationalistic, scientificmethod. An overview of the successes following and, for themost part, failures of this endless series of lives of Jesuswould

be excessively taxing for the reader; but among themany theologians who two names I this mention task should because of their lasting attempted influence: David Friedrich Strauss and Ernest Renan. of its publication, Strauss' work Das Leben Jesu (1835-36) provoked a furor among the theologians and caused its author a great deal of personal misfortune. He was summarily dismissed from his 9 Michel Foucault, The Order An Archaeology Human Sciences(New ofThings. ofthe York:Vintage Books, 1973)317. 10 Charles Modern Identity(Cambridge: Taylor, Sourcesof the Self.The Making of the
trans. George Elliot (1841; New York:

From the moment

Harvard University Press, 1989) 13. 11 The Essence of Ludwig Feuerbach, Christianity, Harper & Brothers, 1957) 270.

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The Gospel According to VargasVila

607

the second-oldest post at the Eberhard-Karls University inT?bingen, out in institution Strauss lived the such Germany; remaining years of his as existence the b?te noire of the religious conservatives, and themartyr of the liberals. In his singular work, with amazing attention to detail, Strauss examines and contrasts the supernatural and the rationalistic ex events of the life of Jesus. Public planations of themain indignation fo as on to Strauss' attempts cused explain themiracles of Jesus myths, para bles, or simply as facts forwhich the sources were too contradictory to be reliable.12 For Strauss, ?the Gospels were, in short, interesting primarily

them as true.?13Another of the controversial points of thismonumental Messianic consciousness work is the doubt that Strauss raised around the of Jesus; Strauss shows his ambivalence in this contradictory passage:

as evidence of the ex workings of consciousness in the sphere of religious perience: they showed how themind could fabricate miracles and affirm

that he was theMessiah; this is an indisputable Jesus held and expressed the conviction on a closer examination there appears a remarkable divergence on fact [...] Nevertheless, this subject between the synoptical statement and that of John. While, namely, in John, Jesus remains throughout true to this assertion [...] in the synoptical gospels there is vacil on the part of the lation discernible the previously expressed persuasion disciples and was a to sometimes the vanishes and much lower that Messiah, Jesus people gives place view of him, and even Jesus himself becomes more reserved in his declarations.14

later works of Strauss, particularly his Life of Jesus for theGerman Peo even more use in their of became radical evidence and their de pie (1864), viance from the canonical sources. After Strauss' Life of Jesus, the flood more and more were similar of Christ became gates biographies opened: as theworks of Bruno Bauer even and skeptical, imaginative exemplify. In his Criticism of theGospel History (1850-51), one of the last of a succes sion ofworks which gradually questioned the historical value of the gos even denies that there everwas any historical Jesus.15 pels, Bauer In his famous Vie de J?sus (1861), Renan does not go that far, although, ma like Bauer, he also treats the evidence given in the gospels as literary can be worked upon. In thewords ofAlbert Schweitzer, Er terials that The

nest Renan's Vie de J?suswas the ?first Life of Jesus for theCatholic world to in a single book the result of the Renan Latin the world [...]?; ?gave
vin Blanchard, 1855). See especially chapter 9. !3 V. ?David Friedrich Strauss,? White, Hayden 14 Strauss 296-297.

12 David Friedrich trans. Marian Evans (1840; The Life of New York:Cal Strauss, Jesus,
in Paul Edwards, ed. The Encyclopedia

6 vols. /New York: Macmilan, 1967). ofPhilosphy.

1948) 157.

!5 Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the HistoricalJesus. (1906;New York:MacMillan,

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608 whole

Luis Castillo Jorge

process of German criticism? (Schweitzer 181). Of all the lives of that followed Strauss', the Vie de J?sus is not themost fantastic but Jesus most novelistic; in to the rest,Renan's work it comparison might be the reads like a novel. Contrary to the dour style that predominates among theGerman theologians, Renan writes in an elegant style, and has a pen

chant for colorful detail. In thework of Renan lies the assumption that ?while all theGospels are biographies, they are legendary biographies [...] Their texts need interpretation, and the clue to the interpretation can be supplied by aesthetic feeling? (Schweitzer 183). This ?aesthetic feeling? to shift individual incidents of the life of Jesus here and compels Renan most there ?in the arbitrary fashion?. In addition, Renan addresses the thorny issue of the supernatural occurrences of theGospels by envision as a a ?wonder worker?. Jesus himself is portrayed ing Jesus thaumaturge, as an unbalanced person; according to Renan, just before emotionally

?A strange longing for persecution and martyrdom had taken possession ofHirn? (Schweitzer 187). Vargas Vila's work is unimaginable without this long distillation of German scholarship. The gospel according toVargas Vila can be seen as themost extreme link of the chain formed by the imaginary lives of Je sus, because itno longer pretends to be a biography but is openly a work of fiction, and one that goes against the grain. He follows the fantastic elements of the nineteenth-century lives of Jesus and, with the love inter est, exploits to an even greater extreme the novelistic trend that authors likeRenan instilled in the genre. Vargas Vila approached his topic in a ra tional and secularistic fashion, standing apart from his modernista col to the positivistic currents of his day: like theGer leagues in conforming man he explains away the supernatural by attributing it to theologians, causes. He daringly empties the teachings of Jesus of their super natural Calvary: natural elements, and, like so many writers of ?Lives of Jesus,? seeks to own age and, one may add, for the diffusion of his update them for his own ideas, a the reading teachings of Jesus through the lens of populariz

ed political philosophy.

