Cambio de armas y otros cuentos políticos

by Luisa Valenzuela

Spanish language edition, trade paperback published by Ediciones del Norte, 2004.

Genres: Short Stories, Spanish Literature, Latin American Literature, Fiction, Womens, Latin American

192 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1982

About the author

Luisa Valenzuela is a post-'Boom' novelist and short story writer. Her writing is characterized by an experimental, avant-garde style which questions hierarchical social structures from a feminist perspective. She is best known for her work written in response to the dictatorship of the 1970s in Argentina. Works such as Como en la guerra (1977), Cambio de armas (1982) and Cola de lagartija (1983) combine a powerful critique of dictatorship with an examination of patriarchal forms of social organization and the power structures which inhere in human sexuality and gender relationships.

Reviews

[Sentimental Surrealist · Rating 4 out of 5]

You wanna talk about tragedies, let's talk about tragedies: the burial of Luisa Valenzuela in the United States. From what I understand, she's a legend of Latin American literature, counting Carlos Fuentes, Julio Cortazar, and Jorge Luis Borges, the latter also a supporter and friend of the great Silvina Ocampo, whose readers I'd say are super-guilty of tokenizing Latin American writers as magical realists. Granted, the recent popularity of Roberto Bolano, Lina Meruane (note to American publishers: let's get more Meruane up here, yeah?) and Valeria Luiselli (I saw the latter read, by the way, and she torched "magical-realism" tokenism - apparently it's really hard for a Latina writer to make it around here because so few readers want to read beyond Laura Esquivel and Isabel Allende, which is why I've chosen not to read Allende until I've read some of the less famous Latina authors), but it's still annoying that a large and vibrant region (the whole Western hemisphere south of Texas, people! Lots and lots of space there!) has been reduced to a single movement that, by the looks of it, isn't at all representative of what contemporary Latinx writers are up to circa 2016.

That first paragraph was mostly me naming authors. I'd apologize, but I assume anyone who reads my reviews is the sort of mega-book-nerd who has some sort of investment in these writers' creative output anyway. Let's move on, though, onto Valenzuela herself. For me, Valenzuela's works are better the shorter they get, which means her very best work can be found in the bite-sized chunks you get from great collections like The Censors: A Bilingual Selection of Stories and Symmetries. Since this collection consists mostly of longer stories, I'd say it's about her third or fourth-best, better than her novels (which sometimes get a little lost in the metaphysics for my tastes), but not quite as good as the brief intense flashes that are her super-short pieces.

Of course, this whole theory collapses when you consider "Four Versions," which I'd wager is my favorite of all Valenzuela's works. At fifty pages, it's in that nether-space between longer short story and novella that makes me wonder why such foolish categories haven't been obliterated altogether, and it's a great and highly purposeful work of metafiction. The narrator's interpretations of an actress' diary become the ground of a conflict both sexual and political. The work is loaded with brilliant parallelism, irony, gaps in the account most likely censored, and speculation. Valenzuela used a similar trick in The Lizard's Tail, but I found this one much more focused.

I'd wager this is the most memorable of the bunch, but the others also come off quite well, intertwining sex, politics and violence into a patriarchy-smashing howl. The title story is downright terrifying, grafting political intrigue onto a noir story with a feminist bent and capping the whole thing off with an incredible climax. I'm not gonna give anything about it away, of course, but if you want a character arc, there's your character arc. "Rituals of Rejection" is also great, perhaps the most noir-ish of the lot; the running theme of a woman falling hard for an unsavory and manipulative man is explored at perhaps its finest here.

But like I say, everything comes off quite well. The sheer darkness of what Valenzuela does isn't going to work for everyone, especially since there isn't as much humor in this collection as something like Strange Things Happen Here: Twenty-Six Short Stories and a Novel - it's more in the mode of her psychological/political/sexual He Who Searches than anything else I've read for her. But hey, I think the darkness makes it all the better. Why read writers who shy away?

