I

5

JOSE RUBEN ROMERO

JOSE RUBEN ROMERO

Before Revolution

Son of don Melsio Romero, Jose Ruben Romero was born on

28 September 1890 in a little village of Cotija de Paz,

Michoacan. He is a poet, prose writer, villager, grocer,

revolutionary, diplomat and a great artist who portrays

himself in words with frankness and skilful self-revealing

style. He was just seven when he had to move to Mexico City

with his family and studied six years at the Colegio Barona.

From the age of fourteen to twenty-seven, he experienced the

provincial life living in Ario, Sahuayo, Santa Clara,

Patzcuaro and Morelia. One can easily see the reflexion of

Romero's early provincial life in his novels.

Jose Ruben Romero had already indicated that he would

be a celeberated writer as at the age of eight he was

already a child poet who had composed a verse.1 At the age

of ten he was already reciting his own poems to the clients

of his father's shop called La sonfunbula in his native

village Cotija de la Paz.2 Ario de Rosales's magazine El

Pante6n had the privilege to publish Romero's first poem in

1 William owen Cord, "Jose Ruben Romero: The Voice of Mexico" (Ph. D. thesis, University of Colorado, Colorado, 1960), p.vi.

2 Antonio Magana Esquivel, La novela de la Revoluci6n mexicana (Mexico City, Patronato del Institnto Nacional de Estudios Historicos, 1965), vol.2, p.78.

161

1902 when he was barely of twelve years. It encouraged young

poet and he composed many more poems and got them published

in various regional newspapers and literary magazines. He

was then fourteen years when with his father's secretary,

Murguia guillen, he had founded a magazine called El Iris in

which he published couple of his earliest poems. And, in

1907, his first collection of sonnets entitled "Fantasias"

was published in Sahuayo.

It does not mean that Jose Ruben Romero did·not write

prose during the first cycle of his 1 i terary career. The

antecedents of his prose writing date back to 21 June 1908

issue of "El tiempo ilustrado" in which his first prose

piece "Don Francisco de la Baba y Coreta" was published.

Romero is fond of painting his character of rural background

such as Pito Perez, Vicente, don Chema, etc. These standard

characters of village life-style proved to be enough

powerful raw material for Romero's novels.

Romero's family was living in Santa Clara del Cobre

when his father along with Salvador Escalante, the would-be­

general, sided with Francisco I. Madero who was defeating

federal forces in the North. Jose Ruben Romero was then

twenty-one when, in 1911, he also joined Madero and soon

became Chief of the General Staff of General Salvador

Escalante. In 1912, Dr Miguel Silva, the learned governor of

Michoacan, made Romero his private secretary. After Huerta

162

threw Dr Miguel Silva out of governorship, Romero was

identified as a political agitationist, and that made him

run for his life and reach Mexico City to start living in

Tacambaro. Romero withdrew fro• political life from 1914 to

1918 and spent that period working as a grocer and

haberdasher. In 1918, the governor of Michoacan, Pascual

Ortiz Rubio, later President of Mexico, named ·Romero his

personal secretary. After a year, he was posted in Mexico

City as governor's representative and a way was paved for

Romero's political high profile career. It was in 1920 when

he was inducted in the Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores

where he came in contact and made long lasting friendship

with literati such as Genaro Estrada, Artemio de Valle

Arizpe and Jose Juan Tablada. Through them Romero gained

entry to t~e very important literary circle of the capital

city. In 1930, after Pascual Ortiz Rubio became President of

Mexico, he made Romero Mexico's Consul General in Barcelona.

It was during Romero's stay in Spain that he wrote his first

novel Apuntes de un lugareno and which was published there

in 1932. Romero did not look back and by 1939 he was the

proud author of six novels.

During Revolution

After a gap of four years, in 1912 another anthology of

poems called Rimas bohemias was published in Patzcuaro. In

1915, La musa heroica was published in Tacambaro. This is a

163

collection of patriotic poems. The next collection of poems

was La musa loca published in 1917 in Morelia which was much

more serious and matured effort and that brought Romero to

lime light as a young promising poet. He had then moved to

Mexico City where his another anthology of verses

Sentimental was published in 1919. The memories of his

childhood, youth, native place and of his friends and

relations had made him restless and pulled the strings of

his emotions. The poems of Sentimental are dedicated to

those emotional memories· and feelings. It was also a period

when Jose Juan Tablada was popularizing Hai Kai in Mexico.

Once Romero happened to get into arguments with Tablada

sasing that that kind of poetry was easy to compose. In

order to prove what he said, Romero, in 1922, carne out with

a Hai Kai collection Tacambaro just in two months. It was

readily accepted by the readers and proved to be a tour de

force. But the best collection of his poems "Versos Viejos"

was published in 1930 with which the first half of his

creative career is known to have come to an end.

