Finitud y episteme en la narrativa latinoamericana: Jorge Volpi y la Trilogía del siglo XX

ABSTRACT The essay analyses the sense of finiteness and episteme in the Trilogía del siglo XX, a set of three novels, En busca de Klingsor (1999), El fin de la locura (2003) and No será la tierra (2006), by the Mexican author Jorge Volpi (1968—). To this end, it formally grounds the term ‘truth’ as good judgement or proposition and demonstrates that the search for knowledge and the fascination for total wisdom are integral to the human condition. The study links these novels’ ideological lines with contemporary discourses and with Latin American narrative. Finiteness and episteme are explained subsequently as key elements in our understanding of Volpi’s transtemporal search for knowledge. We conclude that truth is an impossible project and that the lives of human beings are simply narrations.