a ?Sermon on the Fate of Humankind.? It should be noted that in nally these passages, Vargas Vila manages to imitate the tone and the rhetoric of Jesus' sermons in a fairly convincing manner. InVargas Vila's script, Je

hence, Jesus, according toVargas Vila, delivers first a ?Sermon on Love,? then a ?Sermon on theOrigin of Inequality among Humanity? and fi

In the text of Maria Magdalena, Jesus preaches frequently, chiefly in three long speeches or sermons. Although the message in these elocu tions is very similar, we can isolate a different focus in each of the three;

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The Gospel According to VargasVila sus addresses

609

sententious apho the crowd in the short, autonomous, risms, sprinkled with anaphorae, polysyndeta and reiterative, adverbial as ?enVerdad de Verdad os phrases, such digo,? which should sound fa miliar to any reader of the Bible. This Biblical style ultimately reflects the Semitized Greek of theNew Testament, and, though the events derive

primarily from the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the style of Jesus' sermons follows theGospel of John,with Jesusmaking the clas sic ?I am...? statements familiar from that gospel. Jesus delivers his ?Sermon on Love? on the occasion of his first en courtesan counter with the approach Magdalene. Upon seeing the sultry it is of the duty every women to give ing, Jesus hastily proclaims that love because theywere made for love (316). Of course, Jesus himself is

rade against the human laws, such as marriage, that seek to restrict this divine impulse.18 In the last part of his sermon, Jesus launches a fierce attack on the temporal powers of the State and theChurch:
?en nombre de qu? odias a esta mujer? en nombre de la Ley [...] ?qui?n os ordena lapidarla? la Ley [...] y, esa Ley, no es la Ley de mi Padre, que proscribe el Odio de los l?mites de laTierra; y, en Verdad de Verdad; os digo, que el juez que da la Ley, y elVerdugo que la ejecuta, bos son asesinos contra mi Padre, y, el d?a de la justicia divina, ambos ser?n castigados mi Padre [...] (318).

love: ?Yo, soy el Amor [...] yo, soy la vida? (317).16 Jesus concludes his is also a symbol of ?Sermon on Love? by implying that theMagdalene as like her be that of theVirgin Mary such womb should blessed love and to (the passage should sound blasphemous every devout Catholic, based as it is on the Rosary): ?t? fuiste la fuente, en que el deseo del hombre sea ese vientre [...]!?17 The idea that love su sed; [...] apag? ?bendito should but does not reign freely on Earth then leads Jesus to begin a ti

am por

And

the sermon concludes when, to the amazement of the crowd, Jesus into his flock: admits Mary Magdalene
Pecadora, y desoja ellos te ser?n perdonados; tu corona de pecados, a los pies de aquel que vino a redimirte;

Ven,

16 Cf.
17

John14:7.

I (1911; Buenos Aires: ?Maria Magdalena,? Obras Completas Jos?Mar?a Vargas Vila, Biblioteca Nueva, 1946) 291-376, 316. 18 ?[L]a Ley, fu? hecha por hombres de Mentira, para reinar en almas cobardes y de per versidad; [...] el Poder, fu? instituido por hombres de astucia y de fuerza, para reinar sobre tierras de miseria y abominaci?n? (317).

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610
ven, amp?rate bres; has amado mucho, y yo, te perdono a la Justicia de Dios,

Jorge Luis Castillo que est? del lado opuesto de la Justicia de los hom

en nombre

del Amor

(318-319).

In his second sermon, Jesus expresses political views even more radical than those in his previous ?Sermon on Love.? In the sermon, which I have dubbed the ?Sermon on theOrigin of Inequality,? since most of its ideas come from part II of the homonymous treaty (1775) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jesus condemns the foundation of contemporary capitalist so ciety; that is, the notion of private property:
escrito est? en las leyes de mi Padre, que no habr? ni C?sares ni pueblos; ni siervos ni se?o ni despose?dos; mi Padre di? la tierra a los hombres res; ni pobres ni ricos; ni poseedores para vivir en ella; y, de todos los hombres es la tierra; al principio no hubo fronteras, ni predios manos; laTierra floreci? para todos, y, todos fueron her la heren l?mite, y, levant? el primer cercado, ese merm? ?este campo es m?o,? cia de todos; aquel que por primera vez se sent? en un campo, y dijo: aquel que puso el primer de linderos entre los hombres;

?se instituy? el robo; esed?a el despojo apareci? sobre la Tierra (337).

