Structures Do March in the Streets: De Certeauian Tactics in Jorge Volpi's "Tetralogy of Power"

Abstract:This article examines Jorge Volpi's "Tetralogy of Power" (En busca de Klingsor, El fin de la locura, Tiempo de cenizas, and Memorial del engaño) alongside Michel de Certeau's thought—especially The Practice of Everyday Life (1980). Volpi's narrative includes a significant number of themes and plotlines consonant with De Certeau's philosophical meditations. Volpi likely cultivates his works' affinities with De Certeau's hallmark concepts of "strategy," "tactics," and "making do" as part of a larger literary project already defined by Ignacio Sánchez Prado as "strategic Occidentalism" (2018). While most scholarly interventions attempt to interpret only one of the tetralogy's novels or treat Volpi's series as a trilogy, this article pinpoints two overarching commonalities in the texts: tactical walking and artistic consumption. The article also ties together gaps in criticism surrounding Volpi's series and clarifies its philosophical, political, and marketplace meaning.Ultimately, Volpi's tetralogy proposes that micropolitical, commonplace practices—whether walking, consuming, or reading—may produce a heterogeneity of voices in terms of politics and literature. Like De Certeau, Volpi optimistically asserts a tenacious, hopeful, and agentive subjectivity that makes small interventions to undo the doxa of politicians and publishing houses.