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The besotiscopio: science, progress and literature between Independence and the Revolution

for Fratta Malafama

But above all the voices, and the tragic
many shipwrecks
noise and so much pain,
sing forever, beating time, the kiss of love

given the nation and a hero of
face copper colored.

Gilberto Owen, The lesson of the eagle (fragment)

Seven people

-Two men and five women sit around a table talking. Holding hands trying to relax despite the nervousness seek to unify their energy. After a few minutes, finally makes an appearance the priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, who uses the body of one who gathered there to convey their message: "There will be no independence without progress, there will be no progress without science." Do not be surprised that Pedro Castera (Mexico City, 1846-1906), as a medium, had been the recipient of this sentence, in a seance in the second half of the nineteenth century, now my mind likes to imagine .

I suppose that many of the independents would agree with that assertion. Known are advances in science and nineteenth-century inventions, the steamship, the locomotive, the stethoscope, blood transfusion, the waterproof matches, cans of food, photography, sewing machine, a revolver, the airship pasteurisation, dynamite, typewriter, radiography, among many others. Each of these inventions, now so common, some no longer in use, received in his time as wonders.

Vicente Quirarte says that "in the last years of the nineteenth century, faith in the art and revolution industrial invention made each a little god with his own universe, and the writers incorporated elements of this new vocabulary. "(1) Such is the case of Angel Country chronicler, Micros (Mexico City from 1868 to 1908), who, fascinated by technological advances of his time, wrote a column for El Universal entitled "Kinetoscope." By the way, Blanca Estela Treviño says, "In Mexico, the Kinetoscope first and then the movies, pleased the literary and scientific circles because they cheated and lied and captured as well," reality. " Without the need for both device produced the illusion of truth. "(2) Trevino also points out that nineteenth-century inventions were made known to the public as if they were fair events, which devenía in an optimistic view of the future.

overwhelmed by speed, Micros wrote:

machine today is the lightning, as it is the complement of the contemporary man, who wears a hat with Taverns, lenses for nearsightedness, teeth false, ring in gymnastics and cycling, as if his legs were despicable organs of locomotion. (3)

Undoubtedly, the air in Mexico City took on new smells and sounds. As Country Angel called "a symphony of work in industrial Babels" sticking:

factory whistles, shake machines, pulleys and flywheels; presses locomotives, dynamos humming, breathing home boiler used to move elevators or generate electricity, electric light squeaks, increased trams, cars and other vehicles, bicycles rings, announcements recited, sung, whistled or howls, bells of churches, workshops, pumps and river vessels, resonances in the basement , multiplication of pianos, estudiantinas fury, and a marked shift in the emphasis of the human voice that needs to strive to be audible, each of these noises in itself is worth little, but together they all form a total force to the auditory nerve , which produces not only intermittent deafness, but vertigo and neuralgias. (4)

Antonio Saborit says many of Porfiriato scientists were gathered around a table talking. Spiritualism was taken, yes, as a religion, but also as a science. Pedro Castera professed their faith in spiritualism:

As a religion because its base is pure Christianity, the Gospel preached by the martyr of Golgotha, clean of all those spots that the popes and fanaticism have cast on him. As a religion because it teaches the absolute principles of right, morality and universal charity. As a science because it contains the rules more precise and more logical proofs to prove to man the immortality of the soul and the existence of the Divine. As a science because it gives us the means to enter into communication with the souls of the visible world, proving that the word death should be deleted from the page's immortal creation. (5)

Science, spiritualism and literature were closely linked. José Ricardo Chaves distinguishes this regard, two moments: "In the first stage, the literature is the medium of spiritualism spiritualism in the second is the medium of literature." (6)

In 1895, Dr. Wilhelm Roentgen, a German, discovered a mysterious rays: electromagnetic waves capable of transferring or solid opaque and also could be captured in photographic images, today known as x-rays . Called "X-Ray." The affects of spiritualism found here scientific arguments for their cause, and that these rays, in his opinion, could not be far from the psychic and karmic energy, so that souls were also able to affect photographic plates. There was then a booming portrayed ghosts.

