Reyes Calderon's Lola MacHor Series by Jeffrey Oxford

Author:Jeffrey Oxford [Oxford, Jeffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781845196462
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Sussex Academic Press
Published: 2015-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

II Other motifs and social criticism

In addition to the previously studied leitmotif of the “Golden Rule” found throughout the Lola MacHor series, the various novels offer additional examples of social commentary or social criticism which, while loosely related to the immediately surrounding narrative, is largely independent of such and could be easily excised from the text without any significant change in the novel itself. As an academic thriller, the world of education comes under intense scrutiny in Hemingway and, while deeply criticized, is also considered of utmost importance. The nun who visits Lola in the hospital, Sor Rosario, comments, in fact, that the lack of education is devastating to humans: “ignorancia y pobreza, dos de los mayores males de la humanidad” (176). Lola, however, has lost faith in higher education, telling Iturri that “la liturgia de cada día es más bien ésta: largas mentiras soportadas con ánimo estoico y forzada sonrisa; áspiras y groseras discusiones […]. ¡Si usted supiera qué hercúlea es la tarea de convertir a un sabio en catedrático! … Aunque, ahora que lo pienso, quizás sea más titánica la empresa de hacer de un catedrático un sabio” (210). Iturri, taken aback by her comments, notes that “[m]e sorprende su ácido lenguaje” (210). But she is unrelenting, adding that “ya no buscamos la sabiduría, sino los honores, las glorias, los reconocimientos; las subidas, en definitiva, de categoría y sueldo. […] Somos, en definitiva, una especie de vampiros” (211). And her additional allusion to Roman gladiator fights establishes a connection between bullfighting, the winning of a professorship, and the inhumanity of the higher education system:

aquí de lo que hablamos es de otro tipo de competencia. Esto es la arena romana. El emperador siempre tiene el pulgar inclinado hacia abajo. Es una lucha a muerte, vencer de una vez para siempre. […] Ese dulce y tierno discípulo que trae pastas el día de tu onomástica y te abre las puertas con sumisión y modestia te apuñalará por la espalda en el preciso momento en que, colmadas sus aspiraciones, ya no le seas útil. Así de cruel, así de real. (212)

Hemingway is a novel situated in Pamplona during the week of the Sanfermines festival; thus, it is no surprise that both the running of the bulls and bullfighting itself would earn additional scrutiny. Sanfermines.net details the medieval creation of the festival as an October commemoration of the martyrdom of the first bishop of Pamplona and its eventual conversion into more of a secular, July celebration coinciding with the cattle markets. Tellingly, by setting the novel in the Sanfermines festival, and having the murder occur during the encierros themselves, the author juxtapositions celebration and death, the traditionally sacred and evil, and the commonly known with the mysterious. This duality is accentuated by the narrator’s dubitative stance toward the merits of the encierro, a stance that both questions the playing with death while recognizing its economic and cultural importance to both the city and its citizens:

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