Before his novels started appearing, his two prose

collections - Cuentos rurales {1915) and Mis amigos, Mis

enemigos (1921) -- were already published. It would be

interesting to note that no copy of either of these

collections is available. Ernest R. Moore notes in this

regard:

164

Jose Ruben Romero says that he has a copy of both, although he turns aside any request to see them. Of the second book he declares only one copy remains. When asked why, he smiles and answers that he wrote the book to rebuke friends in high political offices when they ignored the responsibilities of friendship. Hardly had the book come off the press, when the political situation changed and he agian ~ound favour. He thought it wise to burn the whole edition. He r :cords that a similar impulse toward revenge assailed him when he began to write Apuntes de un lugareno, an impulse which this time he allowed himself to follow.3

The conventional method of classifying Romero's novels

again proves to be inadequate. As charles Anthony Piano

rightly states that " ... eight fictional works of varying

autobiographical content so significantly different from all

other Mexican fictions in form, style, and thematic

presentation that the familiar categories of novel,

novelette, short story, pretended autobiography, or memoirs

barely apply. And it is not only that these terms are for

the most part inadequate, but that they often get in the way

of the understanding and appreciation of Romero's work .... "4

Fernando Alegria, however, in his book Breve historia de la

novel a hispanoamericana has attempted to classify Romero's

novels. Mi caballo, mi perro y mi rifle (1936), Anticipaci6n

a la muerte ( 1939) , Una vez fui rico ( 1942) and Rosenda

3 Ernest R.Moore, "Novelists of the Mexican Revolution: Jose Ruben Romero", Mexican life, vol.16,no.10, October 1940, p.23.

4 Charles Anthony Piano, "The Novels of Jose Ruben Romero" (Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 1967)~ p.B.

165

(1946) he puts in the category of novels.5 The other three

novels -·Apuntes de un lugareno (1932), El pueblo inocente

( 19 3 4 ) and Desbandada (1934) -- he calls "memories of

province and memories of manners". 6 The third category he

makes of La vida inutil de Pito Perez . (1938) and Algunas

cosillas de Pito Perez en el tintero (1945) and calls them

"picaresque monologues in which the social philosophy of the

author is summarized". 7 It is not intended here to debate

the authenticity of any such classification. The critics

themselves are not in agreement with any final

classification of Romero's novels. One can even find

contradictions in their classification. Charles Anthony

Piano puts it this way :

There are two prime obj~ctions then to the forced classification of Romero's works. The first is that they do not fall naturally into any of the common literary categories; they are hybrids, and it is this uniqueness that should be stressed. The second, that classification would prove hindrance to the evaluation of these works; one would be prompted to judge them for what they are not rather than for what they are, that is to say, according preconceived notions of what a novel ... should be.8

5 Fernando Alegria, Breve historia de la novel a hispano-americana (Mexico City, Ediciones de Andrea, 1959), p.158.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.

8 Piano, n.4, pp.ll-12.

166

Romero has used more than two hundred characters in his

eight novels.9 In fact they are the ones he had known in his

real life and whom he freely used with little cosmetic touch

in his novels. "Most of Romero's portraits are literary

.transcriptions of real and specific Mexicans. As such, and

as a result of their vivid and representative quality, these

portraits constitute a valuable contribution to the Mexican

novel and to the study of the Mexican scene", 10 says R.

Anthony Castagnaro. But, after few paragraphs, we

surprisingly come across a different statement by

Castagnaro: "The basis for designating Romero as a "novelist

of the Revolution" is neither as broad nor as deep as in the

case of his fellow novelists. n11 There are very many points

and views through which Romero's creative world has been

thoroughly scunned. However, the analysis of Romero's novels

from the linguistic point of_ view is of little interest in

this study. The structural pattern or stylistic angle is,

therefore, not intended to be studied. Josse Ruben Romero as

one of the prominent intellectuals of Mexico is probed for

his writings that reflect Mexico and its people during and

after the Revolution. Romero did not live through the

Revolution the way Azuela lived and that difference is

9 R. Anthony Castagnaro, "Ruben Romero and the Novel of the Mexican Revolution", Hispania, vol. 36, no.3, August 1953, p.300.

10 Ibid., p. 301.

11 Ibid., Emphasis in the original.

167

clearly noticed in Romero's writings. Yet he is as much an

important novelist of the Revolution as any other writer of

the period.

Whether it was nostalgia or free time available to keep

his creative activity continued during his stay in Barcelona

as Mexico's Consul General from 1930 to 1933, Romero penned

down his first novel -- Apuntes de un lugare.fio. It was

published there in 1932. His memories from early childhood

when he was just five in Cotija de Paz upto his twenty-third

year flock back to the mind in the chronological sequence of

events. Ernest R. Moore remarks about this novel as follows:

Written as a pastime to refresh the memory with the pleasantness of a past which time has erased the pain, this novel as insistently expresses the social conflict and political unrest of the whole nation. In this respect it is truly a novel of the revolution. As literature it suffers from disrupted narration, labored figures of speech, periphrastic constructions, and a dramatic ending that fails to come off. These defects do not rob the novel of a beauty that comes from the sensitive recording of poetic visions, and a beauty born of the powerful realism which evokes scenes from village life.12

