Spanish Narrative: A Journey Through Literary Styles and Trends
Spanish Narrative: 19th and 20th Centuries
Early to Mid-20th Century Realism
A third way to employ the always popular worship of nineteenth-century realism. However, existing safeguards to the task of facing reality have to look to the past. This happens with some mid-century novels by Zunzunegui or Ash Was Tree (between 1944 and 1957, his first three works), a trilogy—Ignacio Agustí—on the Catalan bourgeoisie.
The Family of Pascual Duarte (1942) by Cela, Javier Mariño (1943) by Gonzalo Torrente Ballester, Nada (1945) by Carmen Laforet, and the early novels of Miguel Delibes represent the postwar novel’s meeting with everyday reality.
Post-War Social Realism
The 1950s gave way to what is called social realism, which sought to expose unjust social situations through memories of the war and its aftermath, a critical attitude, and collective characters (alienated, exploited victims). This tendency, prevalent throughout the decade, revitalized traditional realism with contemporary external stimuli, including neorealist cinema and American and Italian novels. Peaks of this current can be considered The Hive by Camilo José Cela and La Noria by Luis Romero.
Late 20th Century Experimentation
Published in 1962, Tiempo de silencio by Luis Martín Santos marks a considerable advance in the evolution of the war narrative. Its merit lies in its treatment of social criticism, distanced by a display of language and technical guidance towards a new and richer formal fictional creation horizon.
Arguably, the 1960s, as the history of the novel suggests, closed some of the endless war’s accounts. New economic, sociological, and cultural factors (minimum relaxation of censorship, the impact of May 1968 in France, knowledge of the nouveau roman, the so-called boom of Latin American novels, and the reunion with some novelists in exile, in tune with European experimentalism) led to greater freedom of execution among genre cultivators. This greater freedom gave rise to an experimental narrative, from which works such as Don Juan by Gonzalo Torrente Ballester, The Rodent of Fortinbras by Gonzalo Suárez, Signs of Identity by Juan Goytisolo, Return to the Region by Juan Benet, and The Mercury by José María Guelbenzu emerged. We should not forget the unprecedented experimental trend: The Attempt (1946) by Gabriel Celaya, Alfanhuí magical realism (1951) by Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio, or the overflowing fantasy of Álvaro Cunqueiro.
On the eve of Franco’s death, this process was crowned by experimental and solid personal achievements, including A Meditation (1970) and A Winter Trip (1972) by Juan Benet, Vindication of Count Julian (1970) by Juan Goytisolo, La saga/JB’s Drain (1972) by Gonzalo Torrente Ballester, Mary’s Big Moment Tribune (1972) by Juan García Hortelano, or If You Say That I Fell (1973) by Juan Marsé.
Post-Franco Narrative (1975-Present)
A Flourishing but Fragmented Landscape
Narrative after 1975 shows a progressive rise to the present day, mainly manifested in the large production and editing of novels and short stories—a significant recovery of this traditionally undervalued genre. This resulted in increased collections dedicated to fiction, translations of Spanish texts into other languages, and a proliferation of titles, awards, reviews, supplements, and magazines. While demonstrating the genre’s vitality, this does not facilitate the establishment of key lines but offers a more confusing landscape of narrative phenomena. Therefore, the features presented below are only reference points to be taken with reservations, since, if there is anything that defines the new novel, it is precisely the lack of universal criteria.
Main Features of Recent Spanish Narrative
- Without dispensing altogether with formal renewal, it tends to use more traditional resources.
- It is no longer focused on experimentation, preferring a return to the pleasure of storytelling.
- There is a distance from social and political intentions or any kind of didactic or ideological purpose.
- There is an absence of dominant schools, although no specific noteworthy influences are missing.
- Themes, motifs, styles, and many different ways of storytelling coexist.
- Humorous, playful, or ironic tones abound, but nostalgic or strongly lyrical novels of an intimate nature, exquisite or refined cultural treatments, and the free and unimpeded use of fantasy are also present. The drive for realism at all costs is not often present.
