11 - Essays and Historical Writings

Summary

Cuando vivimos, las cosas nos pasan; pero cuando contamos, las hacemos pasar; y es precisamente en ese llevar las riendas el propio sujeto donde radica la esencia de toda narración.

(In life, things simply happen to us; but when we tell stories, we make them happen for ourselves; and it's precisely in this taking control of the reins that the essence of narration is to be found.)

Introduction

Carmen Martín Gaite is best known as a novelist, but she has made a significant contribution to Spanish letters through her literary and theoretical essays, her cultural historical research and her work as a translator. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of her writing career has been her highly personal and innovative approach to discursive writing. Of Martín Gaite's essays, only El proceso de Macanaz and Búsqueda were submitted to the censor and both were approved, the former for containing ‘nada objetable’ (nothing objectionable) and the latter for being ‘mera composición literaria sin pretensiones ideológicas’ (a mere literary composition with no ideological pretensions). As is often the case with creative writers, Martín Gaite's essays are generally regarded as sources of personal commentary on her novels. Thus, the title essay of her first collection, La búsqueda de interloctuor y otras búsquedas, has generally been read as a key to unlock the significance of dialogue, communication and interlocution in almost the entire body of her novelistic work. Likewise, few discuss her views on women's writing and gender without reference, at the very least, to Desde la ventana, and often also to her twentieth-century cultural history, Usos amorosos de la postguerra española. Finally, El cuento de nunca acabar, which is regarded as a profoundly original combination of literary theoretical reflections, notebook or diary-style entries, autobiographical memoirs and imaginative writing, is read for its insights into the creative process, the themes of dialogue and interlocution, the relationship between life and literature and between oral and written narrative, and children’s fiction, to name but a few of the themes addressed. We shall devote the next chapter to Cuento, which is of singular importance for so many of the author's central preoccupations, confining ourselves here to her more important literary and historical essays and autobiographical reflections.