Resumen de Extrañamiento y retorno siniestro en "El testigo" de Juan Villoro

Gabriel Andrés Eljaiek Rodríguez

• español

  Julio Valdivieso, protagonista de la novela El testigo de Juan Villoro, regresa a México luego de varias décadas de ausencia por motivos que él cree tener claros. A medida que la novela se desarrolla las múltiples razones que trajeron de vuelta al académico (razones económicas, académicas y familiares) se van difuminando, dejando ver que su retorno responde al fin y al cabo al llamado de un muerto que lo fija en la tierra. En este escrito afirmaré que el retorno a la patria en la novela de Villoro se convierte en un retorno ominoso, que gracias a factores políticos, sociales y económicos, desfamiliariza al protagonista con aquello que debía serle más familiar –su país, su familia, sus amigos– y lo lleva de vuelta a una tierra desconocida para él, y solo familiar gracias a los fantasmas de aquello que perdió.

• English

  Julio Valdivieso, protagonist of the book El testigo by Juan Villoro, returns to Mexico after several decades of absence due to circumstances he thought he understood. As the novel progresses, the reasons for Valdivieso’s return (be they economic, academic or family related) gradually disappear, revealing that his homecoming is really related a ghostly summons that roots him in his land. In this article I will argue that the act of homecoming in Villoro’s novel is conceived as an uncanny return that, thanks to political and socioeconomic factors, defamiliarizes the protagonist from what should be for him most familiar- his country, his family and his friends, and it brings him back to an unknown land that only becomes familiar to him once again through the ghosts of what he thought he had lost.