There is hardly any plot in the novel in the strict

sense of the term. The days of his childhood in Cotija de

Paz the movement of his family and the frightening incident

of his escape from Huerta's firing squad are the author's

own experiences. One may whether call them important or

unimportant events, they appropriately find place in Apuntes

12 Moore, n. 3, p.23.

168

de un lugarefio. He puts down in detail why and how his

father's small shop La Sonambula in Cotija de Paz had to be

given up for revolutionary ideals. He does not forget to

mention even about Pancho Orgozco who was his advisor on

sex-related problems. He also remembers Pefiita who did put

up a fight against poverty but could achieve only an

underpaid teacher's job. Whether we call it "picaresque

monologue" or "episodic fiction", Romero paints his

characters in such a way that the reader is completely

absorbed by their existence. He tells us about the village

"literary Sheet" he edited. He also took part in the revolt

against Porf ir io Diaz. Subsequently, he became Governer

Escalante's secretary. He then takes us through a galaxy of

his characters and also tells us about his friendship with

people like Orozco, Amado Nervo, Madero, etc. The events and

characters are picked up from day-to-day life of village and

provincial towns. It is like hearing a live-commentary by an

experienced commentator. His so-called unliterary style of

narrating the anecdotes and the sketches of his townfolks

constitute an important element of his success. His

characters emerge the way they are. Romero does not bother

about any literary sophistication and lets his characters

speak what they want to and the way they feel like. One

feels as if he is watching live bullfights or cockfights in

the village, brown Indians fishing or picnicking at Lake

169

Patzcuaro or barefoot Indian women selling their tortillas

shouting in the plaza. Images are vivid and details are

sharp.

The political scenario is not without mention. The

caudillos appear on th scene and disappear without any

trace. The religion abuses its position. Romero does not

hinder in exposing individual or institutional immorality.

He does it through his typical characters and one of his

favourite characters, Pito Perez, who first time appears in

Apuntes de un lugareno. Romero describes him as a "model of

clowns and crooks. 'The same Pi to (damn) Perez13, whose

endless drunkenness emulates any Roman orgy, singing through

streets, crowned with roses, knew how to recite a Latin

verse and how to make a typical meeting timely .... Regarding

prisons, his knowledge surpasses anybody's. If you spoke

about San Luis Potosi, Aguascalientes, Toluca, his answer

was always the same: I know that prison. Any serious crime?

None. He was an adventurer of drinks and nothing else.n14

In fact, Romero himself is the protagonist. The last

episode of Apuntes de un lugareno is abrupt and

13 It is interesting to note that Romero originally mentions this character as de pi to Perez, then he calls him El Pi to Perez and finally names him Pi to perez. This modification of the character shows Romero's growing interest in the character.

14 Jose Ruben Romero, Obras Completas (Mexico City, Ediciones Oasis, S.A., 1957), p. 76.

170

inconclusive. When the protagonist returns to Morelia, the

federal troops arrest him for suspecting him to plan to join

the revolutionaries. He is taken to a cemetery to be

summarily executed. The moment they reach the place, the

captain of the firing squad is told about an urgent

telephonic message. The captain receives the call from the

governor ordering him to set Ruben free. During the period

when the captain is away to attend the telephonic message,

the moments of suspense paint a new situation:

But I notice that two soldiers of the group, vague light of the dawn, are looking at me strange firmness and mainly fixed their eyes feet.

in the with a

on my

- If you think they fit you, ask for them from the sergeant.

With this sentence I understand everything. Although I am still alive,- they are sharing out my articles of clothing. Then the desire of last generosity, trivial and vain arouses in me. I am wearing a simple gold­ring, I remove it from my finger and give it to one of those men:

I don't have anything more, friend understand all my will.15

And these words

It is interesting to note that the novelist exposes the

miserable plight of a soldier whether he is this side or

that side of the political game. At the same time, how a

right connection timely saved his life indicates the loop

holes of the system. It is Luisita Velez who comes to know

about Ruben's arrest and also that he is going to be

15 b.d I 1 ., pp.145-6.

171

executed. without wasting a moment, she approaches the

governor and convinces him of his innocence and requests him

to immediately order for his release. Ruben and his father

have often been visiting Luisita's house after their return

to Morelia. Luisita saves Ruben's life but does not

propagate her concern for Ruben's life. She does not tell it

even to her mother. Her mother when sees Ruben and his

father returning from the cemetery in the early hours, she

does not know that Ruben is just back with a·new lease of

life. This situation is worth reading in Romero's words:

--Where are you coming from so early, my guests?--asked us the kind old lady, owner of the house, on seeing me and my father near the large door full of roses.

--Almost, almost from the eternity, mom! Luisi ta answered, coming out in a hurry at our meeting. And while looking at me, there was a deep and sweet light in her blue eyes, as if coming from eternity .... 16 ·

This abrupt ending leaves some puzzles for the reader.

And in order to solve them, one has to read between the

lines. Luisita's brief answer to the question that was put

to the guests shows the importance she attaches to Ruben's

new life. The grave situation from which Ruben is saved by

Luisita was not that grave for her mother as for the young

girl. And this is explained by that "deep and sweet light"

that Romero finds in Luisi ta' s blue eyes "as if coming

from eternity". Romero also gives a philosophical twist to

16 Ibid. I p. 14 7.

172

this concluding scene where he is found to be optimistic

about life and finds it full of meaning and eternal.

After Revolution

Desbandada is the second autobiographical work of

Romero that was published in 1934. This is about Romero's

four-year stay in Tacambaro during the post-revolutionary

period. Tacambaro is a small town in the mountains of

Michoacan province. In all, there are sixteen episodes of

Tacambaro' s life and events described in the novel. The

novel opens up with Perspectiva in which five chapters are

included. They are -- El Pueblo, La Fama (the narrator's

grocery store) , Mi Casa, parroquianos and La ,Tertulia.

