Notes on "Sierra de Teruel" and the Evolution of Malraux's Narrative Technique

Abstract

In an interview with Michel Droit in 1967, at the time of the publication of his Antimemoires, the first volume of Le Miroir des limbes, Malraux insisted: . . je suis tres interesse par la forme meme des Antimemoires. En definitive, je n'ai jamais ecrit un roman pour ecrire un roman. J'ai poursuivi sorte de meditation ininterrompue qui a pris des formes successives, dont celle des romans.' He then went on to emphasize that the work was supported by une architecture interieure extremement Iorte.2 Since the definitive publication of Le Miroir des limbes in its entirety, the elements of that architecture-an architecture the importance of which is recognized by the author himself as decisively associated with his previous narrative evolution-have been further illuminated, and they would now seem to be the only valid point of departure for any diachronic investigation of Malraux's fictional expression. For the most part, Le Miroir des limbes presents itself as a continuum of superficially disparate experiences-real, remembered or imagined. Such a continuum involves the inevitable dislocation of conventional