A viscous and porous body of water: The Magdalena River in Los escogidos and En el brazo del río

Abstract

This article aims to bring afloat and analyze different stories of matter present in the Magdalena River in Colombia through the novel En el brazo del río (2006) by Marbel Sandoval Ordoñez and the chronicle Los escogidos (2012) by Patricia Nieto. The goal of my reading is to analyze the phenomenon of the river through the concept of porous viscosity, in other words, evidencing the entanglement between human and non-human bodies that occur in it and how these reconfigure the discourses around the Magdalena. Using a methodology based on the premises of the new materialisms and blue humanities, I propose a look from a relational ontology that recognizes the expressive (creative) capacity and the potential for action (agency) of the river. From this perspective I carry out a close reading of the two works identifying where such entanglements are displayed and how the form of these literary works allows a reconfiguration of the meaning of the river. This allows me to show that the histories of violence and wealth that have shaped the Magdalena are undoubtedly connected to the materiality of the river, of the assassinated human bodies that flow in the river in constant interaction with other animals or of the waters of the Magdalena intertwined with the oil that seeps through the extractivism of its subsoil. Therefore, in these literary texts, the phenomenon of the Magdalena River becomes more complex and dense, allowing us to recognize how our reality is entangled with other human and non-human bodies that inhabit our world.