Electronic Theses and Dissertations UC San Diego Peer Reviewed Title: Witold Gombrowicz and Virgilio Piñera, the Argentine Experience Author: Žilinskaitė, Milda Acceptance Date: 2014 Series: UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Degree: Ph. D., LiteratureUC San Diego Permalink: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/9n14r0b5 Local Identifier: b8163821 Abstract: This dissertation is a comparative study of lives and works of two émigré writers : the Polish Witold Gombrowicz (1904-1969) and Cuban Virgilio Piñera (1912-1979). The two met in 1946 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where they developed a lifelong friendship grounded in intellectual compatibility and fueled by literary collaboration. My study focuses mainly on the body of work that the two authors produced during the twenty- three-year span of time between their initial meeting and the death of Gombrowicz. I argue that the writers shared a strong desire to renovate the world of literature in their home countries, including their host culture, Argentina. This desire in turn allowed them to develop in their writings a unique mode of cultural criticism which sought to build a bridge between the literary worlds of two geographically distant and, at least at first sight, culturally remote regions: Latin America and East-Central Europe. There are five chapters that comprise this dissertation. The introductory chapter conceptualizes the theoretical framework for analyzing Gombrowicz and Piñera's works in relation to their historical and biographical contexts. Chapter One focuses specifically on the year 1947 and the writers' collaboration on six critical texts which target the most prominent Argentine literary and intellectual figures of the time. The subsequent two chapters examine the novels La carne de René by Piñera and Trans-Atlantyk by Gombrowicz, both written in the early 1950s, when the exchange of ideas between the two writers was still at its peak. Finally, the fourth chapter presents the long censured theater plays Los siervos (by Piñera) and Operetta (by Gombrowicz). Regardless of tangible similarities in their storylines as well as conceptual underpinnings - especially, a shared concern with cultural and political nationalism, including the particular case of Peronism in Argentina - neither the two novels nor the theater pieces to my knowledge have yet been addressed in parallel. By engaging with Gombrowicz and Piñera scholarship in English, Spanish, Polish, French and German, I aim to join a body of research that recovers and contextualizes the voices that come from the margins of the Western literary history eScholarship provides open access, scholarly publishing services to the University of California and delivers a dynamic research platform to scholars worldwide. Copyright Information: All rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. Contact the author or original publisher for any necessary permissions. eScholarship is not the copyright owner for deposited works. Learn more at http://www.escholarship.org/help_copyright.html#reuse eScholarship provides open access, scholarly publishing services to the University of California and delivers a dynamic research platform to scholars worldwide. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Witold Gombrowicz and Virgilio Piñera, the Argentine Experience A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Literature by Milda Žilinskaitė Committee in charge: Professor Jaime Concha, Chair Professor Amelia Glaser Professor Luis Martin-Cabrera Professor Michael Monteón Professor William Arctander O’Brien 2014 The Dissertation of Milda Žilinskaitė is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Chair University of California, San Diego 2014 iii EPIGRAPH I speak of exile not as a privilege, but as an alternative to the mass institutions that dominate modern life. Exile is not, after all, a matter of choice: you are born into it, or it happens to you. But, provided that the exile refuses to sit on the sidelines nursing a wound, there are things to be learned: he or she must cultivate a scrupulous (not indulgent or sulky) subjectivity. Edward W. Said iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page ...……………………………………………………………………...iii Epigraph ........................................................................................................................ iv Table of Contents ........................................................................................................... v List of Abbreviations .................................................................................................... vii Note on Translation and References ............................................................................. ix Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................... x Vita ............................................................................................................................... xv Abstract of the Dissertation ........................................................................................ xvii Introduction. No Echo in Buenos Aires: Gombrowicz and Piñera’s Exilic Voices Revisited ......................................................................................................................... 1 Witold Gombrowicz: “What sort of Columbus am I?” ............................................ 14 Virgilio Piñera and the “Dreadful Nothingness” ...................................................... 25 The Failure of Ferdydurke and Experiencing the Cultural Margins of Argentina ... 34 Chapter 1. The Ferdydurkian Battle of 1947 ............................................................... 43 Textual Sources ......................................................................................................... 47 Argentina as the Common Battleground: “nosotros, las naciones menores” ........... 55 Literary Tantalism ..................................................................................................... 67 Banalizadores of Culture .......................................................................................... 77 Chapter 2. The Continuation of the Ferdydurkian Battle in the Novels Trans-Atlantyk and La Carne de René ..................................................................... 91 Understanding Gombrowicz’s “Merciless Realism”: the Case of Trans-Atlantyk . 101 The Anti-Tantalic Baroque in La Carne de René ................................................... 114 Chapter 3. Banalizing the Nation ............................................................................... 126 Institutionalizing the Moral Imagination: the Father and the Representative ........ 130 The Limits of Exilic Freedom: the Foreigner ......................................................... 146 Continuing Preoccupations with the National Form Post Trans-Atlantyk and La carne de René ................................................................................................... 158 Chapter 4. A Revolution Against The Revolution(s) in Los Siervos and Operetta ... 164 v Piñera’s Nikita as Gombrowicz: Freeing the Captive Mind ................................... 176 Operetta and Falling into the Trap of the Form ...................................................... 183 Postscript. “Al galope, al galope, al galope…”: Revisiting the Later Years of Gombrowicz-Piñera Friendship .................................................................................. 198 Final considerations .................................................................................................... 207 Bibliography ............................................................................................................... 213 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Witold Gombrowicz’s Works DA Diario argentino, ed. By Witold Gombrowicz, trans. to Spanish by Sergio Pitol (Buenos Aires: Adriana Hidalgo, 2001) D1 Diary. Volume 1, ed. Jan Kott, trans. to English by LillianVallee (Evanston: North Western UP, 1988) D2 Diary. Volume 2 (1957-1961), ed. Jan Kott, trans. to English by LillianVallee (Evanston: North Western UP, 1989) D3 Diary. Volume 3 (1961-1966), ed. Jan Kott, trans. to English by LillianVallee (Evanston: North Western UP, 1993) F Ferdydurke, trans. to Spanish by Witold Gombrowicz et al. (Buenos Aires: Argos, 1947) K Kronos, ed. Jerzy Jarzębski et al. (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2013) KT A Kind of Testament, ed. Dominique de Roux, trans. to English by Alistair Hamilton (Champaign: Dalkey Archive Press, 2007) O Operetta, trans. to English by Louis Iribarne (London: Calder and Boyars, 1971) PA Peregrinaciones argentinas, trans. to Spanish by Bozena Zaboklicka and Francesco Miravitlles (Madrid: Alianza, 1987) PM Polish Memories, trans. to English by Bill Johnston (New Haven: Yale UP, 2004) TA Trans-Atlantyk, trans. to English by Carolyn French and Nina Karsov (New Haven: Yale UP, 1994) vii Virgilio Piñera’s Works CR La carne de René, eds. Pedro de Oraá and Antón Arrufat (Habana: Ediciones Unión, 2011) RF René’s Flesh, trans. to English by Mark Schafer (Boston: Eridianos, 1989) S Los siervos, in Órbita de Virgilio Piñera, ed. David Leyva (Habana: Ediciones Unión, 2011) 135-181 VT “La vida tal cual,” autobiographical fragments published in Unión (10), April – May - June 1990, 22-35 VV Virgilio Piñera, de vuelta y vuelta. Correspondencia 1932-1978, ed. Patricia Semidey Rodríguez (Habana: Ediciones Unión, 2011) viii NOTE ON TRANSLATION AND REFERENCES