Professor Brushwood, who has already distinguished himself as a scholar in the field of Spanish American literature, particularly in his classic study, Mexico in its novel: a nations search for identity (1966) has in this new book produced a penetrating interpretation of the poetry of Enrique González Martínez, a Mexican who has never received sufficient attention, even in his own country. The important poems of Enrique González Martínez are analyzed in detail, and Brushwood finds in them an overall effort to particularize (and immortalize uniquely) universal human experience. He sees this poetry as a redemptive act, which clearly transcends national boundaries. “His poetry never offers the false comfort that we find in Nervo’s, but it upholds the validity of the constant, if agonizing, search.” This search is the poet’s reality. There is not the social commitment found in so many other Mexican writers of the twentieth century. Rather, González Martínez fought to maintain “the great tradition of poetry,” which was and is “the impulse to discover always a deeper truth through the poetic act.” There are no answers. Indeed, in reading Brushwood’s moving interpretation, as in reading the works of the poet himself, one feels as if he were ascending a flight of stairs without ever reaching the top. But if, at any point, he pauses for a moment to look behind or below, he will at once discover how far and how high he has come. More than this, he will realize that he cannot ever again descend those stairs.
The poet has set a point of no return (el retorno imposible), which is the essential reality of growing older. No man can repeat his youth, or recapture his lost dreams, lost hopes, lost opportunities. He has created himself in his acts just as an architect creates his structure out of the way he places his pile of stones. Always, however, the human quality remains; man’s mind and heart are a microcosm of the universe and all that is in it. The poet appreciates to the fullest this precious gift of life.
