"The Promise", of Silvina Ocampo, as Impossible Writing or the Imposibble as Writing

Abstract

This article addresses the posthumous novel La promesa, by Silvina Ocampo – a work that appeared in 2013 as part of a set of six books published so far after the death of the author, which began to be edited and published in 2006– based on the hypothesis according to which the ideas of writing and reading are proposed in the text as forms of the impossible and the illegible. This takes place both in the editorial operation carried out by Ernesto Montequin –curator and editor of the archive of the argentine writer in its entirety and of the posthumous manuscripts in particular–, in the same scriptural nature of the novel –shaped similar to a movie montage–, as well as in the procedures carried out Ocampo consisting of locating scriptures within other scriptures that predominate in the work studied. All of this leads us to propose a reading of the posthumous novel La promesa not as a narrative of memories, nor as an autobiographical novel but as an invitation, sometimes imperative, to consider other forms of writing and other reading practices where the notion of novel and promise take a relevant place. To accompany and think about this hypothesis, we address concepts by Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, John Austin, Ernesto Montequine and contributions from specialized critics in Ocampo’s work and specifically in her posthumous work.