The

in particular had been very popular in Spain and Latin America since the last two decades of the nineteenth century, especially inArgentina where massive immigration had produced a strong labor movement.19 Despite their disagreement in the solution, both Marxists and Anarchists recog nized a common enemy in capitalist society, the root of all social injustice. Regarding the notion of private property, the doctrine of theAnarchists was more radical, and closer to the ideas that perhaps Vargas Vila attaches to Jesus. In an indictment of capitalist society, the anarchist economist

ideas in the previous paragraph echo those of Rousseau but the tone does not. Since Rousseau, and throughout the nineteenth century, the two an had been the favorite topic subject of powerful revolutionary and Marxism forces: and Anarchism. The of ideas the Anarchists ticapitalist

in considering property as Pierre-Joseph Proudhom follows Rousseau theft as long as the one who owns it is not the one who works it (Quest ce-que kpropri?t??, 1840).20 The last part of the sermon becomes again fiercely political when Jesus denounces the concept of Fatherland as a ploy of the State to enslave hu

en Am?rica Latina, Carlos M. Rama y eds. (Cara Angel J.Cappelletti, in See the works of Emilio 1990). Ayacucho, particular L?pez Arango, Diego Abad Prada. Gonz?lez de Santill?n and Manuel 20 Proudhom freedom that communism did not respect human thought, however, an economic account into that took the and system liberty of the posited enough or communal its name of mutual individual and the principle (hence cooperation cas: ?mutualism?).

19 El anarquismo

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The Gospel According to VargasVila

611

manity. Since the French Revolution, the sacralization of the Fatherland, that is, the employment of sacred attributes to represent a secular state, had become increasingly common in bourgeois society; the secular realm of human existence had displaced the sacred, and, in turn, became sacred itself: y, enVerdad deVerdad os digo, que el primeroque hizo una Patria fu? el primeroque
contra la libertad de los hombres; Dios est? contra todas las patrias, porque Dios hi pec? zo laTierra para Patria de todos los hombres; aquel que cre? la Patria, cre? los siervos y los se?ores, los ricos y los pobres, los amos de la tierra, y aquellos que han esclavizado para la Patria, es la suma de todas las esclavitudes, y, de todas las iniquidades labrarla, porque

(337). to Vargas Vila, Jesus is joining the ranks of the nineteenth-cen According in their relentless defense of individual freedom against Anarchists tury the secularized state of the bourgeoisie; in particular, Jesus' condemna

tion of any coercive forces bring him closer to the radical anarchism of Michael Bakunin (forwhom, in the Revolutionary Catechism of 1865, the State and even the idea of God are incompatible with human freedom) and ofMax Stirner, author of The Ego and itsOwn (1844), who claimed that the laws and the state deprived the individual of itsuniqueness. Like Bakunin, who believed that themain task of anarchism was to make, or to help tomake, the revolution, Jesus becomes the prophet of a social revolution when, in the closing phrases of his sermon, he propels an incendiary message of rebellion against the State and theChurch:
mi Padre, que no puso el cetro en lamano de los C?sares, puso la espada en la mano de los pueblos; y no puso el hacha en manos del esclavo sino para que cortara con ella el cu ello del Amo; porque en Verdad os digo: que el Reino de mi Padre es el Reino de laVida, lo que es de Dios, y al C?sar, lo dad a Dios Muerte; y, el Reino del C?sar, es el Reino de la que es del C?sar [...] (338).21

mies he sought to destroy:

eternamente los C?sares dad m?a

In contrast to his previous addresses, Jesus' last speech is not really a ser inwhich Christ predicts the defeat of his ideals, mon, but a monologue and worse, the twisting and subversion of his ideals by the very same ene
habr? amos y, esclavos, y, eternamente el hombre ser? el siervo del hombre; reinar?n en mi nombre, y, se dir?n herederos de mi autoridad [...] de la autori a en vine toda ellos mi destruir autoridad; nombre, como [...] yo que oprimir?n

21

film77 Matteo Christ offered byPier Paolo Passolini inhis controversial Vangelosecondo (1964). In thisfilm,Jesusisplayed by a Basque student, Enrique Irazoqui, a thin,frail man with sharpeyes, and a shrill, bushyeyebrows highpitchedvoice.

Incidentally, Vargas Vila's

description

of Jesus as a revolutionary

befits the vision

of

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612

Luis Castillo Jorge

a desterrar del coraz?n reinar?n en mi nombre; de los hom

[...] yo vine contra los sacerdotes, y, contra los predicar impostores, y ellos nacer?n de mi doctrina, como los gusanos del cad?ver de una flor, y la devorar?n; [...] mi Palabra ser? la espada, destructora en manos de aquellos, que se dir?n herederos de mi esp?ritu; [...] los C?sares y los sacerdotes har?n imposible el Reinado de la Paz sobre la tierra; [...] y todo en nombre la Paz sea con vosotros [...] (351 m?o, que he inaugurado el Reino de mi Palabra diciendo: a 352).

en nombre de los dioses que yo vengo hoy oprimen bres; y, yo tambi?n ser? hecho Dios por aquellos que