Tacambaro is a town that is built on colonial traditions but

it is also trying to catch up with the modern developments.

A gramophone indicates this which keeps on playing with loud

hoarse sound. There is a general store, La Fama, where water

is mixed with wines and a shady trade is run (without any

hitch). There is also a big rambling house with huge white

walls, a patio, an out-door water-barrel for taking bath and

a typical four-seater toilet. Among the prominent characters

whom Romero uses to paint Tacambaro's socio-political­

economic environment are : an illiterate old hacendado who

requests the owner of the La Fama to take down his oral

compositions of poetry; Perea, a liberal who is fond of

giving his theories; Don Rutilio, a reactionary who uses the

173

general store's counter for delivering his judgements; an

unemployed nurse, Maria, who participated in the Revolution

and now keeps helping the poor people; and a host of

illiterate street hawkers who cry over Jean Val jean's

sufferings when they listen to the narrator reading out to

them Los Miserables. But Tacambaro experiences the

Revolution in a different way. Garcia Chavez swoops on

Tacambaro on a fateful night and the townfolk' s nightmare

ends with loot and rape. Romero's father is killed and La

Fama is destroyed. A little later, even his brother breaths

his last. That makes Romero to leave Tacambaro and go to

Mexico City once more. He is disappointed and ashamed by

that incident and more so because even the maidservant

Aurelia sacrifices her life in order to save her employer.

However, ·even after describing the sufferings of the masses

and victims of the revolutionary violence, Romero does not

become pessimistic. The perception of the Revolution is

clear to his characters:

--But, what has served the-Revolution?

--so that the farm laboures may eat, so that teachers may multiply in cities and in villages, so that village exploiters and tyrants having illustrious surnames are driven out of the country! And, above all, so that you have liberty to discuss these things without getting imprisoned as during the period of don Porfirio.17

17 Ibid., p.165.

174

And whatever unpleasant things might have happened, the

author even tri.ed to reason that out in the following

manner:

No, comrade Perea, pillage and sacking are not Revolution. Revolution is a noble ardour for uplifting, and I will uplift; it is the hope for a life with more justice, and I cling to it. I feel more revolutionary today than yesterday because with one blow I again became poor. The Revolution like God destroys and creates and, as for Him, we look for it only when pain hurts us .... 18

Romero is faithful to the Revolution and compares it

with God. For him revolutionary violence and destruction are

a natural process that will also be followed by creations.

destroys. The revolutionaries might have betrayed it, but

its principles cannot be negated. The author has succeeded

in conveying what he wanted to and what he experienced

through the passage of time. The author's native town

Tacambaro symbolized the typical Mexican town with the

original traditional life of its people. F. Rand Morton has

called Desbandada an "admirable costumbrista mirror".19

In his third novel El pueblo inocente that was

published in 1934, Romero has narrated the current events.

It is much more autobiographical and full of better

colloquial dialogues than any other novel. The man and

18 Ibid., p.195.

19 F. Rand Morton, mexicana (Mexico p.82.

Los novelistas de la Revoluci6n City, Editorial Cultura, 1949),

175

nature are objectively and vividly narrated in such a way

that the reader realizes much later that everything is being

described in the first person. Although Romero's

descriptions of the town folk do not suggest that the pueblo

is innocent, his hero, Daniel, definitely seems to be so.

Daniel is shown to have failed. He does not want people

to know that he travelled by second class and, therefore,

hides himself behind the train. His mentor, don Vicente,

while coming back home, tells him his innumerable

experiences of his life and makes every effort so that

Daniel may overcome his complexes. Don Vicente has worked as

shepherd, customs collector, farmer, muleteer, saddle-boy

and Daniel's tutor. He practised almost all village

professions. Don Vicente is "a symbol of the complete

incarnation of all our towns, innocent, cunning, impudent,

and mischievous.n20 In fact, his schooling was done through

his experiences that he gained in various capacities and not

through books within the four walls of a formal school. That

is why he was a churn, philosopher and guide for Daniel. He

not only took his valuable advices but even shared with him

his love affairs and almost every good or bad feeling. If

Daniel could reveal his most secret and private feeling or

experience to anybody, it was only don Vicente and not any

other person. Don Vicente was a practical man and moulded

20 Romero, n. 14, p.65.

176

his life style on rules of conduct. His thinking that the

Mexican villager's concept of the Revolution was nothing but

to have "land and woman"21 might have been oversimplified,

but it was not completely devoid of meaning. Ernest R. Moore

says about him very candidly: "He belongs to the same class

as Azuela's Demetrio, Campobello's Ella, Lopez y Fuentes's

El Refranero, and Gtiireldes's Don Segundo Sombra, all

distinctly autochthonous types.n22

How Daniel goes back to school is also an interesting

story. When he was back home for a vacation of two months,

he met the town priest's two nieces Esther and Sara. He

falls in love with one sister, but the other one is willing

to offer herself to Daniel. He is in a fix but then decides

to marry the coquette, Sara. It is don Vicente who comes to

his rescue and convinces him to leave the idea of marrying

Sara and that he should continue his studies further. He

tells him that not only his parents but even the nation has

high hopes of him. Falling for a girl like Sara will ruin

his career completely and, therefore, the most important

task before him at the moment is to go back to his school.

