Metafictional Predestination in Muriel Spark’s the Driver’s Seat

Muriel Spark’s The Driver’s Seat is a radical metafictional experiment, suggesting the inexorable connections between contingency and a predetermined plot which are so common to many Sparkian novels. Following Marina MacKay’s perception that Spark’s experimental narrative operates “in the conceptual space where the more abstract preoccupations of Roman Catholic theology overlap with the metafictional and fabulist concerns of postmodernism” (2008: 506), this essay will discuss how the notion of predestination reverberates in The Driver’s Seat, not only as a remnant of Spark’s Presbyterian education but also as a postmodern re-visitation of classical tragedy in a metafictional key. Spark’s preference for predetermined plots may echo a long philosophical and theological discussion spanning many centuries about free will and predestination, particularly intense in the times of the Protestant Reformation, but it also reflects the sense of predestination as a necessary ingredient of classical tragedy. In The Driver’s Seat Spark deliberately brought to the fore some conventions of Aristotelian tragedy, although she approached them through an experimental subversion ultimately resorting to comedy and ridicule, on Spark’s own admission her weapons for the only possible art form. Our contention is that the metafictional implications of The Driver’s Seat’s prolepses undermine a Calvinist-like certainty concerning predestined salvation or damnation. By using a partial narrator only capable of producing limited accounts, Spark may be playing with an experimental and essentially postmodern interpretive openness which is in tune with the ultimate uncertainty about each individual’s eternal salvation that is commonly accepted in Catholic thought

Diseño estratégico de vanguardia

La integración del diseño con la vanguardia se observa natural, esto es, el diseño es una disciplina abductiva y la vanguardia persigue fines prospectivos, es decir, en ambos casos se trata de objetivos de posibilidad futura. De tal suerte, este libro, emanado de una parte de las ponencias rigurosamente arbitradas del Coloquio Internacional de Diseño 2016, está dividido en tres secciones o capítulos, a saber, el capítulo uno relacionado con la teoría y metodología para proyectos de diseño de vanguardia, el segundo sobre la tecnología, la innovación y la sostenibilidad de vanguardia de dichos proyectos, y finalmente el último capítulo, vinculado con la gestión estratégica de proyectos de vanguardia.La historia se forja de hechos e interpretaciones, de pasados construidos y de presentes en procesos constantes, estudiados en forma estricta por las ciencias. Por su parte, el futuro ostenta la posibilidad de ser indefinidamente planeado con base en las variopintas aproximaciones teóricas y empíricas que dan fundamento a este tipo de ciencia; éstas son denominadas prospectivas y sus bases vanguardias. Resulta importante señalar, que estas posibilidades sólo permiten tener una idea hipotética de lo que será la realidad y el mundo de vida de los seres vivos y su contexto, no obstante, se trata de la única manera racional que tiene el ser humano de prever ese futuro posible. Las distintas ciencias y disciplinas nos permiten construir históricamente estas posibilidades partiendo de datos, hechos, significados y un sinfín de informaciones que le dan cuerpo y sentido a tales posibilidades. En este sentido, la vanguardia, como base del conocimiento prospectivo, observa la necesidad de ser escrita, leída y discutida en los términos más estrictos con el fin de volver las predicciones más precisas. El diseño por su parte, es definido de manera sucinta como la disciplina proyectual estratégica y sistémica de la posibilidad, dirigida a procesos de significación utilitaria y simbólica para la comprensión –o interpretación– y modificación –o proyectación– de niveles de realidad (referentes y sujetos) desde diversos aparatos teóricos y empíricos –perspectivas disciplinarias–

Unrealiable selves in an unreliable World: the multiple projections of the hero in Kazuo Ishiguro's "The Unconsoled"

The Unconsoled (1995), Ishiguro's fourth novel, was received with some perplexity by critics who formerly praised the author's controlled "Jamesian" realism. However dissimilar this "Kafkaesque" novel may seem in comparison with the previous three, it can be regarded as a further step in the development of one of Ishiguro's major fictional interests: the way an unreliable first-person narrator introduces characters who might be understood as extensions or projections of himself. While Ishiguro's first three novels could be said to deploy unreliable narrators who try to revisit their past and overlook their mistakes by using self-deceiving rhetoric, a sort of oneiric unreliability constitutes the general framework of The Unconsoled. This article comments on the implications of such a fictional technique and analyses those characters that may work as projections of the narrator's persona, embodying his anxieties and traumas with special emphasis on those stemming from lack of communication and parental neglect