These to

passages in the novel where Vargas Vila allows Jesus out. No one could fail to notice at once that Jesus' speak purported doctrine is a far cry formwhat one reads in the synoptic gospels. True to

are themain

worldly frayof political theory; but by the very act of placing this profane discourse within a sacred context the existing distance between the sacred and the profane becomes blurred: the former becomes latter, the former. Vargas Vila's liberties with

a positivist re-reading of the sacred text, themetaphysical sayings of Jesus have been displaced by a profane discourse that drags the sacred into the

the latter and the

the ?Nordic Jesus,? Vargas Vila Semitic Jesus:

un hombre dea [...];

the biblical text are also apparent in his reverse of the treatment of characters. Jesus' description, although the canonical one, is closer towhat the historical Jesusmust have looked like. Instead of the blonde, blue eyed, tall, and athletic Savior of Catholic lore, offers us a frail, short and dark Jesus, a

hombros, como cerco de oro oxidado, rostro de asceta; ojos tristes, color de al rostro demacrado; en lamirada, llena de enso?aciones de poeta; la boca in violeta; una gran mansedumbre una se fantil y, graciosa, llena de una dulzura misteriosa; gracia femenil de retardatario, extiende sobre su cuerpo y sobre su rostro de ap?stol visionario (305-306).

de talla, el tinte oliv?ceo, natural a las razas siria, fenicia y cal joven, peque?o los cabellos casta?os mal peinados, le caen en bucles desordenados sobre los con el desaseo natural a los hombres de su secta y raza; la barba escasa, hace uno

manner

have pleased a Darwinian scientist, a positivistic phi even better, a Lombrosian or, losopher phrenologist, Vargas Vila labels or as a as an ?retardatario,? and his behavior through Jesus ?epileptoide? seem out the novel makes him unbalanced, more like a possessed man, a madman prone to acts of egomania and delirium, a description more ex treme than the controversial one already penned by Renan. thatwould same freedom appears in the treatment of the rest of the charac a shadowy, ters. Although the tradition has preserved gloomy, unidimen The

thatVargas Vila's portrait of Jesus is not determined by reli but by a deterministic view of the Founder of Christiani tradition gious an as abnormal specimen of the human race. Describing Jesus in a ty It is obvious

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The Gospel According to VargasVila

613

sional image of Judas,Vargas Vila's rendition of the renegade apostle runs contrasts Jesuswith Judas in a way against all expectations. Vargas Vila that verges on the obvious ifnot the crude. Judas becomes inmany ways

the opposite of Jesus in a strictlydualistic or platonic sense; the latter is all spirit ruled by the intellect, and the former, all matter, ruled by the
senses: una belleza nerviosa y felina [...]; lleva en los dedos, y en las sanda joven y bello, de joyas como aristocr?tica toda la de Judea, peina cortos imitador de los romanos, lias; juventud los cabellos ensortijados, que le caen sobre la frente estrecha, con una gracia de efebo; ca un aspecto de rente de barba, apenas un leve bozo le sombrea el labio superior, d?ndole

medalla 302).

ces?rea,

con

la boca

imperiosa

y lasciva, y lamirada

a la vez tierna y brutal

(301

and the feminine. on the seem that this it rivalry struggle is centered Although might between Jesus and Judas for the spiritual or physical possession of the the title character isnot a passive object waiting to be carried Magdalene, or as a away prize by whoever wins the battle, spirit matter. On the con is the only character who emerges victorious from trary, theMagdalene this fight, since, by their own admission, Jesus and Judas are both los ers.22 Jesus loses because his human side overcomes his divine side, as he himself confesses: ?hijo del hombre, yo siento alzarse enm?, la sombra del

As the previous examples show, the fight between Jesus and Judas tran scends the limits of a love intrigue and becomes an emblem of the eternal strifebetween the spiritual and the profane, the intellect and the senses, and even themasculine

Pecado del Hombre; hijo de Mujer, yo siento el calor de las entra?as de la su sexo, que Mujer, y, siento el perfume de perdi? elMundo, desvanecer mi cabeza de dios? (353).23 Judas loses because his passions are too strong; he is the victim of the intensity of his own feelings, of his own hubris:
22 Amidst main to notice how the three battle of the sexes, it is uncanny this over-the-top characters of the novel alternate between being victims and predators of each other.

to be Jesus' victim. This interplay between predators and prey materializes two violent sexual scenes: in the first Judas rapes the in but in the se mostly Magdalene; ravishes Jesus. cond theMagdalene 23 It should be noted that in as in the best anticlerical tradition of Vargas Vila's novels, turn, claims Voltaire

Both Judasand the and theprey, while Je Magdalene posses thequalitiesof thepredator as as sus is is the of That the latter. the much is, prey Judas Judasis the mosdy Magdalene is the of the victimof the of but and who, in Jesus prey Judas, Magdalene Magdalene;

La demencia sinsof theflesh.In one ofhis early deJob, thepro novels, syand particularly
tagonist Lucio declares Vila planation, Vargas a ex that priests are emasculated men. Adopting pseudofreudian portrays priests as men who, by repressing their natural impulses,

and Sade,

the holy men

often become

embodiments

of every vice: greed, hypocri

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614
el Orgullo

Luis Castillo Jorge

de haberte matado, me oculta el mundo, y, vuela en mi coraz?n, como un p? te he vencido, Galileo; te he vencido s?, en todas par [...] ?Te he vencido?... jaro de fuego; en ese coraz?n de me es a cau tesmenos te matas t? he matado, tambi?n, [...]; yo y mujer sa de ti que yo voy a morir; a causa del Amor que me robaste; ?venciste, Galileo! ?Maldito seas! (369).

