Las leyes de la frontera. Cuerpo y dinero en Plataforma (2001) de Michel Houellebecq y “La parte de los crímenes” de 2666 (2004) de Roberto Bolaño

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore how tensions in the geographical and symbolic frontiers are set in the contemporary novel. The dialectics between financial globalization and the entrenchment of boundaries, the building of walls and deportations, work like narrative material for authors interested in this new dynamics of cartography. After reading the European novel Platform (2001) by Michel Houellebecq and LatinAmerican 2666 (2004) by Roberto Bolaño, we analyze how spatiality and politics of fiction are engraved in the global narrative of these different contexts. We consider that money, from the quid pro quo trope of commodity fetishism, is the great articulator of these stories while the figure of the (in)visible body as a fascinating object of consumption bursts in these phantasmagorias as a remain of the real: a hurt, threatened body, the other that is written in the frontiers.