Somehow or other, Daniel gets convinced and goes back to

complete his studies. After some time, one of his friends,

Alfonso, pays a visit to him and gives him two bad news. One

21 Ibid., p.239.

22 Moore, n.3, p.24.

177

is that his mentor and great friend don Vicente has passed

away and, the other, that Sara is bearing the dissolute

priest Padre Soriano's child. Daniel then realizes that the

parish and Sara had meticulously done the planning to make

him their illegitimate child's father. It was don Vicente

who saved him from this disgrace. After Alfonso finished

narrating !!wse incidents, Daniel felt the assault on his

honesty, sincerity-and innocence. He tells Alfonso about his

hurt feelings as Vicente was no more to console him and

assuage his feelings:

We are innocent people, Alfonso ! They rob us, and we kiss the hand that takes away ours; they ridicule us, and we still find ways to glorify the mocker; they humiliate us, and we smile cowardly; they injure us, and we forget the blow although scar remains. We live dazzled by the gold of chasubles and of epanlettes .... But a day will arrive .... 23

Daniel, a good natured school-going boy is too innocent

to understand the zigzags of life. He realizes through

heart-breaking events that life is a seesaw between desires

and defeats. However, the best thing about his understanding

of life is that he gradually becomes optimistic and believes

that "a day will arrive" when his dreams will be a reality.

P~rhaps the reason for his being optimistic is that he was

able to save himself from "being father without having bred,

as in some Biblical passages". 24 Daniel is innocent and so

23 Romero, n. 14, p.266.

24 Ibid. I p.265.

178

are his people who are robbed, ridiculed, mocked at and

humiliated by the managers of the society.

There is a whole galaxy of people of a small Mexican

town who are represented through various typical characters

by Romero in El pueblo inocente. Other than don Vicente and

Daniel, there are --Rizo, the cunning usurer; Lauro, the

symbol of corrupt judicial officers; Salud, the plump

pension keeper; El Aguacate, the borracho musician; El

Frances, the shrewd-cunning shopkeeper; Dona Trini, the

prurient widow; Chona, who became prostitute for saving her

brother-in-law's life when situations were beyond her

control and some other minor characters. For Romero, these

characters are corrupted, made suspicious and withdrawn by

the forces of play in the Mexican town-life. Romero seems to

be more concerned with the human aspect of life rather than

the political-ideological mix which for him complicates the

social milieu.

The fourth in series is Romero's Mi caballo, mi perro y

mi rifle (1936) that was written in Barcelona, during his

second stay in Spain, when he was posted there as Mexico's

Consul General (1936-37). In this novel, Romero attempts at

the conventional form of novel and makes a departure from

the autobiographical narration. The protagonist of Mi

catallo, mi perro y mi rifle, Julian Osorio, is a victim of

childhood sickness, an incidental physical relation that led

179

to pregnancy and an unwanted marriage to a woman of his

mother's age. He looks for an opportunity to escape from the

reality and the easiest way he finds is to become a member

of the revolutionary army. But he was destined to lead an

unhappy life. He makes a cowardly retreat during an ambush.

His wound makes his life quite unhappy and painful. His

friend, Nazario, joins the Revolution just to save his house

from revolutionaries.25 He was shocked at seeing the state

of affairs that those who talked about the Revolution most

were, in fact, least concerned about that. What concerned

them most was their lives and property and for their safety

they remained behind doors.26 Julian Osorio realizes that

his comrades- in-arms are in no way less corrupt than the

tyrants.27 The deterioration of moral and human values among

the revolutionary soldiers is shown to have crossed all

limits when they try to rape and kill his wife. It is not

that Romero was outright against the Revolution. What he

tries to point out is that no political movement at no point

of time has the right to violate human rights. He never

suspects ideals and, in fact, emphatically says: "The ideal

in the fight is maintained high, but ... the men ?"28

25 Ibid., p.298.

26 Ibid., p.296.

27 Ibid., pp.344-5.

28 Ibid., p.267.

180

In order to get rid of his miseries and sufferings, the

middle class idealist, Julian Osorio, gets into the

revolutionary fold, but destiny had something else in store

for him. The 'caballo' (horse) he owned had been stolen by

him from n rich conservative, the 'rifle' he possessed was

picked up from a dying rebel, and the 'dog' became his

property because nobody else was feeding him. It does not

mean that there were no revolutionaries. There were sincere

people who wanted to put an end to the poor's miseries:

It is necessary to raise a dike against the exploitation of the peons; to set up a wage that would permit them like human beings and not like beasts of burden; to limit working hours; to put an end to the tienda (company store) which is a veiled attack through which whatever the owner pays to the worker comes back to him .... Even to raise one against the injustice of debts they inherit from generation to generation.29