As

the three principal characters, Jesus is the one more closely identifiable with one of the representations of female sexuality in nine woman. Contrary to Judas, teenth-century literature: the frail, virginal not have virile traits,his body is delicate, not muscular; he has Jesus does a no beard. In contrast to Jesus, the has ?gracia femenil? and Magdalene twist. Of

the contrast between Judas and Jesus illustrates, the dichotomy be tween themasculine and the feminine in the novel adopts a very curious

nineteenth-century representation of female sexuality, the typical fin-de si?clefemme fatale: her eyes are green, like seaweed (294) an unequivocal mark of the quintessential fin-de-si?cle woman, the belle dame sans merci. And, as a

green, cruel eyes, the eyes of an animal of prey (Vargas Vila refers to her as a ?joven pantera,? 294), while Jesus has violet, feminine eyes. It is pre away as another cisely the color of her eyes that first gives theMagdalene

to her soul without mercy, her physical beauty is complement at least by turn-of-the-century-standards (cf. 294 beyond compare, a mane her Besides the has of eyes, 295).24 green fiery red hair, Magdalene
resentful and prone to commit excesses and evil acts. In a losing battle become against the temptations of the flesh, the young priest of Flor de fango admits that ?el sir el criminal, son hombres; el sacerdote, no.? Pirate edition, (no date or viente, el mendigo, 102. On in Puerto Rico) of the yellow cover there is a place publication given, bought have

coarse a dancer. drawing of Can-Can 24 The as is the case with practically every female character in the novels of Magdalene, to become an seems to have been created Vargas Vila, principally object of desire formale can see, not one of the strong subtlety is sexuality. As any of its readers points ofMaria or of matter. a story in entire Vila's for that writes Vila opus Vargas Vargas Magdalena, which desire is the key word, and he chooses to build his narrative around the foremost novel: the triangle. In his often-quoted Desire and representation of desire in the modern one desires what every the novel, Ren? Girard argues that love obeys the mimetic impulse: one else does. mimetic that this rules the manifestation of desire in this Saying impulse novel would reveling [...]? not be an understatement. In Maria Magdalena, in her cherished beauty, admits candidly: the novel theMagdalene the eponymous character, while [...] y, daba el Deseo ?yo, era el Deseo becomes that obscure object of desire

(297). Throughout two notable men whose rivalry stirs the action of the novel, but for prac just for the the narrative universe. Vargas Vila, however, takes one step for tically everyone within ward and includes both the narrator and even the intended reader within the borders of so with a certain kind of It is precisely his success in public doing bestsellers among the middle and the working classes. Although the novels of Vargas Vila were well received by both sexes, there is little doubt that he had in that universe of desire. that made his book

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The Gospel According to Vila Vargas

615

the lines of her neck are compared to a Greek amphora; her breasts to ?dos gacelas tranquilas que acaban de nacer,? and as for the rest of her ancas sus curvaturas, sobre las body, ?las opimas, dibujan las rimas de telas obscuras de los cojines, sobre los cuales, el cuerpo adorable, dise?a gracia insuperable? (205).25 is at once themost conventional character inVargas The Magdalene Vila's novel and themost fraughtwith contradictions. Throughout turn of-the-century literature, in a register related to the conflict between the sacred and the profane, women appear as ambiguous characters, worthy two tradi of both worship and contempt. For in fin-de-si?cle aesthetics tional visions of the essence of the feminine converge: an idealist tradi tion,which gathers its concepts from Plato till theRomantics, bymeans of su

and the realist tradition, courtly love and Renaissance Neoplatonism, which appears among scientists and philosophers fromHippocrates and Lucretius onward to Freud and Nietzsche, and especially throughout the Judeo-Christian
mind

tradition. The

idealist tradition sees women

platonica!

an intended male reader (see note 25, below). Sometimes the editors of Vargas Vila eroticism by marketing his novels in the most tacky fash exploited this female-oriented ion. I own a pirate edition of Mar?a Magdalena; the cover of this edition sports a drawing inwhich her opulent breasts are barely concealed: of the courtesan the editors thought

