Between the light of the province and the writing of noise. On the memory work in Ruido by Álvaro Bisama

Abstract

This article analyzes the memory work carried out by the narrator of the novel Ruido (2013) by Álvaro Bisama. Through the rhetorical procedure of narrative montage, which gathers and superimposes a large amount of references and materials, the collective narrator of this novel attempts to provide an explanation for the phenomenon of Marian apparitions that took place in the hills of the Chilean province of Villa Alemana. With this purpose, the narrator attends to the whirlwind of agencies that converge around this phenomenon, ranging from the paranoid delirium of the seer and his followers; until to the multitude of young people from the province, for whom the narrator speaks, and who through art, music, and moshing, manage to escape the influence of the seer and intercede in the sensitive coordinates from which they construct meanings and senses of belonging.