A Critical Study of the Works of Felipe Alfau Within the Theoretical Framework of Space and Place
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Universidad de Granada Facultad de Filosofía y Letras Estudios Ingleses TESIS DOCTORAL A CRITICAL STUDY OF THE WORKS OF FELIPE ALFAU WITHIN THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF SPACE AND PLACE Melissa Leismer 2015 Editor: Universidad de Granada. Tesis Doctorales Autor: Melissa Leismer ISBN: 978-84-1306-124-5 URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10481/54945 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 1 EXCHANGING WORLDS 1 2 FELIPE ALFAU : THE PERSON AND THE PERSONA 4 2.1 FRAGMENTS 4 2.2 A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY 4 2.3 ECCENTRICITIES ABOUND 10 3 THE CORPUS 12 3.1 OLD TALES FROM SPAIN 12 3.2 LOCOS : A COMEDY OF GESTURES 13 3.3 CHROMOS 14 3.4 LA POESÍA CURSI 15 4 THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS 16 4.1 THE THIRD SPACE 16 4.2 STEREOTYPES 17 4.3 MODERNISM /P OSTMODERNISM 18 5 METHOD AND APPROACH 19 6 WELCOME TO THE MADHOUSE 20 CHAPTER 1: THE THIRD SPACE 21 1 THE FIRST SPACE 21 1.1 THE NATION : CHARACTERISTICS OF AN IMAGINED COMMUNITY 22 1.2 A FEW STIPULATIONS 25 1.3 THE NEED FOR A NARRATIVE 28 2 THE SECOND SPACE : DEFINING “THE OTHER ” 31 3 THE THIRD SPACE 36 3.1 DEFINING “S PACE ” 36 3.2 PHYSICAL THIRD SPACES 38 3.3 PSYCHOLOGICAL THIRD SPACES 39 3.4 THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE IN CREATING SPACE 40 4 THOSE OCCUPYING THE THIRD SPACE 44 4.1 IMMIGRANTS 44 4.2 EXILES 45 4.3 BORDERLINES 46 5 CHARACTERISTICS OF LITERATURE WRITTEN FROM THE THIRD SPACE 47 5.1 POLITICAL 48 5.2 VERSIONS AND MEMORY 51 5.3 LABYRINTHS 54 5.4 USE OF THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGE 55 5.5 USE OF SATIRE 56 6 SIGNIFICANCE 57 6.1 WHO IS THE AUDIENCE ? 57 6.2 BREAKDOWN OF AUTHORITY 58 7 WHAT THE FUTURE MAY HOLD 61 8 CONCLUSIONS 66 CHAPTER TWO: CHROMOS AND THE THIRD SPACE OF NEW YORK CITY 67 1 HISTORICAL AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 68 1.1 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND : IMMIGRATION IN AMERICA 68 1.1.1 PRIOR TO 1900 68 1.1.2 1900-1920 69 1.1.3 POST WORLD WAR I 70 1.1.4 POST 1930 71 1.2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND : “T HE OTHER ” IN NEW YORK 72 1.2.1 ASSIMILATION 74 1.2.2 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE HISPANICS AS AN EXAMPLE 76 1.2.3 INEQUALITY AMONG IMMIGRANTS 77 1.3 NEW YORK AS A THIRD SPACE 78 1.3.1 GENERAL THIRD SPACE CHARACTERISTICS 78 1.3.2 THE DIFFICULTIES OF THIS LIMINAL SPACE 79 1.3.3 ETHNIC NEIGHBORHOODS 80 1.3.3.1 EXAMPLE OF THE LOWER EAST SIDE 84 1.3.3.2 EXAMPLE OF LATINOS 85 1.3.4 DIFFERENCE AMONG IMMIGRANTS 86 2 THE AMERICANIARD 87 2.1 DESCRIPTIONS OF THE AMERICANIARDS 88 3 EXAMPLES OF AMERICANIARDS 92 3.1 CHARACTERS OUT OF STEREOTYPES 92 3.2 PAINTING A PICTURE OF AMERICANIARDS THROUGH STEREOTYPES 96 3.2.1 PLAYFUL STEREOTYPING 96 3.2.2 AMERICANIARD TYPED CHARACTERS 100 3.2.3 THE GREEN MAN 107 3.3 COMPARISONS TO LATIN AMERICANS 109 4 “T HE OTHER ” IN