[Sïnestesïa Yp · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Cambio de armas" es un libro de cuentos de un millón de estrellas. Me atraparon poderosamente la atención, todos. Excelentemente escritos, me encantó el argumento y como la autora pone en palabras y alude a cuestiones vinculadas a la dictadura con la mujer como centro. No sólo me refiero a protagonistas sino también a voz narradora. (¿Alguna vez percibieron una voz narradora omnisciente femenina?, Valenzuela lo logra).
Pero la razón por la cual doy tres estrellas a esta obra es absolutamente subjetiva. Me pareció horrible que se usará una tonalidad erótica ligada a la represión. De muy mal gusto para mí; uno no puede pensar en otra cosa que en violación y tortura cuando se habla de la mujer bajo la opresión de dictadores. No me pareció necesario dar cuenta de esos momentos de intimidad y goce en esas circunstancias. No lo pude digerir. No lo entendí. No era para mí, quizá. O quizá sí, y logro incomodarme y molestarme.
En fin, un libro fuerte pero con calidad literaria indiscutible.

[Nouk G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sólo he leído el cuento que da nombre al libro. Una forma interesante pero se necesita el contexto político para entenderlo. A ver lo que nos contará Paqui en clase👌

[Cleo · Rating 5 out of 5]

(only read the titular short story) diss read 2/?, an absolute corker, no one does short stories like the Argentine writers

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Solemos creer que para combatir las sombras se requiere más luz, pero al intensificar las luces sólo se logra intensificar las sombras. Sólo la oscuridad mata las sombras, esto es lo intolerable»

«cuando el otro se aleja no lamentamos tanto su ausencia como la pérdida del ser en el que nos habíamos transformado nosotros a su lado»

«no sucumbir a la trampa literaria más de lo necesario, más de lo que una ya sucumbe por el hecho por demás literario de estar viva»

«si es cierto que te han matado o donde andes, de noche soy tu caballo y podés venir a habitarme cuando quieras aunque yo esté entre rejas»

Era imperdonable que esta maravilla se quedase sin reseña, pero como todavía no soy capaz de poner en palabras todo lo que me ha dejado esta lectura os dejo un par de citas cortitas pero 💜🫂🫧

[Leyre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Completely life-changing, it has become one of my favourite books ever. I don't think I have words to describe the way in which Valenzuela writes so disturbingly yet beautifully about the power dynamics between men and women, woman sexuality, political repression and the use of language as a weapon. Just go and read it.

[Emejota (Juli) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Estaba buscando autoras argentinas olvidadas y llegué a este libro. Luisa escribe bien pero lo encontré un poco efectista. Una tendencia a cargar de erotismo situaciones violentas y una romantización del macho que fue desagradable. En cada relato todo gira alrededor de algún varón dominante. Y las protagonistas mujeres expectantes, reaccionando a las acciones de estos machos hipererotizados sin demasiada reflexión. Por momentos hasta me dio mucho rechazo.

[Eva]

just “Cambio de armas”

[Laura Pelayo Padilla ♡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

solo he leído el cuento que le da nombre a la antología, pero mis dieces a Luisa Valenzuela ✨

[Lex Columbine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Esta fue una sorpresa del año, no conocía a Luisa Valenzuela antes de este libro. Tuve la suerte de conversar con ella, me firmó el libro y hasta pagó mi café.
Lo que más me agradó de esta obra es su lenguaje. Mucha metáfora, un vocabulario muy rico y las imágenes que va creando son muy poéticas. Se las ingenia para meter una teoría e ir resolviéndolo a medida que avanza su narración. Hasta me hizo recordar un poco a Milan Kundera en ese aspecto.
Me daba un poco de miedo el título de la antología porque esperaba cuentos de dictadura viejos, aburridos o panfletarios como los que leí en el colegio, pero todos están buenos. La política es un elemento que está ahí pero nunca es el protagonista, aunque las historias giren en torno eso o sucedan en esa época.
Sus frases tienen mucha fuerza, cada párrafo es un pequeño mundo donde logra ir hilando las ideas, la acción y las palabras claves, para comparar lo que pasa afuera con lo que sucede al protagonista por dentro. También tiene mucho ritmo y hasta parece que lo hace desde una espontaneidad porque todos los cuentos iban muy fluidos desde la primera linea hasta el final. Aunque la mayoría está narrado desde el omnisciente se las ingenia para darle mucha voz y vida a sus personajes.
Me tuve que buscar unas cuantas Palabras en el diccionario. Algunos cuentos tienen alto contenido de violencia sexual que me resultó medio fuerte.
El top.
1- Cuarta versión
2- Ceremonias de rechazo
3-Cambio de armas
4-La palabra asesino
5-Simetrías

