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Odkodowana bliskość : powieściopisarstwo Enrique Vili-Matasa, Antonia Munoza Moliny i Alejandra Cuevasa w kontekście prozy polskiej po 1989 roku
The monograph constitutes a comparative study of selected novels published
after 1989 in Spain and Poland. Instead of focusing on translation or
reception issues, which are generally more popular in the case of comparative
literary analysis, the study consists of a structural and problem analysis of
the works of five prose writers coming from two distant cultural backgrounds.
The interpretative and comparative analysis is preceded by introductory remarks
concerning the state of comparative studies as a discipline of modern
literary and cultural studies, focusing on American, Spanish, Polish and German
theories in particular. From the very first pages, the monograph reveals
itself to be a site of an ongoing struggle and shifts in the scholarly focus, ranging
from the work of literature itself to various contexts (gender, sociological,
cultural, political, etc.) existing outside the realm of literature, as well as
the return to literature understood as the center of literary comparative studies,
however tautological this statement may be. In order to find her way in
the multilingual tangle of statements and contradictions, the author combines
several cohesive literature‑centric
perspectives, which allows her to create her
own methodological model, which, in turn, enables her to conduct an ordered,
controlled and theoretically sound comparative analysis of selected Spanish
and Polish novels. The study is based on hermeneutics and intercultural literary
theory proclaimed by Norbert Mecklenburg, Mieczysław Dąbrowski’s
theory of comparative studies of the discourse and the discourse of comparative
studies, Andrzej Hejmej’s understanding of the interdisciplinary nature of
comparative studies, as well as the idea of “open comparative studies” developed
by the most prominent comparative studies scholar of the 20th century,
Claudio Guillén. The aforementioned concepts were created on the basis of
the idea of the autotelic nature of the work of literary fiction; due to that fact,
they propose a study of literature as an aesthetically autonomic form of expression
which can be related to external contexts inasmuch as it contributes to
a broader interpretation of the given work of literature. Another important context for the theoretical part of the monograph is
genology, which points to the potential of the novel as the currently dominant
genre, characterized by the greatest openness with regard to both the topics
as well as structural potential. As a result, the novel‑both
Polish and Spanishis
presented as not only a textual construct and genre framework, but also as
a reflection of the postmodern hybrid culture, in which idealization remains in
constant conflict with the esperpentic tendency for self‑ridicule,
and pompous
pathos competes with everyday ordinariness, while literature, relegated to the
popcultural peripheries, thanks to its constant use of metareflection, thrives
and boasts one of its most creative periods since the end of the 19th century.
Chapters two, three, and four constitute the interpretative and analytical
part of the monograph. The research material has been ordered according
to the thematic similarities between the novels, which resulted in three main
axes of division: the first constitutes a literary duel with the past and tradition,
the second poses a challenge to the world of art (mostly painting and
photography), and the third encompasses a narrative encounter with the world
of culture.
The first category includes two highly intertextual novels: Castorp by
PaweĹ‚ Huelle and ParĂs no se acaba nunca (Paris Has No End) by Enrique Vila-
Matas. In the case of these two authors, what is constitutive for their fiction
is a particular fondness for various literary games revealing the complexity of
character creation as well as multiplying the levels of autocreation, which can
be seen in the overt inclusion of autobiographical or quasi‑autobiographical
elements
into the fictional narrative. This dialogue with Nobel Prize laureates
(Mann and Hemingway) in the form of a novel allows the authors to construe
their creations on two levels: half‑joking,
half‑serious.
This, in turn, reflects
their unique approach to the literary craft, which uses intertextuality and autothematism
as a pretext for distancing oneself from taking oneself too seriously,
oscillating between authenticity and mask, or even masquerade. This, in
turn, allows them to add to the complexity of the fictional nature of their work
and open for their readers gateways to different literary worlds created by novelists
such as Fontane, Duras or Perec. Thus, both novels ultimately become
a house of mirrors, in which the fictional “I” is allowed to perceive themselves
from different sides and angles.
