Fugitive Signs: Mapping Metaphors and Meaning in La casa de cartón by Martín Adán

Abstract

This article explores the shifting processes of signification in La casa de carton, the seminal, experimental and often overlooked collage novel of the Peruvian writer and poet Martin Adan. It does so by analysing the latter's use of poetic language, in particular, his deployment of visual and auditory metaphors to investigate the creative possibilities of, and the affinities between, light and sound, sight and hearing. Additionally, it examines the development of the reading subject inside and outside the text, in the context of (post-)structuralist conceptions of reading and writing. In this way, it also assesses the extent to which Adan's novel answers calls made by the ideologue Jose Carlos Mariategui for a new framework of understanding in a rapidly changing, yet also profoundly conservative, 1920s Peru.Este articulo examina los procesos semanticos en La casa de carton, la novela collage seminal, experimental y poco estudiada del escritor y poeta peruano Martin Adan. Intenta hacerlo a traves de un an...