Anti-Utopian Science Fiction In Rafael Pinedo’S Novel. 

Anti-utopian science fiction in Rafael Pinedo’s novel. 

Introduction

Science fiction is a contemporary phenomenon that has its origin in North America and England at the end of the 19th century, but that is causing much concern for literary scholars that try to define it and position it in a specific place, since it presents spaces shared with othersgenres such as utopia, dystopia, satirical, etc. which is impossible to locate it in one place.

Developing

The idea of science fiction is linked to the notion of the future in the past (Daniel Link) as an resource to be able to extrapolate current problems. Although, it is a genre known for immersing yourself in the universe of science and technology to explore new fields that do not exist outside literature, but it is also a genre that allows us to explore political, economic, social and human issues.

Likewise, the American cinema has taken the work of exploiting the genre to the maximum showing the viewer the game of technique and the machine (Daniel Link), generating the myth that science fiction only unfolds in the world of artificial intelligence, scientific development, robot, etc. (Isaac Asimov) without taking into account that science fiction not only focuses on these issues, but also takes into account other considerations referred to the social and human that we previously raised.

Following this, I will analyze the novel PLOP of Rafael Pinedo which presents a different and strange science fiction that breaks with that American myth, as well as the space that this genre shares with anti-autopia.

This research seeks to problematize the fictional construction carried out by the author Rafael Pinedo in his work to be considered a science fiction, taking into account that this fictional construction is given through a set of unlimited and varied fictitious worlds (Dolezel) the worldsfictional are always complex, contradictory and cause the real world we know. (Eco) For this we take as category of analysis the concept of anti-utopia that breaks with that ideal world that presents utopia demonstrating a horribly hypertrophied absurd society (Pablo Capanna) totally dark, unfair and cruel. In other words, anti-utopia is totally negative and has a peculiar way of extrapolar realities present without starting from reason or moral principles to do so. (Keller) Thus, Plop manifests a decomposition world where the only objective of man is to survive.

The literary corpus that would take to carry out this investigation is as previously mentioned by Rafael Pinedo’s work. It is the first book of a trilogy written by the author before he died, the other books did not decide to take to work, but they are continuities of the same story entitled Cold and Subway. Although, this research that I am going to carry out does not have any relevant critical history, only journalistic notes of the work when it was published. Not even criticism of the same author, since the books were published after his death. Plop is a novel that tells the story of a child who was born in the mud and for the noise he did at birth he is called PLOP as an onomatopoeia. He tells how the protagonist grew with a pure and terrible animality, through power as sovereign and ending his death in a sacrifice. Throughout history, savagery and animality can be seen in the characters that made up a great people governed by social norms of all kinds to survive.

A science fiction where the main character works as an antagonist (Genette) that with each step it takes closer to loneliness due to its hardness and cruelty, triggering a whole conflict which ends up ending his death. In addition, the anti-utopic science fiction that exhibits the novel gives an account of a totally heartbreaking and primitive society in which the law of the strongest with topics (Barthes) that breaks with moral and human values such as: nudity, eroticism sends, rituals, taboos, cannibalism, sex as a tool for submission, violence, domination, indigence and death.

conclusion

The problem lies in all that fictional construction, that is, through that anti-utopian science fiction there is a dark side that keeps a social and political context that exceeds history, such as the degradation of bodies and human life;as well as the domination of power over all. For this reason, a critical and mature model reader (Umberto Eco) requires. According to what has been said, science fiction is a genre that works with all disciplines, therefore we cannot think of it only from the universe of science and technology but from other perspectives as evidenced by Rafael Pinedo’s novel Plop.