THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TIME ELEMENT IN SELECTED NOVELS BY JUAN GOYTILSOLO by Georgia McKeighan Murach A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Art in the Department of Foreign Languages Fresno State College August 1967 Table of Contents Page Chapter I Statement and background of the thesis 1 Chapter II Narrative and thematic elements in relation to time 8 Chapter III The point of view in relation to time 24 Chapter IV Rhythm of the novel 38 Chapter I Statement and background of the thesis. The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate the significance of the time element in four novels by Juan Goytisolo - Juegos de manos, Dueen e - 1 paraiso, El circo, and Fiestas. The germinal factors for this study derive from a personal interest in the temporal form of the novel and the aspect of time as reflected in twentieth century litera­ ture; and a scholastic interest in the modern Spanish novel particularly as it reflects Spain after the Civil War. Goytisolo's place in the history of the modern Spanish novel is linked to the new trend of the novel which was initiated in La familia de Pascual Duarte by Camilo Josd Cela. The novel demonstrated a new form and a black, ominous environment populated with grotesque people whose horrible acts were justified by their environment. This bleak picture was impressed on the reader through the objective, cinematic development of the narrative. Domingo Perez Minik attests to the barometric social significance of the new type of novel as an expression of the atmosphere of post war Spain; and he notes the general foundation which Cela laid for the novel after the Civil War. ... Con viva impaciencia se aguardaba que la novela, a traves de una obra importante, se manifestara de manera adecuada. Lo mismo si aparecia la obra como si no aparecia, en cualquier caso, todo se revestia de un gran significado barometrico. Si no aparecia, porque ya se podria hablar de la esterilidad de nuestro genio novelesco como consecuencia de nuestras luchas intestinas, y, si aparecia, porque nos preocupaba la direccion que este^ nuevo viento llevaba y la fuerza destructora de ese cir- culo cerrado de graves tensiones atmosfericas. ... 2. ••• La famiLi a de Pascual Duarte traia tambien, entre tantas cosas, una nueva prosa, muy jugosa, segura y expresiva, con su cierto refinamiento y con su nuevo sentido de la realidad. Sobre esta incidia con una singular iracundia. Muy necesaria, pero asimismo muy intempestiva, afortunadamente. De cierta manera, esta novela creaba una norma, una escuela y una pista. ... Camilo Jose Cela instaura una original forma en la literatura de esta generacion, que muchos han seguido y otros no, pero que ya hoy tiene una valoracion universal. Esta forma, la tenemos que llamar forma, era el resultado de una alta tension expresiva, resumen muy realista de lo fu|az, lo dramatico y lo desesperado de nuestra epoca. Juan Goytisolo follows the trend set by Cela in the thematic preoccupa­ tion of his novels and in the resultant style which reflects a new A V creation of tensions within his fictive reality. Elena de la Souchere in An Explanation of Spain describes the thematic bond between Cela and the generation immediately following. Novelists of sober and cla_ssic gifts - Ricardo Fernandez de la Reguera, Camilo Jose Cela, Luis Romero, Miguel Delibes - were becoming famous about 1951 when public attention was suddenly focused on the products of the mid-century; Juan Goytisolo, the most representative of these writers, published Juegos de manos, which became the novelized manifesto of the new generation. ... Since the most generous and most gifted of those who were twenty in or about 1950 no longer held to the old social myths, their need for affirmation of the "self" could not be satisfied by their playing the leading roles in a farce in which they had lost faith. ... And because opinion could find no direct expression, it was inevitable that the novel become the sole reflection of social life. ... Obsessed by an overly burdensome social reality, today's novelists in Spain have killed off the protagonist, and take an interest only in collective lif^? they seek indeed to be the impassive witnesses of it. The portrayal of collective life in Juegos de manos, Duelo en e 1 ^Domingo Perez Minik, Nove1istas Espanoles de los Siglos XIX y XX, Ediciones Guadarrama, (Madrid, 1957), p. 259 and pp. 268-69. 