Chapter three constitutes an analysis of the way famous paintings are utilized
in The Polish Rider by Antonio Muñoz Molina and The Last Supper by
Huelle, two novels whose construction‑similarly
to the previously analyzed
works of literature‑hinges
on a dense net of intertextual references. The allusions
to the traditional yet mysterious Rembrandt and provocative yet aesthetically
saccharine Ĺšwieszewski are, in fact, subversive, since, even though
in both cases it seems that‑due
to the paratextual references‑the
paintings become
the foundation of the narrative, that assumption appears ultimately erroneous. The Last Supper constitutes a set of allusions to the holy books, cutting
satire and ridicule of the contemporary vices of the society (mainly Polish society),
as well as a manifesto of the lack of faith in contemporary art, divorced
from any aesthetic aspirations and concerned primarily with the pragmatic and
media aspect. Antonio Muñoz Molina, in turn, references The Polish Rider by
Rembrandt, even though the world he creates in his novel differs significantly
from that described by Huelle: it is much quieter, much more private and intimate,
ruled by the digressive nature of memories. Rembrandt’s painting, then,
appears to be a leitmotiv of sorts, which connects the story of the protagonist’s
family with the subsequent stages of Manuel’s life in New York and Madrid, as
well as brings together particular stages of Spanish history and culture, starting
with the turn of the 20th century, through the 1960s, and ending with
the last decade of the 20th century. Both The Last Supper and The Polish Rider
constitute an expression of longing for a place of grounding in history, a verbal
picture of the universal need to reconstruct the feeble link with the elusive here
and now, which continues to be uncertain, changeable, and treacherous.
Chapter four touches upon the comparison of two novels by younger writers:
Ignacy Karpowicz (born in 1976 in Białystok) and Alejandro Cuevas (or:
Alberto Escudero Fernández, born in 1973 in Valladolid). Gestures by Karpowicz
and Quemar las naves (Point of No Return) by Cuevas constitute two
surgically precise accounts of the downfall of the two protagonists: Grzegorz
and Eurymedont. Cuevas and Karpowicz play with conventions and the expectations
of their readers at every level of the narrative structure; due to that,
the meaning of the text escapes clear‑cut
assessments and generalizations, exemplifying
at the same time the complex nature of the relationship between
a work of art and contemporary culture. On the one hand, it strives towards
tradition and history (various biblical and mythological references), but on the
other hand, it remains also deeply rooted in popular culture. The Polish and
Spanish experience‑even
though alluded to from time to time in an ironic
manner‑is
substituted in a very natural way with the universal experience,
thanks to which both novels become parabolic accounts of a lost existential
finish.
Chapter five (The Game of Reflections. Poland and Spain as Two Links of
the Same Cultural Chain. Conclusions and Final Remarks) serves to ground the
earlier comparative analysis in the context of transculturalism‑a
term proposed
by Wolfgang Welsch and signifying a fluid concept of contemporary cultural
divisions. The heterogeneity of the European identity, the ability to adapt to
outside influences, the openness and aversion to strictly imposed boundaries‑as
Bauman points out‑further
strengthen the common denominator between the
compared Polish and Spanish novels. This comparison facilitates also a distinction
between the approach to narrative strategies between the older and
younger generations of writers: the older novelists (Vila‑Matas,
Muñoz Molina and Huelle) often utilize the “grammar of memory” and construct a historicist
cocoon around the protagonists of their novels, while the younger writers
(Cuevas and Karpowicz) focus on the “I,” while treating history, politics
and metaculturalism only as a background and context. The Geertzian idea
of discovering cultural diversity while taking into account the contemporary
progress of the world of culture calls for an observation that Spain and Poland,
despite their differences‑with
regard to the literary and artistic aspect‑function
in a very similar way in the transcultural chain of the 21st century