that they knew their audience, I guess. 25 It is an wrote because, interesting fact that Vargas Vila strongly against pornography his narratives are not -in strict terms- pornographic, his works share certain although rhetorical features with pornographic literature, namely, the transformation of the hu means of re man into a paradigmatic body (the female in particular) object of desire. By of certain of the female and detailed localized, parts body, Vargas Vila peated, descriptions that renders his feminine characters desirable (as the descriptions of the quoted above, and Salom? and Herodiada, quoted below, show). His descrip Magdalene, tions of all desirable females are based on the same rhetorical device, hyperbolic styliza tions. For Vargas Vila, desirable females usually conform to the same standard of beauty: the statuesque woman with alabaster skin; lush, aromatic hair; mysterious, bright (blue, an narrow waist; and bountiful firm, breasts; neck; eyes; impossibly long, graceful green) sensuous, wide hips with a callipygian rear.Vargas Vila tries so hard to model his female into perfect embodiments of a given standard of beauty, that their exaggerated of the type that they represent. All readers should caricatures often become descriptions be aware that exaggerated and hyperbolic descriptions of any erogenous zones of the hu characters creates a formula

man

would

inNancy in the works of the modernistas ?The Death of a Saporta Sternbach, graphic? Woman Writer and the the Beautiful Woman: Modernismo, Imagination? Pornographic Ideologies & Literature 3.1 (Spring 1988)3 5-60, 42.

the female body as a bait to ensnare the male reader, a curious a different, unfavorable, to his notorious misogyny. Cf. point

are the common coin of most pornographic literature, past and present. I body to the term ?por like to clarify that I am not attaching any pejorative connotation to the anatomy of nographic,? but using it descriptively of Vargas Vila's careful attention counter (but marketable) view of the term ?porno

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616

Luis Castillo Jorge

women are considered to be the ideal means to theAbsolute: ly; that is, to absolute beauty, which in turn leads thewise earthly beauty is theway to theGood and theTrue, that is, theDivine. The latter tradition, on the contrary, rejects Platonic idealism by separating the Good and theTrue from the Beautiful, and by conceiving of women not only as objects of sexual desire (or, at best, of human affections) but also as one of the di versions that lead men astray from the pursuit of the divine into the realm of evil. In nineteenth-century literature (Romantic and Modernist), the fe are echoes of both of these traditions of Western love representations two essential (and reductionistic) archetypes: the idealist trend and their incarnates in the lithe, prepubescent forms of the virginal, frail, ethereal,

male

a spiritualized woman, while the realist tradition finds suitable icon in the dangerous sex-appeal of the voluptuous but heardess femme fatale, or in the accursed beauty of the belle dame sans merci.26 In other words, the prototype of the virginal beloved, source of endless perfection, conflicts with the sinful, evil woman who uses her physical charms to seduce men and drive them to their doom. Contrary to the relatively unidimensional donne angelicate, thefemmes fatales are synthetic creatures composed of two antithetical elements: an unholy alliance between physical beauty and spiritual turpitude (of suspicious ascetic, Judeo-Christian origins), replaces the traditional link between the Beautiful and the Good pre scribed by the Platonic doctrines. This quasi-sacrilegious separation of the from the Good

or

Beautiful

much more
26 Mario

abyss of evil.27Their dubious reputations notwithstanding, the popularity of thefemmes fatales remained undiminished, since they invariablymade interesting characters than the bloodless, frail, and ultimate
trans. Agony, 2d ed., Angus Teresa Mart?nez Davidson (1951; Oxford: Ox

created discomfort and despair among some modernist authors, since, as a result of this schism, turn-of-the-century the symbolic representation of female beauty became an ambiguous and unreliable emblem, both at a metaphysical and a metapoetical level.There itwas no longer any certainty that peerless physical beauty would lead its lover to the Good since it might very well conceal instead the black

Praz, The Romantic

de siglo. Figuras y mitos, trans. Mar?a

ford Fin Press, 1988),particulary University chaptersIV andV; alsoHans Hinterh?user,

(1977; Madrid: Taurus, 1980), chap

durezade lapiedray frialdad del hielo? (35). y crimen,

?Fin de and Javier Herrero, La virgen y la hetaira,? Revista Iberoame siglo y modernismo. ncana n?-in 29-50. (1980) 27 In Herrero swords: ?Blancura y pureza virginales, por una parte y, por otra, oscuridad

ter Erotismo 4, ?Mujeres 92. Consult also Lily Litvak, prerrafaelitas? fin de siglo(Barcelo na:Antoni Bosch, 1979) 141-149 andEl sendero del tigre Taurus, 1986) 227-239, (Madrid:

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The Gospel According to VargasVila

617

ly uninteresting angelic women. Some Modernist authors attempted to on these shallow stereotypes by merging the donna angelicata improve a different female type inwhich the two halves into and the femme fatale Manichean of traditional female representation would conform to a less com would of the form of the feminine ideal beloved. This third image woman and the the the of the physical prise purity and virginal goodness a Such and allure of the (Hinterh?user 98). synthesis beauty femme fatale is undertaken in some of Baudelaire's poems (?La Beaut?,? ?L'Id?al?) and it is fully attempted in novels likeD'Annunzio's II Piacere, D?az Rodri at guez's Sangre patricia, and Salom? by Vargas Vila. Despite frequent woman and the tempts to trascend both of them, the virginal femme fata to constitute the two primary forms of female le still managed representation in turn-of-the-centuryModernist literature.28

