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The Case of Three Postmodern Spanish Novels

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The Case of Three Postmodern Spanish Novels REFIGURING UNIVERSALISMS: THE CASE OF THREE POSTMODERN SPANISH NOVELS By BEN ARENGER A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Spanish Written under the direction of Jorge Marcone And approved by ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey May, 2016 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Refiguring Universalisms: The Case of Three Postmodern Spanish Novels By Ben Arenger Dissertation Director: Professor Jorge Marcone This dissertation seeks to understand why novels of the post-Franco period have engaged with the theme of universality. The project traces the evolution of the terms “universal,” “universalism” and “universality” in the twentieth century, and explains the ways in which postmodernist fiction and literary theory have criticized these notions for their tendency to assert master narratives at the expense of marginalized cultures. Although their association with imperial discourses has contaminated universalisms, it is argued that three metafictional novels by authors Bernardo Atxaga, Enrique Vila-Matas, and Javier Cercas attempt to move beyond the particular by affirming the interconnectedness of humans and nonhumans. Drawing on ecological theory and continental philosophy, this project engages a close reading of the primary texts and concludes by proposing new cosmological understandings of selfhood. It is shown that Atxaga, Vila-Matas, and Cercas highlight literature’s capacity to forge new networks of relationship between humans, nature, material objects, and historical influence. ii Acknowledgements It would not have been possible to write this dissertation without the generous support of my committee members, family, and friends. I am forever grateful for their encouragement and patience during my graduate career. My adviser Jorge Marcone took on my project under difficult circumstances. From the first day we started discussing the work I had completed up to that point, he had invaluable input about how I could take the project forward both in terms of theoretical approach and textual analysis. He sacrificed his time during his sabbatical, took me on as a student when his docket was already full, and guided the dissertation process to its conclusion. Our meetings would last for hours, and the ideas we exchanged over food and beverages throughout Highland Park planted the seeds for the key arguments of the chapters. It also would not have been possible to finish the dissertation, especially under the pressure of last minute time crunches, without the invaluable support and patience of my other committee members: Margo Persin, Ana Laguna, and Jo Labanyi. Margo played the role of the tough editor who (not “that”) wouldn’t let me get away with poorly chosen verbs, run-on sentences, or other kinds of proofreading infelicities. Ana Laguna gave me excellent feedback about how to frame my arguments with more of an original voice. Her input and insights helped me think carefully about how to take the work forward for the purposes of publication. Jo Labanyi has been a source of incredible support throughout my time at Rutgers. After taking a class with her at NYU, she continued to read my work and write letters of recommendation for me. Her insights and input have made me a much better scholar. iii Other faculty members in Spanish and Portuguese at Rutgers were also helpful and supportive in helping me brainstorm ideas and improve my approach to research and teaching. I would like to thank Susan Martin-Márquez, Marcy Schwartz, Camilla Stevens, José Camacho, Liliana Sánchez, and Karen Sánchez for their support and encouragement over the years. The intellectual exchanges and guidance I have received from all of these individuals informed my scholarly and intellectual development in ways that I will never forget. Without the support of Tom Stephens, I also would not have been able to see this through to the end. I am grateful for his support. My colleagues and fellow graduate scholars at Rutgers were also instrumental. I leaned on the help and support of a large cast: Molly Palmer, Valeria Garrote, Vaughn Anderson, Cristóbal Cardemil Crause, Benjamin Peters, Anita Bakshi, Erin Kelly, Janna Ferguson, Rodrigo Borges, Mia Romano, Agatha Beins, and Claudia Arteaga. To list these names in this way should in no way suggest that these dear friends played less of an instrumental role than they did. We wrote together and shared work and feedback. I reached out to them when I needed help. Janna taught me how to create a website and a few culinary tricks too. Vaughn was my confidant whenever I got into sticky situations. Cristóbal spent hours helping me prepare for job talks and a campus visit. Benjamin Peters has been a friend and colleague like no other. Teresa Delcorso has also played a decisive role in my graduate career. When she hired me as a fellowship adviser at GradFund, not only did I get a source of multiple years of funding, but I also received life-transforming training in how to coach students with proposal writing. Teresa trained me to become a better critical reader of scholarly documents. In addition, my colleagues at GradFund and at the Graduate School-New iv Brunswick were always there to brighten my day. It has been a privilege getting to know them and to work with them. My wife Erika made major sacrifices to help me see this through to the end. She took the kids on mini-vacations and had them at home for long stretches while I typed. She proofread my work and has always been a great critic of my ideas. The night before my defense, she helped me troubleshoot the weaknesses both in my ideas and presentational style. It is pretty incredible to have the person you love play the role of the “fifth committee member,” and I imagine I am among the few who can count on my partner in this way. I could not be more fortunate than to have someone like Erika in my life. My parents, my sister, and my children were also sources of incredible support throughout the process. They always believed in me and encouraged me to never give up. The family friends we have met in the process of living during our time living in Highland Park have also been a great source of inspiration throughout my graduate career. A grant from the Program for Cultural Cooperation between the Spanish Ministry of Culture and United States Universities run through the University of Minnesota helped fund archival research in the summer of 2009. v Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... vi Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1. From Basque Particularity to Universals in Bernardo Atxaga’s Obabakoak .. 29 Chapter 2. Literature Coming Alive in Vila-Matas’s El mal de Montano ........................ 62 Chapter 3. Soldados de Salamina and the Unlikely Synchonricites of History .............. 101 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 141 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 148 vi 1 Introduction This project began as an attempt to solve a puzzle that emerged when I taught Javier Cercas, Enrique Vila-Matas and Bernardo Atxaga’s novels Soldados de Salamina (2001), El mal de Montano (2002) and Obabakoak (1989) in a course on post-Franco Spanish fiction. The novels are postmodern insofar as they exhibit qualities such as narrative fragmentation, temporal rupture, and metafictional blurs between truth and fiction. However, in the process of discussing these works with students, I discovered that the narrators in all three texts conceive of being beyond the confines of particular identities. Since postmodern novels generally reject notions of the universal, I started to wonder: how is it possible that these texts would frame the transcendence of the particular self in a positive light? In the process of answering this question, I arrived at the conclusion that the version of postmodernism that the authors posit is both deconstructive and reconstructive in nature. The novels rebuff that there is such a thing as a cohesive ego, but the texts also reconstitute the subject as part of an all-encompassing network of relationships. The novels analyzed in this dissertation represent a phenomenon that I refer to as “interconnective” universalisms. As such, Atxaga, Vila- Matas, and Cercas embrace universals not only to dissect the separateness of the self, but also to posit a new constellation of relationships between humans and the nonhuman. Defining the Universal The definitions and uses of “universal,” “universality,” and “universalisms” are not always clear. At the root of “universal,” we have “universe.” Universe derives from Latin origins and it is composed of uni-, or “one,” and versus or “turned.” In its adjective 2 form, “universal” begins to take on the form of a rule. In the
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