La rosa muerta

by Aurora Cáceres, Thomas Ward (Editor)

Publicada originalmente en 1914, La rosa muerta comparte abundantes características formales con la prosa modernista. No obstante, su autora Aurora Cáceres, activista pionera del feminismo en Perú y España, desafió los parámetros ideológicos del movimiento. Mientras que su protagonista se apropió del precepto modernista de tener a la mujer como objeto de la veneración masculina, ella también tomó control activo de su vida sexual en un mundo donde los maridos todavía trataban a sus mujeres como cosas. Las cosas en esta novela no son personas sino implementos de comunicación y medicina que evidencian el apogeo de la era industrial. La acción transcurre entre Berlín y París, lugares que los modernistas estimaban, pero la feminización de la representación de las relaciones hombre-mujer implica un ensanchamiento del paradigma varonil del modernismo. Los hombres ideales en este relato no son esposos de quienes las esposas huyen, sino son doctores, hombres de ciencia quienes han sido liberados de las actitudes chauvinistas masculinas. El personaje principal de La rosa muerta, entonces, se prenda de uno de sus ginecólogos permitiendo escenas escabrosas en una clínica parisina que habrían sido escandalosas para los lectores de principios del siglo XX, y quizás también para algunos de hoy.

116 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1914

About the author

Aurora Cáceres was a writer associated with the literary movement known as modernismo. This European-based daughter of a Peruvian president wrote novels, essays, travel literature and a biography of her husband, the Guatemalan novelist Enrique Gómez Carrillo. She is associated with feminism, indigenismo and anti-fascism.

Reviews

[Alaide Mo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dicen modernismo y pensamos en Rubén Darío y un montón de autores (hombres), pero ¿quién rayos conoce a Aurora Cáceres? Yo supe de ella hasta hace un par de días y creo que es muy importante porque hay un gran cambio en la representación del personaje femenino.

(Por más profesores y alumnos de literatura que se interesen en incluir autoras ignoradas en los programas de literatura.)

[Jonathan Bogart · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the Spanish literary world, the word "modernista" does not correspond to what English speakers call modernism, but refers to a late-nineteenth century vogue for vaguely Symbolist, slightly Decadent poetry and occasionally fiction which originated in the Latin American upper classes. Aurora Cáceres was the daughter of a Peruvian president who spent much of her life in Europe, like her sometime husband, Guatemalan man of letters and exemplary modernista Enrique Gómez Carrillo. An unusual exception among the male modernista generation, she was only immune from their otherwise-universal contempt for female writers because she was beautiful.

La Rosa Muerta (The Dead Rose) is her only novel, a snappy 70 pages of languorous, image-perfumed prose and soft-focus idealism. The refulgent atmosphere (a relic of the period) aside, it's a pretty good story (I could imagine a great arthouse film being made from it), setting up oppositions between East and West, science and passion, love and death, and letting them play out in the body of an young but ailing Spanish widow who falls in love with her Turkish gynecologist.

This is the second of the 1910s novels I'm reading which I read only in Spanish, since an English translation doesn't exist; and rather than putting the book down every time I encounter a word I don't know (pretty frequently with self-consciously poetic modernista texts), I've been reading like I did as a child, enlarging my vocabulary via context and repetition. So I know I missed a bunch of fine grain even when I got the gist; but I won't worry about it. There's lots of open space between being unable to read a language and doing a line-by-line translation, and I'm trying to live in that space.

[Vistú · Rating 4 out of 5]

No sé qué había hecho de mi vida que nunca me hablaron nada de Cáceres.

[peg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Longlisted for the 2019 Best Translated Book Award, this novel is in all probability one of what my reading group terms “wildcards”, which are the extra picks that each individual judge makes after the jointly selected list is set. My reading plan for the list is to read these wildcard selections first, as history of the prize shows that they usually don’t make the Shortlist.

Originally published in 1917 but only eligible for the list because it was first translated in 2018, this story of a woman who has a sexual affair with her gynecologist seems very dated to me. There is an interesting introduction by the translator describing its place in the modernista tradition and importance to feminism but I can only describe my own reaction today, which is that it seemed overly dramatic, cloying and sentimental, with both characters seeming shallow and unlikeable. I will round my 1.5* rating to 2* in appreciation of the author’s courage to write such a book in her time!

[Miguel Flores · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sorprende su contemporaneidad. Título preciso para contar la degradación del cuerpo en manos del amor. Laura, el personaje central de comienzos del siglo XX, recurre a los médicos de Berlín y París para sanarse. Luego de un recorrido parece encontrar al adecuado. Sin embargo, nuevamente el cuerpo la confronta. Autora injustamente poco conocida, hija de Andrés Avelino Cáceres, inaugura -desde el exilio de su padre en Europa- la historia de la novela moderna en nuestro país.

[James John · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Hubo de resignarse al vasallaje físico; mas no al del espíritu (...) y este renunciamiento voluntario de la amante, cuando el corazón sufre y necesita más que nunca de cariño, implicaba un acto heroico".

Laura es una heroína que no acepta la belleza impuesta por los hombres, sino que propone su propio modelo de mujer y de vida.

[Charlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rebelling against the pharma-patriarchy by going absolutely ham on your gynecologist. That's that good shit.

[Bob Lopez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whoa. An affair between a gynecologist and a patient--the characters had a "proper" affect to them that the book feel almost like a play? I wouldn't say they were wooden since there was a lot of lust here, a lot of "flushing" but they were pretty stoic. It was oddly charming despite it's once-controversial subject matter...the book ends in tragedy. Near the end we get a chapter that begins "The doctor easily grew more accustomed to viewing Laura as a lover rather than a patient." The doctor's remove/bedside manner throughout came across as objectification, and from here on, his objectification becomes neglect--to the point of her death, despite her pain, despite all the discomfort, despite the physical evidence he is aware of. After her death, we get stuff like "Poor little girl" and "poor thing"...and it's all just so obvious. Great book.

[Katarzyna Bartoszynska · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A line of white glass vessels containing topaz liquid for analysis by the doctor were positioned in right in front of her, and she could not look away from the patients' secretions. The sight prevented her from focusing her senses and feeling the supreme spasm." (51)

A neglected modernist masterpiece about a woman with uterine fibroids who has a love affair with her gynecologist. The way it interweaves issues of class, gender, sexuality, power, and shame (with a heaping dose of orientalism on the side) is absolutely stunning. This would be a great text to teach.

[Julio Enrique · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una breve novela modernista sobre los horrores de enfermarse siendo mujer a principios de siglo XX...