2Elena de la Souchere, An Explanation of Spain, trans. Eleanor Ross Levieux (New York, 1965), p. 365. J. paraiso, E_L circo, and Fiestas from an impassive point of view is a result brought about by the manipulation of the time element in the novel and is of major significance as an aspect of time. The link between Cela, the modern Spanish novel, and Goytisolo is based on more than similar thematic preoccupation; the link is also soundly based on the means of expression of that theme. Just like Perez Minik notes a new sense of reality in La familia de Pascual Duarte and La Colmena; he notes the portrayal of the ominous atmosphere in a confused rhythmic pattern by Juan Goytisolo. Juegcsde manos, de Juan Goytisolo, es la mejor novela "negra" de este ciclo. Extraria, alucinante, embrollada, de un ritmo confuso pero terriblemente expresiva. Un buen documento de este tiempo. Posee un gran contenido social, es osada y muy libre. Esta muy bien escrita, claro esta, dentro de su manera de ser. Presenta una galeria de tipos, el reves de una burguesia de gran facha, de dura originalidad, producto de un clima expecial de postguerra. Como en ninguna otra obra, aparece en esta una actividad dilectica lucida y hasta un cierto determinismo la oprime por todas partes. A veces nos re^uerda algun "film" frances de los ultimos 11empos 9 ••• Which is to say that there is something new and similar in the fictive reality of both novelists which pertains to the rhythm of the novels. The novel has suffered a change which the critic refers to as a film­ like sensation in the form of the novel. The critics allude to a new projection of the form of these novels, a new feeling. This sensation is explained in this thesis as an intensified rhythm caused by a shift in the time element from a subsidiary role to a role of prominence in the creation of tension and in the consequent presentation of the narrative. Perez Minik, p. 337. Goytisolo's novels evidence a strong preoccupation with time. Time within his novels is flattened out or suspended, the rhythm of the novel supersedes the conventional causal argument of the plot, and the theme is sustained by the temporal focus of the novel. Kessel Schwartz records a basic effect of the time shift in a critique of the novel, Juegos de manos. As he explains, "It is the air of suspense, the dramatic intensity, the protest, the violence, the taste of life itself that is important, and not the plot."4 This idea applies to Goytisolo's novel and to the modern novel in general. It is a concept articulated by many critics as an explanation of the form of the modern novel. In many modern novels, rhythm has ousted plot; or, to use the new terms, formations have replaced form. Romains and Dos Passos have turned to the spatial cross-section, Huxley and Proust to the 'time-shift,' Conrad and Gide to what might be called 'the technique of multiple focussing,' Joyce to all of them and more in addition. The plot, hitherto an important element in the movement of the novel due to its explanatory nature, is being replaced in part by the timing or rhythm of the modern novel. Incidents are enacted which present the reader with evidence of the author's message, rather than incidents which are causal factors in the subsequent action of the novel. The shift away from the conventional plot and the replacement of the move­ ment of that plot with a bolder thematic tension is undertaken in this analysis of the four novels by Goytisolo. The expressed concern with time as a focal element in twentieth century literature is concretely illustrated in a chapter by William 4Kessel Schwartz, Introduction to Juegos de manos by Juan Goytisolo, (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1964), p. 11. 5Adam A. Mendilow, Time and the Novel,(Lon don, 1952), p. 48. 5. Barrett which is titled "The testimony of modern art." Where the movement of the spirit is no longer vertical but only horizontal, the climactic elements in art are in general leveled out, flattened. The flattening of pictorial space is achieved in Cubism is not an isolated fact, true only of painting, but is paralleled by similar changes in literary techniques. There is a general process of flaten- ning, three chief aspects of which may be noted: (1) The flattening out of all planes upon the plane of the picture. Near and far are pushed together. So in certain works of modern literature time, instead of space, is flattened out upon one plane. Past and present are repre­ sented as occurring simultaneously, upon a single plane of time. ... (2) More important perhaps is the flattening out of climaxes, which occurs both in painting and literature. ... (3) The last and most important aspect of what we have called the process of flattening in modern art is the flattening out of values. The suspension of time is in fact the flattening out of climaxes and as a result values are also flat. Goytisolo's containment or "flattening" of time is inextricable from the flattening out of climaxes and the presentation of flat, ritualistic values.