Genre Fusion

Sara J. Brenneis

Description

Although the boom in historical fiction and historiography about Spain's recent past has found an eager readership, these texts are rarely studied as two halves of the same story. With Genre Fusion: A New Approach to History, Fiction, and Memory in Contemporary Spain, Sara J. Brenneis argues that fiction and nonfiction written by a single author and focused on the same historical moment deserve to be read side-by-side. By proposing a literary model that examines these genres together, Genre Fusion gives equal importance to fiction and historiography in Spain. In her book, Brenneis develops a new theory of "genre fusion" to show how authors who write both historiography and fiction produce a more accurate representation of the lived experience of Spanish history than would be possible in a single genre. Genre Fusion opens with a straightforward overview of the relationships among history, fiction, and memory in contemporary culture. While providing an up-to-date context for scholarly debates about Spain's historical memory, Genre Fusion also expands the contours of the discussion beyond the specialized territory of Hispanic studies. To demonstrate the theoretical necessity of genre fusion, Brenneis analyzes pairs of interconnected texts (one a work of literature, the other a work of historiography) written by a single author. She explores how fictional and nonfictional works by Montserrat Roig, Carmen Martín Gaite, Carlos Blanco Aguinaga, and Javier Marías unearth the collective memories of Spain's past. Through these four authors, Genre Fusionn traces the transformation of a country once enveloped in a postwar silence to one currently consumed by its own history and memory. Brenneis demonstrates that, when read through the lens of genre fusion, these Spanish authors shelve the country's stagnant official record of its past and unlock the collective and personal accounts of the people who constitute Spanish history.
Chapter One: Introduction: Origins of Genre Fusion in Spain

Chapter Two: Montserrat Roig: Testimony of the Marginalized Catalan

Chapter Three: Carmen Martín Gaite: Rewriting Spain’s Memory

Chapter Four: Carlos Blanco Aguinaga: The Spanish Other in Mexico

Chapter Five: Javier Marías: Genre Fusion in the New Millennium

Afterword

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• Spanish
• Portuguese
• European

Informations

• Publié par: Purdue University Press
• Date de parution: 15 mai 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781612493244
• Langue: English

