Post-Boom Literature: Characteristics and Narrative
Key Features of Post-Boom Literature
Another feature of post-boom literature that sets it apart from the boom is its tendency towards the *intrascendente*. This difference can be seen clearly in the kinds of characters chosen as protagonists. The boom writers focused on exceptional people with excessive obsessions. In contrast, the protagonists of the post-boom are recruited from the transient populations of Latin American cities.
Post-boom literature predominantly portrays urban life, and it incorporates many elements of youth culture. In post-boom novels, these elements are cultural events fully embraced by the characters and are part of their lives. Examples include the character of Amanda, *La Espléndida*, or the Count.
In the post-boom, the attention of critics and the general reading public is no longer directed solely towards a few giant novelists, but to a much larger number of authors, giving rise to numerous literary trends. These trends, in turn, incorporate the authors of the boom.
The Theme of Love in Post-Boom Literature
Another feature of the post-boom is the reclaiming of the theme of love. In *The House of the Spirits*, for example, we find fragments where Isabel Allende is carried away by humor and surprises the reader. These are fragments in which she tenderly describes a character, as in the case of Nana’s attempts to get Clara to speak again:
The filibuster Nana disguised himself without a head, the executioner from the Tower of London, a devil dog, a wolf, and a fleshy creature, under the inspiration of the moment and the ideas he got from some terrifying leaflets that he bought for this purpose. Although he could not read them, he copied the pictures.
Narrative Procedures
Boom literature is antimimetic and experimental. It seeks reflexivity and ruptures, requiring an active reader. With respect to works that belong to the boom, it is possible to postulate a relative stylistic homogeneity. In contrast, with the post-boom narrative, we can point to two conflicting trends: a mimetic pole and an antimimetic pole.
Mimetic Pole
Towards the mimetic pole, there are works of a realistic nature, with a predominance of plot and more readable texts. This type of post-boom is characterized by a return to narrative, the presence of an omniscient narrator, a linear story, *desliteraturización*, poetic expressiveness, and a lack of reflexivity and metadiscourses. *The House of the Spirits* is an example of a text belonging to the mimetic pole.
Antimimetic Pole
The antimimetic pole, however, includes works that exhibit an exacerbation of experimental fiction, more difficult-to-read texts that focus on language and almost cancel out the plot. This modality is characterized by the presence of metadiscourses, reflexivity, parody of literary genres, and discourses in a playful, sophisticated mood.
Conclusion
Post-boom literature, at least in part, constitutes a reaction against certain features and procedures that distinguished the literature of the boom. This reaction seems to have taken two main directions: a reaction of *flare* and a reaction of opposition. However, as a methodological observation, we must consider that a particular work can hardly meet all the features that have been awarded to each of the exposed blocks.