Tras la pista del Murrieta: el origen riojano de la Fundación Graham Greene

Uno de los novelistas ingleses más célebres del siglo XX, Graham Greene, pasó varios veranos en España entre 1976 y 1989, invitado por su amigo el sacerdote y profesor Leopoldo Durán. Estos viajes por la Península inspiraron la novela Monseñor Quijote (1982), donde se incluye un elogio al vino tinto Murrieta. Como agradecimiento por este cumplido, Greene fue invitado en dos ocasiones al Castillo de Ygay, sede de las Bodegas Murrieta, en 1983 y 1987. En la segunda de estas visitas, el nuevo dueño, Vicente Cebrián, conde de Creixell, propuso a Greene la creación de una Fundación que llevara su nombre. El escritor aceptó, pero la Fundación llevó una vida convulsa que acabó en su temprana disolución de facto en 1989. En este artículo se describe la historia de esta efímera institución y las causas de su fracaso.Graham Greene, one of the most acclaimed 20th century English novelists, spent several summer holidays in Spain between 1976 and 1989, hosted by his friend Leopoldo Durán, a priest and scholar. These journeys around the Iberian Peninsula inspired the novel Monsignor Quixote (1982), which incidentally praised the quality of the Murrieta red wine. In appreciation for this compliment Greene was twice invited to Ygay Castle, headquarters of Bodegas Murrieta, in 1983 and 1987. On the second visit the new owner, Vicente Cebrián, Count of Creixell, proposed Greene the creation of a Foundation bearing his name. The writer accepted, but the Foundation led a turbulent life that ended up in its premature de facto dissolution in 1989. The present article discusses the history of this short-lived institution and the reasons behind its downfall

Unrealiable selves in an unreliable World: the multiple projections of the hero in Kazuo Ishiguro's "The Unconsoled"

The Unconsoled (1995), Ishiguro's fourth novel, was received with some perplexity by critics who formerly praised the author's controlled "Jamesian" realism. However dissimilar this "Kafkaesque" novel may seem in comparison with the previous three, it can be regarded as a further step in the development of one of Ishiguro's major fictional interests: the way an unreliable first-person narrator introduces characters who might be understood as extensions or projections of himself. While Ishiguro's first three novels could be said to deploy unreliable narrators who try to revisit their past and overlook their mistakes by using self-deceiving rhetoric, a sort of oneiric unreliability constitutes the general framework of The Unconsoled. This article comments on the implications of such a fictional technique and analyses those characters that may work as projections of the narrator's persona, embodying his anxieties and traumas with special emphasis on those stemming from lack of communication and parental neglect

Graham Greene and Leopoldo Durán: quixotic companions across Spain and Portugal

It is well known that in his later years Graham Greene spent several summer holidays travelling around Spain and Portugal in the company of his friend Leopoldo Durán, a Galician scholar and Catholic priest. Starting in the summer of 1976, these yearly holidays consolidated their mutual friendship and provided inspiration for Greene’s novel Monsignor Quixote (1982), which features several discussions on faith and belief based on their long chats and confessions. During these travels Durán got to know Greene very well and became one of his closest companions in the last stages of his life, and even accompanied him at his deathbed and administered the last sacraments to him. Considering Durán’s influence and how this friendship was forged mostly throughout the various Iberian journeys it is remarkable to note how few particulars about them are given in Norman Sherry’s third biographical volume, covering from 1955 to 1991. The official biographer has conducted no further research other than a few occasional references to Durán’s memoir, Graham Greene, Friend and Brother (1994), which is the closest we get to a narrative of the trips. However, even this unique source declines to give a full chronological account of them and remains quite obscure in many respects. It is not only that the author offers a highly subjective and occasionally biased account of their “summer jaunts”; so far there exists no written account, either by Durán or by any other biographers, of the number, duration, stages or dates of Greene’s Iberian trips. Therefore, this paper sets out to fill in this gap and to provide a reference framework for future research on this fascinating period of Greene’s life

Personaje y caracterización en las novelas de Evelyn Waugh

Es el primer estudio monográfico extenso del célebre autor británico que se publica en España. De modo especial el presente estudio aborda el tratamiento de la caracterización en la ficción de Waugh desde diversas perspectivas. Así, se tratan cuestiones tales como el concepto de personaje; se analiza la tipología del protagonista junto con diversas estrategias de caractarización y su incidencia en la obra narrativa de Waugh

