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El Ano de Gracia
El Ano de Gracia
6-1-1992
Part of the Modern Literature Commons, and the Spanish Literature Commons
Recommended Citation
Bellver, Catherine G. (1992) "El año de Gracia and the Displacement of the Word," Studies in 20th Century
Literature: Vol. 16: Iss. 2, Article 3. https://doi.org/10.4148/2334-4415.1300
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in
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El año de Gracia and the Displacement of the Word
Abstract
The power of the established, self-sufficient written word is considerable. Written texts not only furnish
material, incentive, or direction for new texts, they also inspire, orient, and mold those who read them. El
año de Gracia, a novel by Cristina Fernández Cubas (1985), vividly illustrates the imprint novels can leave
on a young mind. The protagonist learns, however, that the concept of the world he formed on the basis
of literary models is erroneous. In El año de Gracia literature fails to sustain meaning, and meaning itself
becomes irrelevant. Both oral and written discourse are in some way restricted, displaced, and subverted.
The voice is deprived of its potential to tell stories by the linguistic impasse between the protagonist and
his companion; only the magical, non-discursive dimension of the spoken word affords a tenuous conduit
for interchange between the two. Writing, for its part, cannot also flourish because the addresser cannot
find an accommodating addressee for his text. Daniel must forfeit his desire for an ideal reader in favor of
the private pleasure of writing as a process. He discovers that scientists and ecologists are not any better
disposed to communication than the coarse shepherd Grock. Betrayed by both literature and society, the
protagonist turns away from both. As writer he learns that only the act of narration is meaningful, not
literary models. Yet since his oral and written words are displaced, communication on a collective level
ceases.
Keywords
text, El año de Gracia, Cristina Fernández Cubas, meaning, discourse, voice, reader/ writer relationship,
narration, communication, collective communication, Spanish narrative
Catherine G. Bellver
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
The word is power. The power of the spoken word derives from
its dynamic nature, from its identification with movement and event.
God is the Word, and humanity but the subsequent and dependent
articulation of that Word. Over time, the ephemeral, perishable oral
utterance has been supplanted among literate peoples by the fixed,
binding, written word as the source of power, with the awe of magical
potency yielding to a reverence for the might of veracity. The au-
tonomy, immutability, and permanence of written texts lead to the
notion that "the book says" is tantamount to "it is true" (Ong 79).
Until this century, the concept "text" was identified exclusively with
writing and carried, especially through the Middle Ages, a strict
correlation with divine and secular authority. Recently the term text
has come to include not only oral discourse but any vehicle of unified,
articulated meaning. Yet the written word continues to enjoy priority
among literate societies and remains at the base of the common
concept of text. The notion of the power of the established, self-
sufficient written word confers on new literary compositions an
inescapable dependence on previously written texts. Texts, we are
told, speak to one another in anger, respect, or indifference (Kristeva
338). Written texts not only furnish material, incentive, or direction
for new texts, but in both overt didactic and subtler more unconscious
ways, they help inspire, orient, and mold the vision of those who read
them. While we think of Paolo and Francesca seduced by the story of
Lancelot, Madame Bovary deluded by sentimental novels, or the
teenager absorbed by comic books, we all may unconsciously assimi-
late the written word, making it the architect of one's concept of the
outside world. To chronicle this absorption of former texts, an author
must inscribe within his or her original work some nodding our
acknowledgement of the authority of previous texts over the human
psyche, and in doing so, exposes his or her dependence on literary
heritage.
El alio de Gracia (1985), the first novel by the Spanish short story
writer Cristina Fernandez Cubas, provides a vivid example of the
text and its referents, calls attention to its artifices, and diverts
attention from its potential for mimetic representation of reality.
Harold Bloom maintains that in every case a literary text "is not a
gathering of signs on a page, but is a psychic battlefield upon which
authentic forces struggle for the only victory worth winning, the
divinating triumph over oblivion" (2). In Elatlo de Gracia, in place of
a battle we witness a playful match in which the old and the new banter
back and forth until each one cancels out the other. The novel begins
with a happy confluence of established narrative threads, but as it
progresses and as the protagonist struggles to make his life conform
to fiction, the narratives serving as points of comparison are subverted
by inversion and erasure without being replaced by satisfactory alter-
natives. As previous literary models are rendered invalid and emerg-
ing narrative patterns prove ambivalent, any element of triumph is
lost.
Because literature nurtured the protagonist psychologically and
molded his expectations, he relates his new experiences to his literary
based vision of theworld. Standing before the docks of Saint-Malo, he
evokes Henry Morgan, Long John Silver, Gordon Pynn, and Captain
Nemo and associates his feeling: "con la ansiedad del pequefio Jim del
Almirante Bembow ante la inminencia de su primer viaje" with the
excitement of young Jim ofAdmiral Bembow before his first voyage'
(30-31). He mistakes Captain Jean, the ship, and other details for good
omens and significant signs. As soon as he touches land, he begins to
discover, with a certain disappointment, the discrepancy between
fiction and fact: "No era una playa, sino el simple Llano del rompiente"
`It wasn't a beach, but simply a flat reef (64). And contrary to what he
had read, he finds himself not kissing the earth once safe on land.