Extrait

GENRE FUSION
Purdue Studies in Romance Literatures
Editorial Board
Íñigo Sánchez Llama, Series Editor
Brett Bowles
Elena Coda
Paul B. Dixon
Howard Mancing, Consulting Editor
Floyd Merrell, Consulting Editor
Susan Y. Clawson, Production Editor
Patricia Hart
Gwen Kirkpatrick
Allen G. Wood
Associate Editors
French
Jeanette Beer
Paul Benhamou
Willard Bohn
Gerard J. Brault
Thomas Broden
Mary Ann Caws
Glyn P. Norton
Allan H. Pasco
Gerald Prince
Roseann Runte
Ursula Tidd
Italian
Fiora A. Bassanese
Peter Carravetta
Benjamin Lawton
Franco Masciandaro
Anthony Julian Tamburri
Luso-Brazilian
Fred M. Clark
Marta Peixoto
Ricardo da Silveira Lobo Sternberg
Spanish and Spanish American
Maryellen Bieder
Catherine Connor
Ivy A. Corfis
Frederick A. de Armas
Edward Friedman
Charles Ganelin
David T. Gies
Roberto González Echevarría
David K. Herzberger
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Howard Mancing
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Randolph D. Pope
Francisco Ruiz Ramón
Elżbieta Sk odowska
Marcia Stephenson
Mario Valdés
GENRE FUSION
A New Approach to History, Fiction, and Memory in Contemporary Spain
Sara J. Brenneis
Purdue University Press West Lafayette, Indiana
Copyright ©2014 by Purdue University. All rights reserved.
The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
Template for interior design by Anita Noble
Template for cover by Heidi Branham
Cover photo: Courtesy of Sara J. Brenneis
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brenneis, Sara J.
Genre fusion : a new approach to history, fiction, and memory in contemporary Spain / Sara J. Brenneis.
pages cm — (Purdue studies in Romance literatures ; 60)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-55753-678-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-61249-323-7 (epdf) — ISBN 978-1-61249-324-4 (epub) 1. Historical fiction, Spanish—History and criticism. 2. Spanish fiction—20th century—History and criticism. 3. Literature and history—Spain. 4. Collective memory in literature. 5. Spain—Historiography. I. Title.
PQ6147.H5B84 2014
863’.08109—dc23 2013030935
Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Introduction: Origins of Genre Fusion in Spain
Preface
Postwar, Transition, and Democracy: History and Literature at the Margins
A Decade of Historical Memory and Literary Studies
History, Fiction, Narrative, and Genre Fusion
The Fiction/History Debate beyond Spain
Divergent Experiences, Converging Genres
Chapter Two
Montserrat Roig: Testimony of the Marginalized Catalan
Testimonial Literature in Spain
Novelist, Journalist, and Obsessive Reality
Els catalans als camps nazis : Individual Testimony to a Collective Nightmare
L’hora violeta : A Fictional Framing of Historiography
Chapter Three
Carmen Martín Gaite: Rewriting Spain’s Memory
Spanish Society after Franco: Balancing Revisionist History and Collective Memory
Martín Gaite and the Uses of History
El cuarto de atrás: A Fantastic Interruption of History
Usos amorosos de la postguerra española: Postwar Society Reinterpreted
Chapter Four
Carlos Blanco Aguinaga: The Spanish Other in Mexico
Theorizing Exile Identity: Fluid Borders and Genres
Total mexicanización or refugiados españoles?
Carretera de Cuernavaca: A Generation Adrift
Chapter Five
Javier Marías: Genre Fusion in the New Millennium
The Past in the Present in Twenty-first-century Spain
Editorializing History: Marías as Witness to a Global Spain
Tu rostro mañana: Facing the Past
Afterword
Notes
Works Cited
Index
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to the friends, colleagues, and family who have lent their guidance and support to this project and to me personally over the years. Genre Fusion began at the University of California, Berkeley, where many members of the faculty and my Spanish Department cohort were helpful during its formative stages. My deep appreciation goes to Emilie Bergmann in particular for her advice and careful readings, and for her welcome suggestion that Carlos Blanco Aguinaga might fit into my genre fusion model. I’m thankful to Michael Iarocci for the conversations about historiography over early drafts that aided in focusing the manuscript. I’m indebted to the organizers and participants of the 2004–2005 History and Fiction Working Group at Berkeley for helping me develop the theoretical underpinnings of this book. While at Berkeley, I received generous research funding for this project from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, the Graduate Division, and the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain’s Ministry of Culture and United States Universities. A special thanks as well to Nicole Altamirano and Julia Farmer, my focus group of two, for helping me develop the term genre fusion .
While at Amherst College, I have enjoyed the steadfast encouragement of my colleagues in the Spanish Department and the intellectual stimulation of the campus community. The research support I received from the Amherst College Faculty Research Award Program, as funded by The H. Axel Schupf ’57 Fund for Intellectual Life, was timely and generous. I extend an appreciative arigato to Timothy Van Compernolle for his mentoring and our collegial conversations over the years. Justin Crumbaugh at Mount Holyoke College has given me unflagging encouragement and advice since our first meeting, which has been enormously helpful. Thanks as well to Zalia Rojas for her meticulous editing during the manuscript’s final stages. The enthusiastic exchange with friends, colleagues, and students continues to make the Five Colleges a welcome professional home for me.
I would like to thank the anonymous readers of my manuscript at Purdue University Press for their detailed editorial comments and wise suggestions for further reading. I’m appreciative as well to Patricia Hart and Susan Clawson at Purdue Studies in Romance Literatures for their guidance and dedication to this project.
My parents, ever my cheering squad, have supported this and every endeavor I have undertaken. I simply could not have done this without them.
And to Eric, for his love, unwavering encouragement, and copyedits, I am grateful and amazed every passing day.

Portions of Chapter 2 were previously published as “Montserrat Roig and the Thread of Historiography: From Els catalans als camps nazis to L’hora violeta ,” in the Bulletin of Hispanic Studies , No. 86 (2009): 659–73. I would like to thank the editors of this journal for their permission in allowing me to reprint sections of this article.
Chapter One
Introduction
Origins of Genre Fusion in Spain
Instead of writing history, we are always beating our brains to discover how history ought to be written. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Philosophy of History
Fiction must stick to facts, and the truer the facts the better the fiction—so we are told. Virginia Woolf A Room of One’s Own
Preface
Aristotle theorized the relationship between history and fiction in the fourth century BC by writing that although the historian and the poet may use the same narrative tools, their “true difference is that one relates what has happened, the other what may happen” (68). By that token, the Greek philosopher wrote, “poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular” (68). Yet Aristotle foresaw the central issue that would stymie narratologists and historians in the coming centuries: What happens when the poet writes about history? According to Aristotle, he remains a poet, not a historian: “for there is no reason why some events that have actually happened should not conform to the law of the probable and possible, and in virtue of that quality in them he is their poet or maker” (69). The poet can play with history, while implicitly the historian cannot play with poetry.
Aristotle’s poet is today’s novelist and short story author; his historian is today’s historiographer. Nevertheless, Aristotle’s central tenet, that “Dramatic Unity can be attained only by the observance of Poetic as distinct from Historic Truth” (46), is no longer an absolute. Authors of contemporary literature are constantly mixing their fiction with history. Meanwhile, present-day historians have taken to telling the stories behind the events, using the fiction writer’s toolkit. The truth and imagination contained in fiction and history are not at odds. Still, the products of these acts of genre transgression are as apt to stir up controversy as they are to become best sellers. 1 Clearly, the boundaries Aristotle theorized are outdated, but what has taken their place?
Many scholars have applied themselves to the task of bridging the divide between history and fiction. Theorists use a multifaceted terminology to describe how they straddle these genres. Jonathan Culler imagines a “ non-genre literature