Romero attacks the system and its main supporting

pillars like hacendados and caudillos. There is don Ignacio

who becomes blind when steam escapes from a defective valve

of the boiler of the sugar mill. This trapichero (sugar-

mill-worker) is ignored while the attention is paid to the

broken boiler that caused some loss of sugar production. The

apathy shown to this faithful worker who put in twenty-five

years of his prime life to the service of the sugar mill is

incredible. He is simply paid three hundred pesos as

compensation and chucked out of his job.30 Julian Osorio is

29 Ibid., p.308.

30 Ibid., pp.300-1

181

a witness to this ·inhuman treatment. The horse is an animal

and a symbol of power and so is the rifle that takes away

lives blindly. The poor is nothing more than a dog who is

forced to go with anybody whom he thinks would save him from

hunger. It may not be a well written novel in the

traditional sense of the term, yet the author does attempt

sincerely to look for the

well as for the masses'

reasons responsible for his as

disillusionment. it is this

disillusionment that makes him accept the fact that "the

caciques (bosses) are reproduced like rabbits, and in the

armed struggles they only change placen.31 The unideological

reasons not only make caciques change their caps but also

motivate mushrooming generals to shed their benevolent

objectives for thirst of power. 32 These events reveal to

Julian Osorio that the return of these caciques to power

with new caps on was an entirely disappointing situation

that was not different from that of his comrades who were

becoming equally corrupt and oppressor for their petty

personal gains. This disillusionment of the protagonist is

nothing but an attempt by the author to mock at the turn of

events and remind the power-hungry leadership of its

obligations. It may suggest anti-revolutionary approach but

Romero's whole concern is to oppose any political system

that would be devoid of human values. He is not as such

31 b'd I 1 ., p.344.

32 b'd I 1 ., pp.309-10.

182

against any social and political change that would genuinely

mitigate the sufferigs of the poor Mexican people. What he

seems to be against is that kind to disguised change that

wq.s without decency and respect for Romero's kind of

humanitarianism. Julian Osorio's condemnation of

candillismo, the clergy and the inhuman behaviour of the new

guards of the Mexican society is a positive contribution to

the socio-political awareness of the Mexican people.

H0wever, Romero's treatment of events cannot be taken for a

complete analysis of the Revolution. It does make the novel

weak, but it should not be rejected or condemned as totally

reactionary or anti-revolutionary in essence. That would be

undermining Romero's real human concern for correcting the

social disorder in the right direction.

Romero's the most eleborated novel, La vida inQtil de

Pito Perez was published in 1938. Pio Perez is a product of

the Mexican village society. This picaro is tittle different

from the Spanish picaro as new social forces shape his

character with new emotional attitudes and ideas. This

Mexican picaro takes pleasure with men's company, falls in

love with women as a normal human being and entertains

himself and others with his wits and gets drunk as often as

possible. A poet happens to meet Pito Perez in Santa Clara

and makes a request to tell him his real story of life. He

agrees to do so for a bottle of wine a day. He remembers his

183

young days when he worked as an acolyte. He had to leave

that job when he was caught robbing. He was a druggist, a

priest's ghost writer and a clerk to a government official.

He suddenly disappears and the poet finds him, after a gap

of ten years, in Morelia selling, trinkets in the street.

While narrating his story, Pito Perez tell him how he

experienced the Revolution; the close encounters he had with

death for his drunkenness in various hospitals; and the way

he stole a lady's- skeleton for his ideal friend. When he

dies, what he leaves behind is nothing but his bitterness

for the humanity he has every right to hate and condemn.

The first part of the novel describes Pi to Perez

narrating his witty tales about his licentious acts, his

risky love affairs, his jail events, the life-style of sick,

poor, and lewdster. He is a musician, a drunkard and who

even earns respect for his witty acts. His life may be sad,

full of unfortunate events, he still tries to make others

happy:

My life is sad as that of all clowns, but I have seen people laughing so much at my pain that I have also ended by smiling thinking that my grie~ will not be that bitter since it envokes some- joy in others.33

In ten years he grows sad, lonely and a laughing stock.

Although he becomes misanthropist in due course of time, he

does not lose his humour and continues with it till his

33 Ibid., p.352.

184

death. It is the society whose false values embittered his

life. this is what Romero successfully reveals through his

protagonist, Pi to Perez. Pi to is finally found dead on a

garbage heap and the author juxtaposes the humour and pathos

in his novel forcefully. Ewart W. Phillips clarifies this

situation further as follows:

With the publication of La vida inutil de Pita Perez, the picaro has undergone a subtle change, as though he has reached maturity. He does not appear merely as the village drunkard, loafer, and the butt of all jokes, but as a genial, indigent philosopher who looks at life from a detached point of view and is able to appraise critically his environment without emotion, and, having done so, he is able to enjoy the pleasant things of life and to tolerate the rest.34

Remoro's Pito Perez does not take life for a comedy. He

exposes the sores of the society rather than covering them

to rot. He exposes them in order to cure them. He puts a

full stop to his narration by saying explicitly:

"Humanity, I shall charge you soon that you owe me ... Liberty, Equality, Fraternity what a ridiculous farce! All those who exercise some power, assassinate the Liberty; they destroy the Equality with money, and the Fraternity dies at the hands of our pitiless selfishness.n35

How far one makes a genuine effort to practice these

basic humanitarian concepts is Pi to's quest ion to the

society. This world may be very-very painful and unlivable,

34 Ewart W. Phillips, "The Genesis of Pito Perez", Hispania, vol.67, no. 4, December 1964, pp. 700-1.

35 Romero, n.l4, p.409.

185

yet Pito's wish to return to it is nothing but a deep desire

to better it, make it more lively and lovable for the

dispossessed. Charles Anthony Piano tries to understand this

important novel of Romero in this way:

To understand the Pito of La vida inutil de Pita Perez, one must extract an essence of him from the sum of his experiences that are closer to life. He is forced to face each decision as Pito faces it, so that he will feel more deeply the value of the truth when it is attained.36

The projection of raw, harsh and inhuman conditions of

a chaotic society in itself is a valuable and creative

contribution to the novel of the Mexican Revolution. Pito

Perez interacts with all and sundry, but he remains aloof,

an observer who tries to pass his objective remarks on them.

