Potpourri

Potpourri was released from press as Eugenio Cambaceres left Buenos Aires for Europe. This circumstance, plus the fact that the book omitted the author’s name -though he was immediately and correctly identified- added to the highly visible position of Cambaceres in the local society, the many clues and social allusions within the text, and the style and tone of the writing, all contributed to secure it an immediate and smashing success.The scathing critique of the Buenos Aires bourgeoisie unleashed bitter comments, that fostered press runs never seen before in the country.Some readers condemned the book invoking the ultimate need to kindle the tenuous, and recently obtained, home political peace, whilst others directly related the content to the French naturalist novel and pornography.As a matter of fact the accusation of licentiousness was no more than a pretext waved by a prudish oligarchy in its efforts to hide a less than glorious social reality, deeply contrasted with the positivism and free thinking progress stance it flaunted.Though the content can appear as a fierce condemnation, even a pamphlet, against social hypocrisy, uncaring feminine education, the triumph of money and the new rich but uneducated portion of society, the writing also shows high specific literary qualities: renewal and enrichment of writing techniques, vanguard narrative structures, an agile and often humorous style, colloquial tone -even argot- and originally striking metaphors. All enough to establish the author as the true founder of the Argentine novel, leaving an unmistakable mark in the XIX and XX Centuries literature.In this edition Claude Cymerman -prof. Emeritus of Latin American Literature at the Rouen University, France, and highly regarded scholar on Cambaceres- adds an introduction that helps understand the importance of Cambaceres within the River Plate social and political circumstances, his standing in Latin American literature, and to place Potpourri among his later literary productions. Also the footnotes -both lexical and contextual- give the necessary clues to fully understand the exact meaning of this work, the first an more full of Latin, Italian, English and, above all, French terms that sprinkle the Cambaceres production.