Incidental divergences such as these announce major contrasts, until
all of his exemplary models of confrontation with danger are parodied,
subverted, or reversed.
One of the most obvious intertextual references in El alto de
Gracia is to Daniel Defoe's novel. Like Robinson Crusoe, the pro-
tagonist of Fernandez Cubas' novel runs away to sea, is shipwrecked,
and leads a solitary existence on an uninhabited island where he meets
a primitive man who becomes his companion. For the modern day, as
well as for the Eighteenth Century Crusoe, the Bible is instrumental
in his survival, but as a technique for manipulation rather than as
consolation. The island he lands on is neither distant nor exotic, and
his abbreviated stay includes no series of heroic adventures requiring
courage or stamina. Grock may show some similarity (as the novel
itself suggests) to the old man in Sinbad's fifth voyage, but within the
context of the Robinson Ctusoe allusions, he must be compared to
Friday. Daniel refers to Grock as "mi variable Viemes" 'my mercurial
Friday,' but he soon realizes that: "Aquel viejo simple no se parecia en
nada al fiel Viernes de la 'Mica novela que, ironias de la vida, me habia
olvidado de evocar ante la vision del Providence" 'That simple old
man did not resemble at all the faithful Friday of the only novel that,
ironically, I had forgotten to evoke when seeing the Providence' (124).
Rather than a submissive gentle servant, he encounters a volatile and
perverse tyrant. By reversing the roles of master and servant,
Fernandez Cubas subverts the presumed superiority of civilized man.
Defoe is often portrayed as the prophet of progress, the defender of
the Protestant ethic and Anglo-Saxonethnicity, and the propagandist
for imperialistic commercialism (Downie). In Fernandez Cubas, any
justification of contemporary society yields to scorn, and praise gives
way to skepticism. Both Daniel and the civilization that produced him
are criticized; the first for his naiveté, and the second for its callous-
ness.
The fragile illusion Daniel had built for himself on the basis of his
readings comes tumbling down like a house of cards. The literature in
which he steeped himself proves an unreliable guideline for his own
behavior and an inaccurate predictor of new situations. Parody gives
way to irony as imitation turns to reversal. Heroism is displaced by
perversion, nobility by baseness, and grandeur by banality. Without a
valid literary map to assist him, Daniel is deprived of the security of
dependable meanings and is consequently obliged to chart new pat-
terns on his own. Having been deceived by the power of the written
word, he must look to other spheres to communicate for the sake of
survival with the only human being near him.
Those who define language as a "prison-house" or the "law of the
father" recognize its constraining force and the influence of its
schema. Derrida contends that writing engulfs speech, but also notes
that "Western metaphysics has systematically privileged voice over
writing, on the presumption that logos, as the a priori, transcendental
power of knowledge and signifier of being is immediately present in
speech, whereas writing is displaced, one degree removed as the
representation of speech" (Adams 81). What is relevant to the present
discussion is not the question of priority of either speech or writing,
but the authoritarian power of established models over specific
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Bellver: El año de Gracia and the Displacement of the Word
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process of writing and rereading that makes his text into an ongoing
process of discovery and evaluation. The illusion of simultaneity is
intermittently undermined by the retrospection implicit in phrases
like "En aquellos dfas yo escribfa para mf" 'In those days I wrote for
myself (99) and "Pero ahora cuando mi animo lleva camino de
serenarse defmitivamente" 'But now my spirit finally begins to calm
down' (101). This metafictional perspective creates a distance be-
tween the action and the narration which, besides contradicting the
sense of immediacy of a diary, permits commentary on the naivetd and
short-sightedness of its author. Self-directed scorn creates a posture
of ironic distance between the narrator and his narration and casts
suspicion on the truthfulness of his writings or at least underlines its
inadequacy: "Por eso debfa continuar desde mi cabafia el estupido
diario de viaje que, con tanto engreimiento, habfa iniciado bajo la
mirada sagaz de tfo Juan . .." 'This is why I had to continue, inside my
cabin, that stupid travel diary I had begun with such presumptuous-
ness under Captain John's shrewd eye' (82). Writing, then, although
the sustaining force of self-identity, proves suspect, vulnerable and
variable when reviewed. The process is valuable, but the product is
invalid. Through the process of writing, the naive, presumptuous
young man has learned that not heroism, but self-interest motivates
human behavior. Any attempt to expose that motivation, Daniel
discovers, is barred; his manuscript is sanitized through photocopying
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Bellver: El año de Gracia and the Displacement of the Word
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meanings and society shows itself unfit to accept truth, the protago-
nist-as writer and human being-turns away from both in sober
complacency. As writer he learns that not the literary works that
nurtured his intellect, but language and narration alone can articulate
meaning. Yet since his words-both oral and written-are displaced,
communication on a collective level ceases.
Works Cited