Revising the Revolutionary Past in Jorge Ibargüengoitia’s Los relámpagos de agosto: A Narrator Gives Up

Abstract

Taking Walter Benjamin’s Theses on the Philosophy of History as a point of departure, the evaluation of a variety of studies on Los relámpagos de agosto serves to take inventory of how Ibargüengoitia parodies the legacy of myths about the Mexican Revolution as living history. That the historical truth of the story is lost can already be seen by looking at the frame story which allows reading the novel as a false vindication of revolutionary disputes amongst many others. By comparing the frame story of the fictitious memories of the general Arroyo with the memories of Obregón and Amaya, on the one hand, and the epilogues of Los relámpagos de agosto and Las muertas, on the other hand, a subtle and still not sufficiently appreciated construction becomes apparent: one of the narrators has simply given up in the face of history’s changeability.