Castera it was logical. So much so that in her novel Carmen -the story of an impossible love that the protagonist was expressed as follows:

Morons! They do not understand the spirit that there is no distance, form or physical laws, of course it is immaterial, and does not understand that the soul, to express themselves, do not need language for thought is multi language, eternal, infinite, which is creating . God, rather than the verb, is the idea.

One of the qualities of nineteenth century science is looking beyond the boundaries of the material and creating devices that heal and integrate the soul. For example, it sought to cure the quintessential female hysteria, "defined as a state of nervous excitement, with dildos. Vibrators that are now sold as sexual playthings for no other purpose than pleasure.

What alchemists, nineteenth-century scientists were searching for the secret of life, wanted to understand and grasp the spirit of everything around them. No wonder, then, that literature worth of these characteristics of science texts as offer Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll's potion or The Time Machine.
In 1901, the British writer HG Wells delighted the world with his novel The First Men in the Moon . His contemporaries enjoyed a fantastic delusion, but many people born in 1901-or even before, had the opportunity to see men walk on the satellite. When an imagined science allows for streamlined and advances also occur and imagined events, we have a science fiction story-not science fiction.

Guillem Gallego Eduardo Sanchez and define science fiction as:

... a genre of stories that can not be imagined in the world as we know, due to a transformation of the narrative scenario, based on a change of coordinates scientific, spatial, temporal, social or descriptive, but so that told what is acceptable as rational speculation. (7)

During the second half of the nineteenth century, Mexico City could look to one of the biggest attractions of the fair: a giant. At least "giant" in stature and girth, it was like his contemporaries saw Pedro Castera, a member of the gallery of eccentrics Mexican Antonio Saborit created. David Huerta said: "Despite the almost total ignorance we have of his life, Castera is an attractive personality for his romantic and adventurous life. As a writer is sloppy and imprecise, but his diction is genuine and consistent. " (8)

Castera was a multifaceted character. It was medium and inventor. Designed - in his time as a miner, a method to extract and produce nitro alcohol. Capsules consumed match for "access to the secret wells of talent." (9) led the newspaper La República, as successor of Altamirano, and introduced popular science publications. Some researchers claim that Castera was a treasure hunter and would not be surprising, because as you said Saborit, miners have something fantastic.

"The miner has to be a fish, snake and eagle" said Castera, the same fool who was interned in San Hipólito for refusing, as a deputy, to defend the use of nickel coins on gold.

Castera face But now compels me is the science fiction writer. Jonathan Swift wrote in the sixteenth century Gulliver's Travels where the inhabitants of a flying island called Laputa not know how to use science and technology for practical purposes: manage to create fantastic inventions, but they can not make their clothes. Castera guess longed to live in a place similar. Throughout his work we read repeatedly that "man is a citizen of heaven."

is in the story "A celestial journey" where the citizen of heaven becomes present. Among soles of colors, the protagonist-self-Castera, embarks on a journey through the universe. David Huerta describes it as "an extraordinary piece clear narrative history of modern science fiction, with some mystical implications that fit well to the romantic language the writer. Descriptions of Jupiter and Venus are amazing. " (10)

One of the scenes that call attention is one in which the inhabitants of Saturn, not receiving enough sunlight, are capable of generating their own light from her womb.

Among the issues that science fiction exploits and develops Castera is, of course, space exploration, but also the utopias and dystopias. In his account speaks of other inhabited worlds, and welcomes it, "because if not, these worlds would be horrible: there is no humanity like ours, similar or more perfect; there are my sisters, my parents, my family .... " (11)

For theorists of science fiction, the protagonists are the ideas, not characters. In this sense is said to be a "speculative literature" because it explores new ideas or situations prodigious. Not that the characters are unimportant, but it is they who revolve around one idea behind the story and not vice versa. Castera so does much of his work: the thoughts are more relevant than the characters.

