THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

2.2 Modernismo and its Masters: Darío and Quiroga The Avatar in PanamaEnrique Jaramillo Levi on FantasyAlthough many of Jaramillo Levi's stories appear and feelfantastic, the characters and situations in which they find themselvesare not extraordinary. Classic narrative fiction represents as real theevents it describes by using an omniscient third person narrator whoasserts the events are real and relies upon the conventions of realisticfiction to do so. Then, the seemingly irrational is introduced, breakingthat assumption. 35 This encompasses much of the fiction of JaramilloLevi who defines his own literature as a fantastic that tomorrow couldbecome reality. 36 While the author baulks at labelling his work, andconfesses to being unable to describe his style, he admits: “en generalcultivo una literatura que ha dado en llamarse fantástica, en la que losobrenatural, lo mágico o lo onírico irrumpen en la cotidianidad de lospersonajes y se la desquician” (21). 37 More specifically he states “miscuentos serían una mezcla de lo neofantástico, lo onírico, lo absurdo, yde la psicología profunda hecha conflictividad, pero ignoro si estándentro de tendencias o tradiciones. Lo mío es más híbrido, másproteico, más fluido”. 38 It is this very point that makes Jaramillo Levi’swork dynamic and innovative. The author himself explains:Soy pionero…en la introducción en Panamá detécnicas narrativas novedosas para nuestromedio en la escritura de cuentos: técnicas queaportan una nueva visión de la realidad a travésde la manera de percibirla y entregarlaconvertida en escritura significativa ymotivante. 39His fiction often situates the fantastic as juxtaposed with thereal, or vice versa: a story may be based on a real situation but containelements of the supernatural or the absurd. Within a single collectionthere are stories that are pure fantasy and others that are not. Heproduces his work almost automatically like his writer-characters veryoften in a type of free association:La verdad es que trato de no fijarme mucho encuestiones formales cuando va saliendo el35Jackson, 34.36 “Hoy esto puede llamarse literatura fantástica, o acaso ciencia ficción: mañanapodría convertirse en realidad”. Yolanda J., Hackshaw M, ed. “Enrique Jaramillo Levi:vidas, obras y milagros”, La confabulación creativa 17-36. 19.37 See Appendix A1 questions 10 and 14.38 Romero Pérez, “Un escritor de largo aliento: Entrevista a Enrique Jaramillo Levi”(2000), Quimera, 246-247, Julio-Agosto, 2004. 99-107. 103.39 Hackshaw M., La confabulación creativa 17-36. 35-36.104