although in his works, this phenomenon sometimes approaches rank pla can be little doubt that the is a synthetic, Magdalene giarism.29 There
28 In modernist literature the vision of men. The of women as a redeemer of men coexist with

is themost conventional, Of the threemain characters, the Magdalene recourse to intertextuality, and her whole presence reveals Vargas Vila's

the

in particular, grants wo poetry of Rub?n Dar?o, men divine status in a manner but in the works of the akin to thefin amors (?La Dea?), traits assigned towomen often devolve to poet the cosmic and metaphysical Nicaragu?n wards a mere pretext for the poet to revel in praising female flesh: ?Carne celeste, carne one of women as a devourer de mujer.? In the works anima

artera sus m?quinas fatales; / tras sus radiantes ojos r?en traidores S?nchez Poes?a, ed. Ernesto Mej?a (Caracas: Ayacucho, 1985), ?Poe ma XVII? from de los Centauros? from Cantos de vida y esperanza 280 and ?El coloquio this ambivalent de los Centauros,? ?El coloquio Prosas profanas 203. As inDar?os repre in the poetic and prose works of the principal moder sentation of women predominates Casal nista writers: Marti (?Neurosis,? (?Mujeres,? Amistad funesta), Silva (De sobremesa), Larreta (La ?La reina de la sombra?), Lugones ?Muchachas?), (?A tus imperfecciones^ de don Ramiro), D?az Rodr?guez rotos, Sangre patricia). The topical story of (Idolos gloria Venus infamia. / Rub?n males.? Dar?o, Marti / el hombre ya in the final verses of ?Mujeres?: ?AI los pies de la esclava vencedora: muerto.? Poes?a Editorial Letras Cubanas, Habana: (La 1985) Completa mo thismodernista 96. Regarding topos see Ernesto Mej?a S?nchez, ?H?rcules yOnfalia, El modernismo, ed. L. Litvak (Madrid: Taurus, tivo modernista? 1975) 185-202. 29 The scene of the novel, for the readers to a conversation example, introduces opening ce deshonrado, scene echoes

men towardevil: ?Yo s?de lahembrahumana la original appetiteof thefleshthat drags

of Dar?o,

women

also represent the world

of instinct, the bestial

evoked by Hercules submissiontoOmphalia is justan exampleof this myth, bitterly

the famous dramatic poem ?Herodiade.? Besides, powerfully Mallarm?'s is similar to Sa desire for Jesus, in particular her desire to kiss his mouth, Magdalene's ?-oh notorious play. Compare Mary Magdalene's: Wilde's lom?'s designs on Jokannan in

ofher fate(295).Such a maid about thesadness in which the Magdalene complainstoher

tuboca,que provoca las mil ansiasdel deseo! /-oh tubocaGalileo! /tubocame ha vuelto

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618

Jorge Luis Castillo

sources: be a perhaps recycled, character drawn together from variety of side those of Oscar Wilde, the Salomes in the paintings ofMoreau and verses ofMallarm?, Heine and Eugenio de Castro, and Redon and in the

the prose of Flaubert and Huysmans. The Magdalenes synthetic nature becomes apparent when in a later novel {Salome) Vargas Vila splits the to her into two other characters: Salome qualities that he had attributed and Herodiada.

In many ways, the novel Salom? resembles the novel Mar?a Magdale na. Both are a are written in a daring rifacimenti of codified topic; both belletristic style that resembles poetic prose: loose, vaguely musical sen tences, with internal rhymes, and in both evil or misguided women are instrumental in the downfall of holy men. The beauty of these threewo men is, nonetheless, different. All three are a mixture of the frail and the fatalwoman, but the proportions inwhich these traits are combined vary capable of evil acts, Salome tends towards the in her is involuntary. Vargas Vila describes the evil woman; spiritualized her as an nubile adolescent, between childhood and puberty; Salome be to that archetype of budding femininity thatVladimir Nabokov longs in each character. Although

is the oppo could have described with theword nymphette.^ Herodiada no trace of the site; in her there is virginal beloved. She is the quintessen an animal of prey ruled tial by her senses and desires: Hero femme fatale-, diada must be the other ?Pantera de Judea? (225), because, like the she is ?bella y, feroz como una fiera opulenta.?31 As we can Magdalene,
loca de Deseo amoreuse, n'y Salom?, a rien d'aussi [...]? with Salom?s words in Wilde's Iokanaan. Ta bouche est corne une bande

una blancura

Strauss' opera, performed by Karen Huffstodt, Jean Dupoy, and Jos? van Dam, Orchestre de l'Op?ra de Lyon, Cond. Kent Nagano (Virgin Classics, text (140-142). French 1991) using Wilde's original 30 I (1911; Buenos Aires: Biblioteca Obras Completas ?Salom?,? Nueva, Vargas Vila, as it follows: ?blanca, con The 1946). 205-290, 227. complete description of Salom? goes

rouge que libretto for Richard

ta bouche

ta bouche que je suis play: ?C'est de d'?carlate sur une tour d'ivoire [...] Il laisse moi [...] ta bouche, [la] baiser.? Oscar Wilde,

