Revisiting Los museos abandonados, a symbolic chronicle of a decomposing world

Abstract

This article focuses on three of the four stories gathered in Los museos abandonados, a book published in Montevideo in 1969 and for which Peri Rossi won the “1968 Youth Award” from the Arca publishing house, “Los juegos”, “Un cuento para Eurídice” and “Los refugios” have a stylistic, structural anf thematic unity that the writer herself highlighted at the time on its publication, unity to which is added a similar symbolic charge. The three stories take place in tjhe space of a museum and all three revolve around a couple of characters, one male and one female, who roam the rooms expressing their fury or melancholy. In each of these couples, the female character stands out: two Ariadnes and one Eurydice drawn from myths to give them a new dimension and to serve as a vehicle for new meanings. Through this narrative scaffolding, the stories point to a world in decomposition, on which to reflect urgently to configure other cultural and collective meanings. The article seeks to account for all these particularities, analyzing some significant elements of ecah text, putting them in relation to the whole and valuing issues related to art, memory, history, desire and insubordination.