THE NOVEL CHROMOS 110 4.1 THE AMERICANIARDS AS “T HE OTHER ” IN NEW YORK CITY 110 4.2 THE “O THERING ” IS RECIPROCATED 112 4.3 HYBRIDITY 114 5 THE THIRD SPACE IN THE NOVEL CHROMOS 117 5.1 AN ACTUAL LOCATION 117 5.2 A THIRD SPACE IN THE ABSTRACT SENSE 125 5.2.1 WRITING THE THIRD SPACE 126 5.2.2 MUSIC THAT TRANSCENDS 127 5.2.3 THE SPAIN OF THEIR MEMORY 129 5.2.4 NOSTALGIA 130 6 LANGUAGE 131 6.1 THE USE OF ENGLISH 132 6.2 SPECIAL FOCUS ON THE WORD “C URSI ” 138 6.3 ISSUES IN TRANSLATION 140 6.4 LITERATURE 142 7 CONCLUSIONS 146 CHAPTER 3: STEREOTYPES IN LOCOS 151 1 STEREOTYPES : DUFAYS’ FIVE CATEGORIES 151 1.1 IN ANTICIPATION : A FEW EXAMPLES FROM LOCOS 152 2 THE ROLE OF STEREOTYPES IN LOCOS 156 2.1 “E THOS ”: THE AUTHOR ’S PRESENCE 157 2.2 DISTANCING 161 2.3 THE READER ’S ROLE IN INTERPRETING STEREOTYPES 163 2.4 USING STEREOTYPES AS CRITIQUE 165 2.5 THE POSTMODERN IN STEREOTYPES 168 3 CATEGORIZING LOCOS WITHIN THE THEORY 170 3.1 METALINGUISTICS 170 3.2 REINSCRIPTIONS WITH DISCREPANCIES 172 3.3 BREAKING A UNITARY LENS 173 3.4 PLAYING IN THE MADNESS 174 3.5 VALLE -INCLÁN AND HIS BUFONES 175 4 STEREOTYPES OF NATIONAL IDENTITIES 178 4.1 SPAIN AND OTHER NATIONS 178 “Fingerprints” “The Wallet” “Chinelato” 4.2 STORIES FOCUSING ON NATIONAL CHARACTER 195 “The Beggar” “The Necrophil” “A Romance of Dogs” 5 CONCLUSIONS 208 CHAPTER 4: FORM IN LOCOS AND CHROMOS 213 1 THEORISTS DIVIDED : STRUGGLING TOWARD DEFINITIONS 213 2 MODERNISM 214 2.1 ACTION AND REACTION 214 2.2 THE ROLE OF HISTORY 217 2.3 INDUSTRY AND LITERATURE 220 3 MODERNISM AND POSTMODERNISM : THE ISSUE OF DIFFERENTIATING 221 3.1 OVERLAPS : EXPERIMENTS WITH FORM 222 3.2 AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS 225 3.3 POLITICS IN LITERATURE 228 4 NEW METHODS : SUPPOSEDLY NEW TRENDS IN POSTMODERNISM 230 4.1 DECONSTRUCTION IN LANGUAGE 230 4.2 DECONSTRUCTION IN SOCIETY 231 4.3 CREATING PLURALITY OUT OF OPPOSITIONS 234 5 STRUCTURAL TECHNIQUES 237 5.1 METANARRATIVE 237 5.2 LAYERING IN THE TEXT 241 5.3 THE BREAKDOWN OF GENRES 246 6 LITERARY TECHNIQUES 248 6.1 LAYING BARE THE DEVICE 248 6.2 UNRELIABLE NARRATOR 254 6.3 THE ABSURD 260 7 DECONSTRUCTIONIST TENDENCIES 264 7.1 DECONSTRUCTING LANGUAGE 264 7.1.1 CODE -SWITCHING IN CHROMOS 267 7.1.2 PHRASEOLOGICAL CALQUES IN LOCOS AND CHROMOS 275 7.2 DECONSTRUCTING EXPERIENCE 286 7.2.1 ALFAU , UNAMUNO AND PIRANDELLO 290 7.3 DECONSTRUCTING SPAIN AND SOCIETY 294 8 PLAYING IN THE CHAOS 298 8.1 A SEARCH FOR MEANING 298 8.2 NO NEED FOR AN ESCAPE 303 8.3 OPEN ENDING 309 9 CONCLUSIONS 312 CHAPTER 5: THEMATIC AND FORMAL ANALYSIS OF OLD TALES FROM SPAIN AND LA POESÍA CURSI 317 1 INTRODUCTION TO THE SHORT STORIES AND POETRY 317 2 THE STORIES : OLD TALES FROM SPAIN 320 2.1 EXAMPLES OF ROMANTICISM IN OLD TALES FROM SPAIN 324 “El trébol” “El canto del cisne” “El sauce y el ciprés” “Barcos de vela” 2.2 GLIMPSES OF ALFAU THE NOVELIST IN THE STORIES 333 “La rivalidad” “Entre dos luces” 2.3 THE OUTSIDER REPRESENTED 339 “El arcos iris” 2.4 A CRITIQUE OF THE KING 344 “El gusano de oro” 2.5 “T HE TWO SPAINS ” 350 2.6 FORM IN THE STORIES 358 2.7 CONCLUSIONS 