[Paul Kerschen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sex and power are usually a cold brew, no matter how many French herbs you stir in; writing with desire can lead anywhere at all, but writing about desire is a bad-faith invitation to get hot and bothered over a lab report. So what makes this book different—why is Luisa Valenzuela so obviously the real thing? The claustrophobia of state repression rendered as in an exacting horror movie, by what it leaves out, avenues closed. That desire still exists, a familiar beating heart, and has only these channels to pump through is as sickening as it should be. Something of Cortázar’s precise play, and a vocabulary that kept sending me to the dictionary to find out it was perfect.

[Maryana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me parece una historia fascinante, la manera de escribir sin ningún tipo de limitación, utilizando palabras fuertes pero tan reales. No es una historia superficial, es la violencia de género, lenguaje y política que muchas mujeres viven a diario.

Una historia entre aterradora y poderosa que hace al lector vivirlo de verdad.

[Cecília Núñez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cruel però necessària.

[Grmln · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5, The only story that didn't work for me was the first one, which takes up about half of the book. Conceptually it was still interesting though. Otherwise, this probably would have been a 5 star read based on the other 4 shorter stories. This book largely explore impacts of violence (both political and personal) on women, and the impacts on the psyche. Full of vibrant, punchy prose. Valenzuela remains an incredibly interesting writer who clearly deeply cares about craft, if not a little inaccessible to the average reader imo.

[Tina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cambio de armas y Escribir con el cuerpo

El libro de cuentos que muestran la memoria de la dictadura en metáfora de una pareja. Nombres ya no son importantes, las personas tienen más nombres o no tiene ningún nombre. La pareja todo el tiempo es mirada por vigilantes Uno y Dos, que pueden ser país o cualquier cosa que el lector piensa que son, es la guerra, ¿de verdad sería importante?

[Grace O'Hare · Rating 5 out of 5]

Horrifically gripping. Valenzuela's portrayal of Laura's captivity left me physically grimacing while reading it, yet I still couldn't put it down. She gets so much imagery and story telling across in so few pages, and I won't spoil it but the ending was incredibly satisfying. Fantastic read.

[Gloria Mutak]

Nemoj da se tražiš u ogledalima. Traži se unutar sebe. Pazi se odraza u ogledalu. Varljiv je. Izvrnut i dalek. Udvostručuje te i udaljava. (On ne sluša njena upozorenja, koristi je kao ogledalo i baca joj u lice svoja najgora lica u želji da razume samog sebe.)

[Giovanni Gregory · Rating 3 out of 5]

Variaciones.

[F · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fuerte pero con un ritmo que no me convencio del todo

[Ana Álvarez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Qué prosa

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The short stories in Luisa Valenzuela's Other Weapons are dark romances, nearly a kind of Latin American film noir in which the revolution replaces the domestic SoCal backdrop.

The politics of Valenzuela's heroines seem to serve as metaphors for the troubled relationships between men and women. Oddly, the women are revolutionaries by proxy. The female protagonists' failure to take up arms for themselves is nowhere as strong as in the title story . Here an unreliable narrator from the depths of some psychosis perceives her colonel-husband as her jailer-torturer. When she at last shoots him, it is because he has handed her the loaded gun.

This gender paradox is echoed in the story "The Rituals of Rejection" in which the protagonist, Amanda, once again seems to be an unreliable narrator, this time in love with a wandering man, Coyote: "while she waters the plants with the hose bought and hooked up by Coyote himself--the annulled man--, Amanda starts feeling free...." It's difficult to read that line without the bell of irony going gong. Valenzuela's tone stands in contrast to more magical writers of romance such Isabel Allende's Eva Luna. While both writers from the same era and part of the globe use the romance genre to address the collision of Marxism and Bolivarismo, Valenzuela rejects magic, going so far as "messing up a perfectly good tile floor" with candles and a pentagram (84).

