Camilo José Cela and the Evolution of the Spanish Novel

Camilo José Cela

*La Familia de Pascual Duarte* (1942)

With La Familia de Pascual Duarte, Cela initiated a new approach to incorporating reality as a literary theme, showcasing the sordid and terrible aspects of life. This work opened a new path in literature, permeated by tremendismo, which dominated the postwar years. The novel caused a great impact, as it was far from being a story with moral character. The protagonist, a condemned man, recounts his life, full of terrible events, such as the murder of his own mother. The author takes up the tradition of 19th-century realism and the picaresque. The narrator is capable of deep thoughts. The story is in the first person, and the temporary vision implies a selective memory of events experienced. Pascual Duarte focuses on negative events, and his goal is to prove that he is not a bad person. In the novel, there are two narrators: Pascual Duarte and the transcriber, plus speakers in letters, a priest, and a Civil Guard. The prose of the book highlights the crudeness of the language, which recalls naturalism and the epic.

*La Colmena* (1951)

This book presents the common man in his daily environment. The novel, full of pessimism, reflects life in Madrid in 1942, and the characters constantly move for two reasons: sex and hunger. There are certain themes, such as humiliation, poverty, boredom, or hypocrisy, and finally, signs of solidarity. In this novel, the protagonist is collective, the time is reduced to three days, and the space is limited to one zone of Madrid. Dialogue predominates, and the intervention of the narrator resembles that of a movie camera. Thus, it attempts to transmit a feeling of simultaneity and community. Other works by Cela include Nuevas andanzas y desventuras de Lazarillo de Tormes (1944). Travel books occupy a prominent place in his production, such as Viaje a la Alcarria (1948) and Primer viaje andaluz (1959).

The Evolution of the Spanish Novel

The 1940s

After the war, narrators had to create a new novelistic tradition that resumed realistic narrative models. In the postwar novel, an attitude of commitment to reality appeared. In the 1940s, the novel was characterized by the presence of reality as a literary theme. These were years of breaking continuity with the recent past, in which several trends coexisted: the nationalist novel, traditional realism, and tremendismo, sometimes united to an existentialist vision, not to mention a humorous or fantastic trend.

The 1950s

In the 1950s, censorship was a factor. In the immediate postwar period, a social novel remained, criticizing the regime. American objectivist techniques were incorporated, and the novel's orientation led to social commitment. The novel of the 1950s continued the tradition of the 1940s, and its characteristics remained until the early 1960s. An ethical commitment to reality was raised, and the novels reflected the state in which the Spanish lived at the time:

• Poverty, hunger, and the shantytowns
• The alienation of workers whose leisure time was reduced to a minimum
• The frivolity of the upper class, who were bored and spent time at parties

The ethical commitment of the 1950s took the form of two different streams:

• Social trend: Social narrators understood literature as a way to raise public awareness and influence their ideological stance. (Antonio Ferres, Juan Marsé, Juan Goytisolo)
• Neorealist trend: Neorealist writers considered that reality also implied individual personal experiences, allowing them to show another aspect of the world through topics such as loneliness, frustration, or disappointment.

The 1960s

By the 1960s, authors were more concerned with how to tell a story, and technical innovation led to the experimentalism that characterized the era. The influence of 20th-century American narratives left its mark on the experimental novel of the 1960s. Authors introduced innovations, retaking findings from the European and American novels of the early centuries. These novels are characterized by:

• Loss of the importance of the story
• Narrative perspective: It creates the feeling of a fictional dialogue
• Rupture of temporal linearity: It mixes subjective and objective time
• Direct interior monologue or stream of consciousness and syntax deconstruction: Used to express the conflicting inner world of the characters
• Linguistic wealth: They focus on language development, creation of new words
• Importance of visuality: The visual becomes an expressive value, for example, different fonts

The 1970s Onward

From the 1970s onward, the novel ceased to respond to common features, and variety characterized models and themes.