en como de de jazm?n [...]; rubia, de un rubio cambiante, espigas reflejadas tan claros, que a veces el agua; los ojos azules, de un azul duro de parec?an gri malaquita, ses [...]; un candor mentiroso en las en la sonrisa de los labios pupilas, y, delgados, que pa rec?a una huella de sangre [...] el misterio de aquellas formas, a?n vagamente imprecisas

reci?n ida y la pubertad, [...], hac?a doblemente deseable aquel cuerpo, que la adolescencia apenas llegada, coronaba con los prestigios de las cosas invioladas.? 31 Herod?ada ?es bella a?n, con una belleza decli manner: is described in the following nante y soberbia, llena de la carnales; [...] garganta columnaria, posada sobre el prestigios z?calo de un pecho exhuberante, hecho para lactar reba?o de leones; [...] las caderas opi mas, monta?as de sensualidad, hechas para atraer sobre ellas, el rayo de las m?s brutales monumen una estatuaria los brazos las caricias; [...] y, piernas estatuarias, de calipigia, y tal; [...] los labios carnosos y fatigados; te?idos de carmin? (231).

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619

Maria Magdalena the two sides of the female representation are see, in more and carefully proportionally balanced. In theMagdalene, Vargas Vila merges the statuesque forms of Herodiada, the jaded, royal sinner, with the youthful, pseudo-nubile ethos of Salom?. By making theMag dalene a composite character whose beauty is at the same time ethereal

and earthly, spiritual and sexual, Vargas Vila reiterates on a microcosmic level the essential fabric of the novel as a process that echoes and blurs the

tension existing throughout the nineteenth century between the sacred and the profane. In his representations of female beauty, Vargas Vila syn thesizes and seeks to transcend the conflict between sacred and profane moderni love, and between divine and earthy beauty that plagues literary Vila love and the between the Beau bond ty. rejectsNeoplatonic Vargas

tiful and theGood

site of the two archetypes, the frail spiritualized woman, and the sensual is essentially a negative character: she femme fatale: since theMagdalene as a is not a viable alternative to the frail Salom? or the evil Herodiada;

by siding with the realist tradition and affirming that love and the desire for beauty is rooted in the senses. And yetVargas Vila is unable or unwilling to avoid characterizing female beauty as a compo

has perhaps its roots in his tenacious misogyny, but itprevents him from a consistent nature of love and the essence representation of the achieving of beauty. was put If Iwere to describe this novel in culinary terms Iwould say it

third form of the feminine ideal, the stunningly beautiful but lecherous does not quite make it. In creating her thus,Var and recklessMagdalene Vila demonstrates, instead, suspicious ascetic overtones by illustra gas in his novels how a woman's beauty drags a man to his doom; this ting

twomain together using ingredients: religion and eros, the sacred and the a profane, in way that subverts the equation: the profane becomes sacred, Messiah and instead becomes a the sacred, profane. Jesus ceases to be the a the becomes the emblem while ?te?mano?; rabble-rouser, Magdalene Maria Magdalena, the sacral of a paradoxically divinized earthly love. In serves a dual ization of the profane and the profanation of the sacred purpose. Its subversive nature makes a stab at the conservatives, the reli

another level, the sacred and profane are played inwhich Vargas Vila uses the enchanted language of literarymodernity to describe the disenchanted world of historical the belletristic frosting, in substance the novel was modernity. Despite tractive to the crowds. On out in the manner liberally doused with a rationalistic view of theworld. This also explains

gious, and high-brow intellectuals, the favorite targets ofVargas Vila; but it is precisely the lurid and shocking nature of the topic thatmakes it at

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620

Luis Castillo Jorge indifferent to

a Vargas Vila's peculiar popularity with public otherwise the typicalmetaphysical aims ofmodern art.

form; the secularization and rationalization of traditional religious con cepts, and the presence of revolutionary attitudes toward traditional poli tical and social order. The mixture of religion, politics and eros produces, however, an effect thatVargas Vila might not have anticipated. By mixing religion and sex, he succeeds in dragging the realm of the sacred into the field of the profane, but, at the same time, cannot prevent the profane from becoming sacred in turn. to turn conventional on their Although he is attempting religious ideas to and attack Church and State by making Jesus the spokesman of head, anarchistic views, Vargas Vila becomes as dogmatic as the religious litera ture that he parodies. Unlike the German theologians, who dispensed with the external events of the life of Jesus to retain the Christ of faith preached by theChristian church, Vargas Vila kept the form of the lifeof with his own peculiar dogma. A mind truly unencum Jesus, but filled it bered with religious matters could have ignored the life of Jesus alto gether; Vargas Vila felt instead that he had to subvert the official story of his life and teachings. In so doing, he offers an hommage to the gospels in that itnever occurs to him to or the dispense with the basic storyline, Biblical style of its language. The final product is the gospel of an atheist but a gospel nonetheless: theGospel according toVargas Vila.

As we have seen, Vargas Vila's work mimics more serious approaches to the principal intellectual trends of the nineteenth century: the explo ration of the irrational in sexuality, in both idealized and demonized

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