Pedro Castera wandering giant of science fiction, spirits and realism. He was concerned the conditions of the miners, remember that he himself was and claimed a lack of interest to them: "Never, until today, I had occasion to read some writings on the life of miners. And yet it is a matter essentially a mining country like ours, should have set some attention of many writers who eagerly seek reasons to write about. "(12) As a realist writer, despite the dire scenarios describing, Castera believes in humanity, hope it gets greedy.

In his stories were always miners lashed resonances spiritualists and materialists: "Poor blind for whom the word God is meaningless! Poor fools who deny the supreme ideal because they do not understand! Unhappy drunk brothers whose weak heads science smoke and even more of their own pride! ". (13)

Castera transited spiritualism and realism would not be unusual for realists, by displaying the exploitation of the working classes, were those of a way, gave birth to the revolution that was to come.

Antonio Saborit says:

Since the early nineteenth century realist tendency began to appear in the literature Mexican in the form of a budding prose, despite its limitations, was able to produce more durable than expressions of romantic ardor prestigious poets first touched by this collective dream of the century. Commitment (whether it was a compromise) independence to discover and shape the nation, led the writers to explore the city for all its passages and allowed them to promote a record, in fact, realistic. (14)

Castera, in fact, had a commitment to their nation, sought to transform it through the literature, progress and science.

Perhaps best known work is the novel Castera Carmen , which was described by Carlos González Peña as "the flower of the sentimental novel." The emotional life of the author himself was not very different from the story of impossible love that tells us. He himself lived an impossible love story when he fell from a daughter of Casimir the Collado de Margarita. Love was not possible due to differences in class between the wealthy girl and even mining.

imagine that this huge would have delighted to know the tools used by the characters of the television series Ghostbusters. I see the dematerializing depth study, the most powerful weapon of those who go after the spirits and, through a powerful beam, send the ghosts to the limbus, or to trigger bubble that traps ghosts in something like a soap bubble. But I'm sure Castera had used all his scientific knowledge and spiritualists to create something to make him happier. I like to think that, had it been possible to invent a device to be closer to Dona Margarita, so we can send love and kisses "because the spirit does not know the limits of the material world, kissing either. I see creating a besotiscopio : a device to transmit remote kisses, a device that any science fiction writer would envy, a tool to bring the affection of loved ones. Castera given confidence in man, I'm sure that the giant would use the besotiscopio, transcending all boundaries of science and material, to bring forward a revolution.




(1) Vicente Quirarte in the Introduction to Kinestoscopio. The Country Angel Chronicles, Micros, El Universal (1896). Mexico City, UNAM, p. 11.
(2) Blanca Estela Treviño on "Preliminary Study" to Kinestoscopio. The Country Angel Chronicles, Micros, El Universal (1896). Mexico City, UNAM, p. 55.
(3) Country Angel "Velocipede and bicyclists, "in" Kinetoscope ", El Universal, March 16, 1896, p. 1, cited by Blanca Estela Treviño, op. Cit.
(4) Otilis? in Kinetoscope, El Universal, April 1 1896, p. 1 quoted by Blanca Estela Treviño, op. Cit.
(5) Pedro Castera, "Profession of Faith" in The Enlightenment Spiritist, December 15, 1872, quoted by Antonio Saborit in Pedro Castera, Mexico, DF, Cal y Arena, 2004, p. 22
(6) José Ricardo Chaves, "Spiritualism and literature in Mexico," Mexican Literature, vol. XVI, no. 2, 2005, pp.
51-60 (7) Eduardo Gallego and Guillermo Sánchez, what is science fiction?, http://www.ciencia-ficcion.com/opinion/op00842.htm #, accessed October 28, 2010.
(8) David Huerta, Romantic Tales, Library of College Student, Mexico City, UNAM, 1973 231.
(9) Antonio Saborit, Pedro Castera, Mexico City, Cal y Arena, 2004, p.
16 (10) David Huerta, ibid., Pp.
232-233 (11) Pedro Castera, "A celestial journey", in op. Cit. , P. 161.
(12) Pedro Castera, "The Pit and the Pendulum", in op. Cit., P. 239.
(13) Pedro Castera, "materialists" in op. Cit., P.
63 (14) Antonio Saborit, ibid., pp. 34-35