Autobiographical Content Research Articles

The Index as a Form of Self-Archiving in the Works of Alejandro Cesarco and Joan Wickersham

Contemporary life-writing, especially of an experimental disposition, increasingly demonstrates its wariness of narrative as an organising principle of auto/biography and favours structures that resemble an archive – a repository of autobiographical content, disconnected, fragmentary, and arbitrarily arranged. Over the last two decades, we can observe a rise in the popularity of self-archives adopting alphabetical structures such as the bibliography, the encyclopaedia, the glossary, and the index. Of all the alphabetical arrangements of the archive, the index appears the least likely form to be used in life-writing because of the rigidity of its structure and its aura of formality and academic detachment. However, as this article demonstrates, the index can be successfully used in life-writing as a method of processing and investigating one's past. The article begins with a theoretical discussion of the index – its historical and cultural significance, as well as its politics and poetics. It proceeds to analyse two notable uses of the index for autobiographical purposes: Alejandro Cesarco's long-term artistic project titled Index (2000–2015) and Joan Wickersham's memoir The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order (2008), a National Book Award's finalist for non-fiction. The article shows that whereas Cesarco employs the index primarily to catalogue and examine his intellectual and artistic influences, Wickersham uses it as a structural foundation for her personal search to comprehend and mourn the suicide of her father.

Tattoos embody autobiographical memories

Abstract Autobiographical memories play a vital role in shaping personal identity. Therefore, individuals often use various methods like diaries and photographs to preserve precious memories. Tattoos also serve as a means of remembering, yet their role in autobiographical memory has received limited attention in research. To address this gap, we surveyed 161 adults (68.9 per cent female, M = 26.93, SD = 6.57) to explore the life events that motivated their tattoos and to examine their most significant memories. We then compared these findings with significant memories of 185 individuals without tattoos (80.0 per cent female, M = 31.26, SD = 15.34). The results showed that the majority of tattoos were inspired by unique life events, including specific events about personal growth, relationships, leisure activities, losses, or diseases. Even when not directly tied to specific events in life, tattoos still reflect autobiographical content, such as mottos, beliefs, and values. Furthermore, the most significant memories of younger tattooed individuals (20–24 years) tended to be more normative and less stressful compared to those of their non-tattooed counterparts in the same age group, though the nature of these memories varied. This difference was not found among older participants (30–54 years). Additionally, those without tattoos indicated to use specific objects and methods for preserving important events, suggesting tattoos are only one of several ways to reminisce. However, tattoos uniquely allow for the physical embodiment of autobiographical memories, indicating that engraving significant life events in the skin aids in reflecting on one's life story.

Controlling intrusive thoughts of future fears under stress

Negative outlooks of our future may foster unwanted and intrusive thoughts. To some extent, individuals have control over their ability to suppress intrusions and downregulate their frequency. Acute stress impairs intentional suppression, leading to an increased frequency of intrusions. The aim of this study was to gain insight into the mechanism underlying stress-induced impairments in intentional suppression of intrusions by investigating the combined and independent roles of the two major stress hormones, noradrenaline and cortisol. Healthy participants (N = 181) were administered propranolol (to block the noradrenergic response), metyrapone (to block the cortisol response), or a placebo before being exposed to the Maastricht Acute Stress Test. Intrusive thoughts of autobiographical future fears were then measured via the Imagine/No-Imagine task. Results demonstrated that the stress response was successfully altered because of the drug and stress manipulations. In all groups, repeated suppression of future fears reduced intrusions. Across the sample, an enhanced decrease over time was associated with greater attenuation of anxiety towards the related fears. The groups did not differ in the total frequency of intrusions. Though, trait anxiety increased the total number of intrusions. Our findings show that stress hormones did not influence the ability to suppress intrusions. However, our results do add support to previous research linking anxiety to memory control deficits. When using autobiographical content, future research should focus on the quality and characteristics of the individual memories to explain more of the variation observed in intentional memory control.

Olfactory imagery as a retrieval method for autobiographical memories

IntroductionThe retrieval of autobiographical memories is influenced by several factors, such as sensory modality and the emotional salience of memory cues. This study aimed at investigating the interaction between sensory modalities (olfaction, vision) and emotional dimensions (valence, arousal) of imagery cues, on the frequency, quality, and age distribution of the autobiographical memories (AMs) elicited.MethodA total of 296 females (aged between 18 and 35 years) received one out of eight brief instructions for olfactory or visual imagery. The participants were asked to create a mental image with either high arousal/positive valence, high arousal/negative valence, low arousal/positive valence, or low arousal/negative valence (e.g., ‘imagine an unpleasant and arousing odor/scene’); no specific stimulus was mentioned in the instruction.ResultsThe approach used elicited imagery with autobiographical content in the majority of participants (78%). In terms of frequency, odor imagery, compared to visual imagery, turned out to be more effective at retrieving either unpleasant memories associated with experiences in adulthood, or pleasant childhood memories. In terms of quality, the imagery was rated as less vivid in the olfactory compared to the visual condition (irrespective of valence and arousal of the imagery instruction). Visual imagery was associated with the experience of more diverse emotions (happiness, sadness, anxiety, anger) than odor imagery, which was related primarily with disgust and happiness.ConclusionOur findings indicate that nonspecific imagery induction is a useful approach in accessing AM.ImplicationThis approach presents promising clinical applications, such as in working with autobiographical memory narratives in psychotherapy.