Besides the threads of romance, feminism and revolution running through the collection, there is also metafictional commentary. The first story in the collection "Fourth Version" was by far the most difficult for me to get through because it seemed more like a critical analysis than a narrative.

The author's commentary seems to appear in italics. Here's an example: "It's amazing to see how easily the doomed grasp at the slightest distraction, the slightest chance to forget. Anything to avoid mentioning the unmentionable" (18). The danger is that the author might seem to exploit and abuse the character. But this danger might not be a liability to this anthology; if Valenzuela is saying that writers are as authoritarian as dictators, she is critiquing herself, empathizing with her antagonists and pitying her protagonists. It's a authorial stance as confounding as an abusive mariage. The heroines are generally not gifted with language, having difficulty naming a name (a frequent leftist problem), or difficulty calling someone by their accurate name: "My lover, the avenger, she tells herself....she has uttered the word killer" (69).

I picked up Other Weapons having read Valenzuela's "The Censors" a long time ago and liking it. Her characters fool themselves in love as in politics. While the worldview is much the same in this collection, I missed the concision of "The Censors." So when "I'm Your Horse in the Night," blasted out of Other Weapons, I was ecstatic. The story is visceral, psychologically complex, political, moving and concise.

One last note:
Although written during the U.S. Contra War in 1985, long before WMD & links to al-Qaida were waterboarded from detainees in The War on Terror, it is interesting how current "Other Weapons" is in depicting torture in reference to the bad intel. Even when the victim in the title story gives her torturer the accurate name, she's given so many others that he can't distinguish valid intel from false (115). It's the false declarations made during rape or waterbaording, that drive imprison the torturer with the victim, the psychology so broken that honesty is virtually impossible to discern in the mirrors of irony.

[mariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

"¿y dónde se habrán metido los recuerdos? ¿Por qué sitio andarán sabiendo mucho más de ella que ella misma?"

pequeño pero poderoso. la escritura es preciosa y la historia aterradora. de mis favoritos del semestre.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of short stories interestingly intertwines the violence of gender, language and politics. Published close to the dissolution of the dictatorship in Argentina, Valenzuela explores the inability of language to explain the randomized violence of the military regime. In "Cuarta versión", a female narrator tries to piece together and make sense of the fragmented diary of an Argentine actress, Bella, who inadvertently becomes a conduit for political refugees. The narrator desires to understand the political situation through Bella's words, and is repeatedly frustrated with her subject's predominant concern for the non-political, sexual, petty, quotidian messes. This frustration reveals to the reader that while we may yearn for encompassing narratives that explain history, in reality no such thing exists. Instead, we must grapple with the fragmented contradictions, the "shadows", that constitute life.

[Jeneé · Rating 2 out of 5]

This story was depressing. You feel the confusion and desperation of the main character. And you see the cruleness of her husband and don't understand why she stays, why she is traped. Eventually everything is told at the end but there are still things that are untold. The ending is also pretty open ended, you are left to make up your own ending. Had to read this for a class, probably wouldn't have read it on my own. It was okay but wasn't really enthralling to read.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just re-read this book (April 2011) in order to teach it for a class on literature of the Southern Cone. This is at least the third time I've read "Cambio de armas," and each time I am more impressed by the quality of Valenzuela's writing and more moved by the power of her stories.

[Luis · Rating 5 out of 5]

‪La forma en que narra Luisa Valenzuela es increíble. Todos los cuentos logran transmitir el desasosiego, la angustia, el terror al que fueron sometidas las víctimas de la dictadura. ‬

‪Cambio de armas, no sobra decirlo, es un cuento desgarrador e impactante, de eso que dejan boquiabierto. ‬

[Mary]

Read in Global Women Writers Class Spring 2007

[Amaranta La Librera · Rating 3 out of 5]

Buenos cuentos

[Mills College Library]

Fiction V161a 1998

[Malica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arts One. UBC 2019.