362 3 THE POETRY : LA POESÍA CURSI 364 3.1 ROMANTICISM IN ALFAU ’S POETRY 366 3.2 THE THIRD SPACE IN THE POETRY 373 3.3 DEVIATIONS FROM THE NORM 375 3.4 CONCLUSIONS 382 CONCLUSION: A VOICE LEFT BEHIND 387 1 THE KEYSTONE : POINTS TO REMEMBER 388 2 SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS STUDY 392 3 STRANGE OCCURRENCES 394 4 UPON LEAVING THE MADHOUSE 397 BIBLIOGRAPHY 399 SUMMARY IN SPANISH 423 1 INTRODUCCIÓN AL AUTOR 423 2 TEORÍA DEL TERCER ESPACIO 425 3 LA NOVELA CHROMOS Y EL TERCER ESPACIO DE NUEVA YORK 426 4 ESTEREOTIPOS DE LA NOVELA LOCOS 430 5 ESTRUCTURAS POSTMODERNAS 434 6 CUENTOS CORTOS Y POESÍA 437 7 CONCLUSIÓN 442 Introduction 1 Exchanging Worlds I can clearly remember the first time I stepped into Felipe Alfau’s world of locos : his suicide- prescribing doctors, taxidermied funcionarios and spring-infatuated poets. My mind so quickly jumps back to those crucial moments because I too found myself in a situation similar to that of Alfau. A young immigrant, working at my first job outside of my home country, I sat on my bed, which practically consumed the entirety of my closet-sized room, listening to the sounds reverberating off the walls of the patio de luz and in through my window: voices of crying infants and soothing abuelas , bickering lovers and the sloppy clip-clap of children testing out their mother’s tacones. The smells of lagarto soap and fried chorizo. There, alone in the dusty and shabby beauty of that aged apartment, my own living chromo , I felt an instant connection to this author who had somehow exchanged worlds with me almost a century ago. I found myself reading his expressions of bereavement toward Spain and his descriptions of a tentative inhabitation of New York City at the very moment in which I felt deeply my own loss of America as I took my first wobbly steps in the neighborhood of Chamberí in Madrid. I found myself enamored with Alfau much in the same way as Mary McCarthy, who described her own encounter with Alfau’s work thus: “Alfau, or his book, was evidently my fatal type” (1988: 201). Therefore, what began as a google search in order to broaden my own understanding of La Generación 27, quickly morphed into an obsession with this one particular author, Felipe Alfau. My interest in his work developed into much more than the visualization of my own reflection through the mirror of his novels, as I soon discovered that most of Alfau’s work is dedicated to the exploration of hybridity as a way of reconciling two dramatically opposed cultures. Alfau, in a way, has opened my eyes to the entire postcolonial movement to which he forms a sort of 1 strange precursor. He has become my channel of access to authors such as Thomas Pynchon, Salman Rushdie and Junot Diaz, a rare example of the unknown leading the way to the renowned. Beyond the innovative themes found in the content of Alfau’s work, the techniques he applied in the creation of his novels: satire, stereotyping and labyrinthine chaos, led me to believe that there was something of literary importance in this unknown author.