Reflection of the Genocide in the Fiction

A huge amount of fiction has been created, starting from 1915 to the present day, by writers who became victims of the genocide themselves, devoted to the Armenian Genocide. The material in this article is presented from three points of view, considering: (a) the first decades of Soviet rule; (b) the return to their roots of Armenian writers who left their homeland because of the genocide and became foreign writers; and (c) foreign writers, in this case the position of a Turkish writer from within Turkey. In the first decades of the Soviet Union’s existence, the view of the historical past, in this case of the genocide, was assessed by official critics not as patriotism, but as nationalism. Under these conditions, the publication of Charents’ novel “Yerkir Nairi” was a serious achievement. Covering the national tragedy with a veil of satire, he portrayed Armenian life as it was between 1914 and 1920. His goal was to bring the remnants of the generation that survived the massacres back to life. The influence of this novel on 20th century Armenian literature is very great and had, at one time, two Armenian and four Russian translation editions. Many writers of Armenian origin have switched to foreign languages, starting with William Saroyan. Among such writers, this article presents the book “Towards Ararat” by Michael Arlen Jr. and the memoir “The Black Dog of Fate” by Peter Balakian. They were written in English, have autobiographical content and been translated into Armenian. This article shows how the authors, who were in a foreign language environment, realised that and looked for their Armenian roots. Among foreign writers, the Turkish writer Kemal Yalcin’s novel “My soul is full of you” is presented in this article. To become acquainted with the life of his Armenian teacher who had been subjected to the Genocide, the author travelled to historical Armenia and became acquainted with Armenians who, out of fear, had hidden their nationality and faith. He found out that the life of each of them was a novel. Fiction from the very beginning fought against genocide, initially revealing its essence, which consists of the destruction of homeland, civilisation, language, nationality, people and humanity in general.

Perceptual coupling and decoupling of the default mode network during mind-wandering and reading.

While reading, our mind can wander to unrelated autobiographical information, creating a perceptually decoupled state detrimental to narrative comprehension. To understand how this mind-wandering state emerges, we asked whether retrieving autobiographical content necessitates functional disengagement from visual input. In Experiment 1, brain activity was recorded using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in an experimental situation mimicking naturally occurring mind-wandering, allowing us to precisely delineate neural regions involved in memory and reading. Individuals read expository texts and ignored personally relevant autobiographical memories, as well as the opposite situation. Medial regions of the default mode network (DMN) were recruited during memory retrieval. In contrast, left temporal and lateral prefrontal regions of the DMN, as well as ventral visual cortex, were recruited when reading for comprehension. Experiment two used functional connectivity both at rest and during tasks to establish that (i) DMN regions linked to memory are more functionally decoupled from regions of ventral visual cortex than regions in the same network engaged when reading; and (ii) individuals with more self-generated mental contents and poorer comprehension, while reading in the lab, showed more decoupling between visually connected DMN sites important for reading and primary visual cortex. A similar pattern of connectivity was found in Experiment 1, with greater coupling between this DMN site and visual cortex when participants reported greater focus on reading in the face of conflict from autobiographical memory cues; moreover, the retrieval of personally relevant memories increased the decoupling of these sites. These converging data suggest we lose track of the narrative when our minds wander because generating autobiographical mental content relies on cortical regions within the DMN which are functionally decoupled from ventral visual regions engaged during reading.