“Thank God I Am an African Woman”: the Christian as Exile in Maggie Gee’s My Cleaner

El último informe del Centro de Investigación Pew sobre la afiliación religiosa de inmigrantes internacionales, Faith on the Move (2012), concluye que el 49% de los inmigrantes del mundo son cristianos (105.670.000) y, cuando se aplica a los asentados en la Unión Europea, el porcentaje crece al 56% (26.370.000). Sin embargo, el hecho de que el cristianismo sea la fe profesada por la mayoría de la población inmigrante en todo el mundo no implica necesariamente que este factor facilite su cálida recepción en un país anfitrión de tradición cristiana, tal como puede ser el Reino Unido. Por el contrario, el inmigrante puede descubrir que uno de los principales constituyentes de su identidad, su fe, puede experimentar una adicional desterritorialización (Papastergiadis, 2000) en la nueva nación de acogida. La escritora inglesa Maggie Gee ha escrito tres novelas que pueden considerarse ejemplos sobresalientes de literatura sobre inmigración: The White Family (2002), My Cleaner (2005) y My Driver (2009). Estas obras exploran diferentes dimensiones de los choques culturales y sociales entre un conjunto de personajes tradicionalmente ingleses y sus antagonistas, inmigrantes africanos o caribeños. Mientras que el conflicto es abiertamente racista en el caso de The White Family, se vuelve más sutil y tal vez más insidioso en My Cleaner, donde la modalidad de racismo es condescendiente, bien intencionada, de clase media (OKelly, 2005). Varios de los protagonistas de estas narrativas son cristianos en mayor o menor medida, aunque sus respectivos patrones religiosos muestran diferencias sobresalientes que no son de gran ayuda a la hora de cerrar la brecha entre viejos y nuevos ciudadanos británicos. Este artículo se centra en la protagonista de My Cleaner, la migrante ugandesa Mary Tendo, y en cómo sufre un proceso de desarraigo en el país de acogida que afecta su identidad religiosa. Como explica Carin Mardorossian, un tema propio de la literatura migratoria explora el proceso del desarraigo conforme la identidad del migrante va sufriendo cambios radicales que alteran su autopercepción y a menudo ocasionan ambivalencia respecto a su vida antigua y nueva (2002: 16). Observaremos cómo la piedad natural de Mary corre el peligro de enfriarse en contacto con un entorno secularizado o indiferente, y cómo las dificultades para reestablecer su autoconcepción como cristiana en el nuevo hogar la llevan a una fase de desterritorialización religiosa, adaptando el término acuñado por Papastergiadis (2000).The latest Pew Research Center report on the religious affiliation of international migrants, Faith on the Move (2012), concludes that 49% of the migrants of the world are Christian (105,670,000), and, when applied to those settled in the European Union, the percentage grows to 56 % (26,370,000). The fact that Christianity is the faith professed by the majority of the migrant population worldwide, however, does not necessarily imply that this factor may facilitate a welcoming reception in a host country with a Christian tradition, like the U.K. On the contrary, the migrant may find that one of the major constituents of his identity, his faith, is likely to amount to a further deterritorialization (Papastergiadis, 2000) in his new home nation. The English writer Maggie Gee has written three novels that can be regarded as outstanding examples of migrant literature: The White Family (2002), My Cleaner (2005), and My Driver (2009). These works explore different dimensions of the cultural and social clashes between a set of traditionally English characters and their antagonists, African or Caribbean immigrants. Whereas the conflict is overtly racist in the case of The White Family, it gets subtler and perhaps more insidious in the case of My Cleaner, where racism is of the patronising, well-meaning, middle-class variety (OKelly, 2005). As it turns out, most of the protagonists in these narratives are Christian to some degree, though their respective religious patterns show outstanding differences that do not help much in bridging the gap between the old and the new British citizens. This article will focus on the central character in My Cleaner, the Ugandan migrant Mary Tendo, and how she undergoes a process of displacement in the receiving-country that challenges her religious identity. As Carin Mardorossian explains, one common theme of migrant literature is how the migrants identity undergoes radical shifts that alter her self-perception and often result in ambivalence towards both her old and new existence (Mardorossian, 2002:16). I will explore how Marys inbred piety is in danger of cooling off in contact with a secularist or indifferent ambience, and how her difficulties to restate her self-perception as a Christian in a new home make her go through a phase of religious deterritorialization, adapting the term coined by Papastergiadis (2000)