If he represents anybody, it is that Mexican who is on the

margins of his society impoverished and dispossessed.

Anthony Castagnaro comments:

Romero has portrayed, in the person of Pito Perez, as genu1ne a product of the Mexican Revolution as any single character of Romero's better known literary colleagues .... Pito Perez stands as a highly representative, spiritually sick personification of the disinherited pelado of present-day Mexico.37

Pito Perez is, therefore, definitely an indictment on

the Mexican society. Pi to takes to alcohol just to have

enough courage to say in plain words what is wrong with his

36 Piano, n.4, p.91.

37 castaganaro, n.9, p.302.

186

social system. The Revolution never meant brutalization,

hypocrisy, corruption, immorality and pervasiveness. That is

how "La vida inutil de Pito Perez" stands first among all of

Jose Ruben Romero's novels.

In "Anticipaci6n a la muerte", which was published in

1939, the protagonist imagines his own death and the events

and characters appear on the scene after that. He seems to

be enjoying the remarks of his friends and enemies as they

have a look at his dead body. Subsequently, he goes to

heaven and there he meets his relations and Dante. He is

amused by the hollow meaningless sympathetic words uttered

at his grave. He remembers all his past days when he was

young and how he grew with the passage of time. He recalls

his own ideals of a man, a political figure and a man of

letters and discusses all his successes and failures with

frankness. When he is dead, there is no use to hide anything

watever personal ·that might be. What he recognizes is that

life is full of vanity and self-interest. He goes to the

extent creating a scene in which a communist praises him for

his dead comrade. The hypocritical and absurd behaviour is

part of life. There is clarity of perception in Anticipaci6n

ala muerte. He talks about the Mexican generals " ... the

military officials who are governing have fought first for

liberty in order to gain power ! n38 He then poses three

38 Romero, n.14, p. 549.

187

questions that try to probe the unlikely results of the

Revolution: "Why did you become revolutionary yesterday? For

whom did you fight? What were you aspiring for?"39 The novel

may be a personal confession of the author, but he speaks

about the feelings of those sincere people who jumped into

the Revolution with all hopes to achieve a new social

milieu. They "did not wish to change masters, but to destroy

them.... Let the poor people eat, with Marxism or without

it, and the world will find itself in more peace."40

It will be improper to expect the author to analyse

the Revolution like a political scientist. The discussion on

the theoretical aspect of the Revolution in detail is not

his purpose at all. With all humility, he accepts the fact

that he was ignorant "about the revolutionary theories ....

I always believed that revolutions cannot be carried out

with kitchen recipes. The revolutions are conceived out of

people's pain and they are carried out by those dispossessed

of the fortune, without a solicitor's qualifications or

premises. n41 This novel of Jose ruben romero is more

satirical and less regional than his other novels. It is

pertinent to note here that the frank confession, and self-

revelation that are found in Anticipaci6n a la muerte are

39 'd Ib1 ., p.553.

40 'd Ibl ., pp.553-4.

41 'd Ibl . I p.554.

188

from a person who not only had close encounter with the

Revolution but also had the first hand knowledge of the

corridors of power. He is one of those few Mexican writers

who boldly puts his ideas across the table for public

scrutiny. Literary critics may categorize him as narcissist

but his valuable contribution to Mexican literature is

undeniable. Anthony Castagnaro has criticized Romero for the

incomprehension of the Revoluton:

To be sure, (Romero's) novels contain several chapters on the course of the Revolution in Michoacan (Apuntes de un lugareno, Desbandada, Mi caballo, mi perro y mi rifle), and repeated references (Desbandada, una vez fui rico) to the hackneyed theme of "por que se hizo la revoluci6n". But the reader finds no real analysis, no real criticism of the Revolution's course or significance. The significance of the events that have been taking place around him, and in which he has played, at least, a small part, either escaped his notice or concerns him little.42

Had significance of the events escaped Romero's notice

or had he not felt concerned about them, he would not have

indulged in writing all these novels. This is perhaps too

harsh a comment on Romero's entire creative process. Giving

theories and analysing theor..i.es cannot be imposed on any

literary piece. It is for the reader or for the literary

critic to find nuances and reflexions of those events that

give rise to any social or political theories. The work is

divided at all physical and mental levels and what one does

should not be expected from the other who is involved in a

42 castagnaro, n.9, p.302.