- Generally, great men have disappeared and have been replaced many times by helpless and insecure people.
Language, Literary Styles, and Structures
Formal Concerns and Structural Diversity
In terms of language, we notice a remarkable formal concern that often results in a baroque style or a mannerism of prose, but that usually reveals the sensitivity and cultural and literary development of young narrators and their efforts to achieve a personal style and quality. It is not uncommon that many novels by young authors represent authentic exercises in linguistic virtuosity.
The narrative structure has become lighter, diverse, and dynamic as a result of experimentation in the 1960s and 1970s, but it has also tended to use simple forms, not too far from the traditional: in general, provisions of the text that prove burdensome for the reader are omitted.
Classifying Contemporary Spanish Narrative
Although a minimally rigorous classification is impossible, we suggest the following outline of classification that serves as a guide to the dominant formal and thematic motifs:
1. Black or Police Novels
Considerable influence has been exerted by narrators of the immediately preceding generation, such as Eduardo Mendoza (The Truth About the Case Savolta) and Manuel Vázquez Montalbán (the series of novels featuring Detective Carvalho, for example), and to which the production of Juan Madrid, Andreu Martín, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, etc., can be ascribed.
2. Historical Novels
This trend had been developing for years and has not been outside some novelists of the preceding generations: Gonzalo Torrente Ballester (The Island of Cut Hyacinths), Eduardo Mendoza (The City of Marvels), Jesús Fernández Santos (Extramural), etc. Writers on historical issues such as Juan Eslava Galán (In Search of the Unicorn), Arturo Pérez-Reverte (The Horseman, The Fencing Master), Antonio Muñoz Molina (Beatus Ille, The Polish Rider), Julio Llamazares (Moon Wolves), Lourdes Ortiz (Black), Antonio Enrique (Sanctuary of Hate, The Miramamolín Sword), Fernando de Villena (Iguazú, The Witness of the Times), etc., have proliferated lately.
3. Culturalist Novels
This trend is evident in various forms of artistic creation from the newest and the group of poets who began writing around 1970. One of them, Antonio Colinas, published his two novels during the 1980s, true paradigms of the cultural mainstream (A Year in the South and Long Letter to Francesca). Culturalism as a trend is heterogeneous; environments often evoke the past and are confused with the historical novel; it describes in exquisite detail timeless or present environments, but linked with aesthetic creation; it recreates literary, legendary, or mythological motifs; but, above all, it chooses as its ground reflection on the creative process. Some novels by Álvaro Pombo, Jesús Ferrero, whose narrative, at least during the first stage, is marked by exotic tastes (Belver Yin, Opium)—Álvaro del Amo (Music Lovers), Pedro Zarraluki (The Fantastic Adventures of Baron Bolden), Javier Marías (Wolf Domains, Crossing the Horizon, All Souls, A Heart So White, Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me, Your Face Tomorrow), Antonio Enrique (The Harmonic Mountain), Fernando de Villena (Dream and Destination)—could be ascribed to this group.
4. Intimate Novels
Although not easy to delimit this class, because intimacy is one of the dominant notes of the new narrative, those novels that directly or metaphorically pick an attempt to delve into the roots of personality, which are almost always presented as unassisted and frustrated, may be considered in this section. In some authors, a deep lyricism is perceptible, present in the story itself, or in formal and literary expression, like Julio Llamazares (Yellow Rain), Adelaida García Morales (South, Bene); in others, the story is revealed by irony, sarcasm, or simply by an attitude of despair or apathy, as in Juan José Millás (The Clutter from Your Name), Ignacio Martínez de Pisón (New City Secret Map), and Fernando Delgado (Island Landlocked).
5. Experimental Novels
The apparent decline of experimentalism that characterized the earlier period has not prevented the presence of a minority experimental current among young narrators (Jorge Marquéz, Julián Ríos, and Alyosha Coll, for example) or, above all, the assimilation of this formal renewal in many of the young novelists. Moreover, experimentation has continued in the narrative of seasoned authors like Miguel Espinosa (La Fea Bourgeoisie) and Juan Benet (Saul to Samuel).