Spanish Novel: Trends and Authors of the 60s and Beyond
The Novel of the 1960s
During the 1960s, social realism declined, gradually replaced by new modes of expression, structures, language, and style.
Literary works tended to search in memory, explore personal experience, and reflect states of consciousness. A pivotal year was 1962, with the publication of “Time of Silence” by Luis Martin Santos, which influenced the novelists of the time.
Important influences also included Proust, Joyce, Kafka, and Faulkner.
Characteristics of the Experimental Novel of the 1960s:
- The plot becomes less important; the action is minimal, and plausible events are mixed with imaginary or fantastic elements. The story takes precedence.
- The characters undergo profound transformations. For example, the number of secondary characters is reduced, and the protagonist is again the center of the novel but is not well-defined, instead being amorphous, without sharp profiles.
- The setting tends to shrink.
- Changes in time occur, avoiding a chronologically linear story. The timing is fragmented with jumps back in time.
- Presents an open structure, sometimes without a defined end.
- The narrator oscillates between being omniscient or adopting an objectivist technique.
- The linguistic and stylistic renewal is also significant, with elaborate vocabulary, syntactic breaks, long and complex sentences/short phrases, and the use of colloquial and vulgar language.
- The resources used include descriptions, dialogues, and monologues. Sometimes punctuation is deleted. There are typographical innovations, different fonts, and white pages.
Authors of the Novel of the 1960s:
- Miguel Delibes: “Five Hours with Mario”
- Torrente Ballester: “La saga/fuga de J.B.”
- Juan Goytisolo: “Signs of Identity”
- Marcel Proust: “In Search of Lost Time”
- Thomas Mann: “The Magic Mountain”
- Franz Kafka: “The Metamorphosis”
- James Joyce: “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”
- Albert Camus: “The Stranger”
The Novel Since 1975
The novel of the last decades is characterized by diverse trends and tendencies. Despite this variety, some common features can be observed:
- A return to the traditional novel is noticeable.
- The recovery of realism does not occur in an effort to criticize social reality, but reality is a framework to bring the character and concerns. Therefore, the space can be near or exotic, and novels can be developed in a contemporary or past time.
- There is a tendency to introspection and existentialism and a recovery of romantic themes and topics: lonely characters, the theme of death or love, mystery.
- Use of verbal formal techniques: third-person narration but also in first or second, inner monologue, narration linear or chronological disorder.
A key work of this period was “The Truth About the Savolta Case” by Eduardo Mendoza. Other works were: “The Mystery of the Haunted Crypt” and “The City of Marvels.”
Other prominent trends, authors, and works:
- Historical Fiction: Very developed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Some use it to engage with reality, while others move away in time and space and recover a more traditional historical novel. This is the case of Juan Eslava Galán and “In Search of the Unicorn.”
- Intimate or Reflective Discourse Novel: The reflection of the protagonist is the story line and usually devoid of any humor or parody. Here belong Juan and Luis Goytisolo, and the novels “The Disorder of Your Name” and “The Solitude Was That” by Juan José Millás, Luis Landero’s “All Souls,” and “Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me” by Javier Marías.
- Experimental Novel: Continues digging into technical resources. It begins with “La saga/fuga de J.B.” by Torrente Ballester and continues with works like “School of Mandarins” by Miguel Espinosa, or the novels of Julian Ríos such as “Larva.”