189

different creative process. It is, however, noticeble that

clarity of perception is not same in Romero's all novels. In

Anticipaci6n a la muerte it is much more powerful and the

characters express what Romero wants them to do. Romero says

that his novels "were born of the people's roots and were

written for the people only".43

Romero's weakness, in fact, lies in his confusion

between fiction and the essay. This is perhaps due to the

fact that Romero's novels are basically autobiographical. It

would be appropriate to cite again Castagnaro's opinion in

this respect: ·

The Revolution appears in works only to the degree that it portrays his own participation in the struggle and in the effects it has had upon his personal life. More than anything else, the Revolution serves as a source of anecdotic material for this primarily anecdotic writer .... The characters in Romero's novels are, for the most part, actual people he has known. His characterizations, therefore, are not character creations in the literary sense. They are rather evocations of people he has encountered in his own real life and whom, with a varingly small amount of retouching and polishing, he introduces in his novels.44

Luis Alberto Sanchez included Ruben Romero among the

artists and writers who first time- put Mexico in focus:

Everything, without exception, that was real Mexican was worth an artistic theme. In order not to make any mistake, the artist turned to realism to that his creation would not miss the probable the real

43 Romero, n.14, p.546.

44 castagnaro, n.9, p.300-2.

190

Mexican .... The task of great writer would pay attention to himself and similar thing publish.45

importance was that the his surrounding and to he had naturally to

This interest in writer's surrounding and in himself

was a search for lo mexicano. The inquest of the Mexican

soul gave rise to a character like Pito Perez who was like a

human thermometer for the Mexican society. His sufferings,

his poverty, his maladjustment with the society was not as

much a documentation of historical events as clear cut

emphasis on correcting the wrong. He laments on gross

violation of professional ethics and condemns doctors for

experimenting on or neglecting their patients, pharmacists

for adulteration, clergy for immoral acts and so on so

forth. "Pito Perez sums up a broad aspect of Mexican

character and life without any strain and with greater

compassion and understanding. In La vida inutil de Pi to

Perez the reader is projected into a world on its worst,

most visceral behaviour", 46 says rightly Charles Anthony

Piano. These are the problems that exist even today and,

therefor2, Romero's novelistic writings do not lose their

relevance. Specially, Romero's Pito Perez is the most

successful character and which, in fact, has brought into

focus the serious problems of the Mexican society since its

45 Luis Alberto Sanchez, novela hispanoamericana 1953), p. 243.

46 Piano, n.4, p.209.

191

Proceso y contenido de la (Madrid, Editorial Gredos,

colonial period. This picaro of the colonial legacy could

not be transformed into a new man as independence did

precious little to improve his condition. That is how Pito

Perez grows fatherless without having anybody to guide him

and rise in his defence. The society, whose product he was,

meant for him nothing more than a stepfather. The moral,

conventional values of the society are empty words for him

as he knows too well what goes on behind the stage. He

exposes these false values through many incidents. In one

such incident, the pharmacist sees his wife, dona Jovita, in

compromising position with Pito. But he does not punish

either of them as he himself is guilty of adulterating

drugs. Charles Anthony Piano summarizes this situation

beautifully : "It is not his intent to invoke reality for

its own sake but to make it serve a wider purpose."47

Pito Perez condemns the inhuman treatment given to an

ordinary person: "All offer to punish me in this and in the

other life and nobody offers me a loaf of bread. u48 He,

therefore, has every reason to keep a distance from this

society that has nothing to offer him except punishment. He

is self-exiled and lives throughout his life as an orphan.

He does not find society taking care of the essential human

aspect behind any conventional value. The human spirit that

47 b' I ld., p.220.

48 Romero, n.14, p.417.

192

should have been the central axis of these established

values was missing. The values were adorned with a mask to

cover all ills of the society. Humanity for him was nothing

different from the sufferings of the toiling masses. In

these circumstances, his utmost trusted friend was his

jacket with whom he used to converse: "He carried on long

conversations with his jacket. "49 This is the height of

Pi to's isolation from the society. If he wants to reveal

ar1ything to anybody in confidence, it is his jacket. Romero

beautifully portrays the broken values and mechanical human

relationship in the Mexican society even after the

Revolution. The complete transformation of the Mexican

society to a just society was the essence of the Revolution

and that was nowhere in sight. The existence of an ordinary

citizen was reduced to a hapless pawn. Although Romero has

also been criticized for lack of literary genius, he devised

his own idiom and contributed to enrich the Mexican

literature considerably. Charles Anthony Piano puts him in

right perspective and remarks as follows:

In a period when modern novelists are questioning the conventions of the novel, the works of Jose Ruben Romero gain renewed significance. Not that Romero is expressing a philosophical distrust of the resources and techniques of fiction in the fashion of Robbe­Grillet or of Mme. Sarraute. His fictional style is based primarily on a sentimental response to his subject matter rather than on a cerebral reaction to it .... Romero's principal contribution to the novel of

49 "d Ib1 . I p.419.

193

the Revolution is that he added the balancing comic corrective; his real virtue is that he handles material which could not have been presented well realistically because it would have been far too depressing.50

Romero had his own way to say what he wanted to say. He

was a provincial in a way that his nationalistic feelings

always reminded him of his province--Michoacan. He loved

living with simple people at simple places. While living in

the Mexican capital, he always kept remembering the

simplicity of Michoacan-life. The road to power and riches

made him live in Mexico City but it dispelled his thoughts

and ideas of that great city. Romero was unhappy and

disappointed by observing the competition of superiority of

one man over another, leaving aside morals and ethics. This

degradation of all Mexican values that embittered Romero was

to him a deep scar on the Mexican national character. This,

in fact, became the prime theme of all his writings. The

sentimentality of his works was due to his love for

provincial simplicity and his deep concern for deteriorating

national values in every walk of the Mexican life.

50 . P1ano, n.4, p.233.

194