Azuela

Mariano Azuela González (January 1, 1873 – March 1, 1952) was a Mexican author and physician, best known for his fictional stories of the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920. He wrote novels, works for theatre and literary criticism. He is the first of the “novelists of the Revolution,” and he influenced other Mexican novelists of social protest.

Azuela was born in Lagos de Moreno, Jalisco to a small, but successful rancher, Evaristo Azuela, and Paulina Azuela, on January 1, 1873. He grew up on a small farm owned by his father. He was first admitted to a Catholic seminary at the age of fourteen, but soon abandoned his religious studies. He studied medicine in Guadalajara, Jalisco.

Like most young students, Azuela was opposed to the dictatorship of the Díaz regime. During his days in the Mexican Revolution, Azuela wrote about the war and its impact on Mexico. When Porfirio Díaz was overthrown, Azuela was made Chief of Political Affairs of Lagos de Moreno in 1911 and state Director of Education of Jalisco in 1914 by president Francisco I. Madero. After Madero’s assassination, he joined the Constitutionalist cause that sought to restore the rule of law. He traveled with the military forces of Julián Medina, a follower of Pancho Villa, where he served as a field doctor. His participation in the conflict gave him ample material to write Los de abajo (The Underdogs) (1915).
(Wikipedia)

Azuela, Writing, and Infrapolitics

Azuela reveals aspects of the Revolution that are apolitical, anti-political, or even infrapolitical (the non-political conditions of possibility for the political), in that he depicts it in terms of drives and emergent habits that have not yet fully coalesced into political form.

See also the conversation video with Ignacio Sánchez Prado.

Audio | Transcript | Slides | Conversation

  • Azuela, Mariano. The Underdogs: A Novel of the Mexican Revolution. Trans. Sergio Waisman. London: Penguin, 2008.

On Mariano Azuela

A conversation about The Underdogs, with Ignacio Sánchez Prado (Washington University in St Louis)

Audio | Lecture

Azuela videos

Mexico and The Underdogs:

Los de abajo (1978 movie)

¨LOS DE ABAJO¨ BASADA EN LA NOVELA DE MARIO AZUELA:

  • Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane. London: Athlone, 1984.
  • Duffey, J. Patrick. “A War of Words: Orality and Literacy in Mariano Azuela’s Los de abajo.” Romance Notes 38.2 (Winter 1998): 173-178. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43802971
  • Moreiras, Alberto. Infrapolitics: A Handbook. New York: Fordham University Press, 2021.

There is a lot of drinking in The Underdogs: beer, wine, tequila, mezcal, and other spirits. At times, “the drunken yelling and the loud laughter and singing are ceaseless” (77). Alcohol helps to motivate and fuel the revolutionaries. They are in a bar, “packed to the gunnels,” when the news comes through, transmitted by Luis Cervantes, that they “have been ordered to leave immediately and go after the Orozquistas.” The response is immediate: “Everything was cheer and rejoicing. In the excitement of drunkenness, Demetrio’s friends offered to join his ranks” (95, 96). But although everyone drinks, social demarcations prevail: intellectuals or would-be intellectuals such as Cervantes drink wine; Macías and his men tend to drink beer, tequila, or mezcal; Macías “prefers the clear tequila of Jalisco to bubbly champagne that fizzes under dim candlelight” (73). But on breaking into the house of his old nemesis, the cacique Don Mónico, he orders wine—“Bring me wine right here!” (88)—as though to assert that the two men are now on the same level. Mezcal, meanwhile, a spirit distilled from the agave cactus, is here associated with parties and merriment, and is drunk “for the pleasure of meeting you” (61).

Azuela questions

  1. Why does Demetrio join the Revolution? Why does he stick with it?
  2. Why does Cervantes join the Revolution? Why does he leave?
  3. What are the motivations of other characters?
  4. What are the roles and functions of the women characters?
  5. How is violence portrayed in the novel?
  6. How is power portrayed in the novel?
  7. What does the novel have to say about class? Or about other social differences?
  8. What are the differences between the various sides?
  9. Where do you think Azuela’s sympathies lie?
  10. Is this a political novel? What would that mean?

The following questions are taken from your blog posts…

History

Have you heard about the Mexican Revolution (Aside from its existence) before? If yes, what had you heard about it?

Do you think that a more in depth knowledge of the history and politics of the Mexican Revolution would contribute to a reading of this work? Or would it take away from understanding the infrapolitical elements as indicated in the lecture?

Are there other historical events that you think could benefit from this more disjointed and less fact-driven account of history?

Characters

Why do you think Demetrio is unable to break from the ‘revolutionary bandit’ lifestyle? Are there any clues to this answer in the text?

Why do you think Demetrio was unable to step away from fighting, despite having a family at home?

The story started off with Demetrio being forced to leave his family, while at the end of the novel he chooses to leave his family behind. What do you think the author was trying to represent with Demetrio’s choices at the start and end of the novel?

Do you believe Luis Cervantes always intended on deserting the revolution or that he only developed the plan later?

Cervantes reminded me a lot of this current idea of “escaping” Mexico, of the desire of many families to escape from the violence these days and go to the US to make a new life. But this is usually only a reality to those who can afford to do this, which was also the case of Cervantes. He was an intellectual, had means to support himself, which is why he could have a “better” life in the US. What do you think about this decision? Do you think it was selfish of him to leave his country in such times, to get himself a better life?

Who is the character you liked the most and why? What similarities and differences would you highlight between Demetrio and Camilla?

What did you think of Cervantes’s character? What do you think his primary motivations were, and how did they seem to transform the more he was welcomed into the group of men?

Which Character did you feel to be most impactful on this story, and why?

What was your favourite nickname in the novel? Why? Bonus question: Do you have any nicknames?

Gender

Do you think the objectification of the women in this novel adds to the narrative or plot of this story or does it just serve as an example of how women’s role in society has changed (or not?) since the Revolution?

What do you think the portrayal of women does for the story? Does it show a woman’s place in the revolution or does it serve as something more for the story?

Do you think the female characters in this novel were well represented of women in the Revolution through the likes of Camila and Warpaint?

Other

Did you guys like this book? What part about it was something you enjoyed or something you really didn’t like?

Do you think a revolution, with its new moral standards and intention to be fair and equal to all, is to high of an order to ask of us, the people that just want to live however we want to live?

Do you believe in the central premise that the minority of intellectuals in power are to blame for warfare? Or, more cynically, do you consider man’s devolution into violence inevitable?

Do you think that Mariano Azuela purposefully made Luis Cervantes actions in the novel reflect his personal experiences?

Do you like reading books about war? If so, what are the best books to read about this theme?

Did you find the extensive use of dialogue in the book an advantage or disadvantage?

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