Exiles by James Joyce

Reviewed by: Exiles by James Joyce Valérie Bénéjam (bio) EXILES, by James Joyce, edited by Keri Walsh. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. lii + 128 pp. $49.90 cloth, $11.95 paper. From the first page of her introduction, it is clear that Keri Walsh does not believe spoilers can truly impair the reading experience. This is probably a healthy approach to Joyce's work in general, and to Exiles in particular. The opening of her presentation seems to unveil too much, and yet it raises a series of questions, which Walsh will deftly return to with more information as she guides us through biographical elements and through the many critical debates that have been raised by this hermeneutic quandary of a play. For of course, Walsh tells us all, tells us now, and cannot tell us anything really, since the core of the matter—the consummation of adultery between Bertha and Robert, which may, or may not, have taken place in the ellipsis between the second and the third act—has to remain a topic for "restless living wounding doubt" (97). As Joyce remarked in the Notes he wrote when composing the play, "[t]he doubt which clouds the end of the play must be conveyed to the audience not only through Richard's questions to both but also from the dialogue between Robert and Bertha."1 Indeed, the short exchange between the two potential lovers is rendered almost absurd due to their apparent incapacity to know themselves what they have done: robert [Catching her hands.] Bertha! What happened last night? What is the truth that I am to tell? [He gazes earnestly into her eyes.] Were you mine in that sacred night of love? Or have I dreamed it? bertha [Smiles faintly.] Remember your dream of me. You dreamed that I was yours last night. robert. And that is the truth—a dream? That is what I am to tell? bertha Yes. (91) We get a good sample here of the serious, irony-free tone of the play, and of the reason why it has so many Joyceans cringe in embarrassment. That "Yes" is a long way from Molly's powerful combination of affirmation and abandonment. Two earlier plays written by Joyce have both been lost, but we know they were entitled A Brilliant Career and Dream Stuff,2 perhaps a sign that Joyce's own "brilliant career" as a dramatist was to remain "such stuff/As dreams are made on."3 In truth, the quality of Joyce's only extant play is debatable, and has been much debated. Exiles, however, is not just a pale imitation of Henrik Ibsen: it is much more modern, particularly in its playing with audience expectations of revelations, [End Page 349] and in its replacing the theme of the inevitable disclosure of truth with an ethics—a theology almost—of eternal doubt.4 However, for all the brilliant analyses of Exiles so many Joyceans have put forward—and Keri Walsh has done an equally brilliant synthesis and provided an excellent selected bibliography—the text itself remains as infuriating as it has always been. Its main character's sadistic confessor's tones are insufferable from beginning to end,5 and the submission of everyone else to his superior intellect smacks of Prospero's controlling obsessions without William Shakespeare's richness of plot or verbal inventiveness. Indeed, part of the problem with Exiles might be the reserved behavior and noble language of its main characters, and the lack of an equivalent to Caliban's rebellious "[y]ou taught me language, and my profit on't/Is, I know how to curse. The red-plague rid you/For learning me your language!" (I.ii.363-64). Similarly, Richard's "[t]he isle is full of voices" (84) gives but a poor summary of Caliban's poetic flight: "the isle is full of noises,/Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not./Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments/Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices" (III.ii.135-38). In fact, the play's language might be the problem in the problem play that is Exiles. For all its autobiographical content and...

Феномен Зиновьева. Заметки и воспоминания о личности философа

The article was written in connection with the centenary of our outstanding con­temporary Russian philosopher Alexander Zinoviev. The author, relying on the en­tire corpus of Zinoviev’s own works, considered with special emphasis on their autobiographical content, on studies of his life and work, and also partly using his personal memories, aims to understand the phenomenon of Zinoviev. The life for­mula expressed by his hero himself is taken as a basis: “I am a sovereign state of one person”. The article shows that the accentuated individualism of this state­ment is in fact an expression of personal sociality and a deep connection with the life of one’s country and era. This is not about the originality of Zinoviev’s per­sonality, but about its uniqueness, which expresses and at the same time affirms the uniqueness of the society, country and era that fell to his lot. Parallels are also drawn between Zinoviev’s sociology and his psychology and ethics.

Exploring the Boundaries of Second-Person Narrative: The Use of “You” in Maria Gerhardt’s Transfer Window

 In Maria Gerhardt’s autobiographical novel, Transfer Window (orig. Transfervindue, 2017), which is set in a fictionalized hospice universe and revolves around Gerhardt’s experience of being a terminal patient, the first-person protagonist, Maria, consistently refers to her part­ner as “you” without addressing her. This odd pronominal use is typically associated with second-person narrative. Yet, according to most definitions, Transfer Window is not a sec­ond-person narrative because of its 1) autobiographical content and 2) first-person protag­onist. In this article, I argue that second-person narrative is any narrative in which a “you” is designated, but not addressed, and present a new typology consisting of four different types of second-person narrative: 1) fictional second-person narrative without a marked in­stance of enunciation, 2) fictional second-person narrative with a marked instance of enunci­ation, 3) nonfictional second-person narrative without a marked instance of enunciation and 4) nonfictional second-person narrative with a marked instance of enunciation. My approach to second-person narrative is rooted in rhetorical fictionality theory, which provides a frame­work that allows me to view second-person narration as a narrative technique that, because of its odd pronominal use, signals fictionality, but can occur in both generic fiction and non­fiction. In my analysis of Transfer Window, I dive into Gerhardt’s use of fictionality, both in relation to the setting and the narrative situation of the book.

Vanishing Traces: Evolution of Autobiographical Practices on the Internet

This article analyses one of the many directions of change in online autobiographical practices, i.e. the decrease in the importance of autobiographical content preservation and archiving with the simultaneous increased popularity of ephemeral content, e.g. that which is automatically deleted after a single viewing. This trend in autobiographical digital practices is illustrated with significant examples of new media formats such as homepages, blogs as well as entries on the social media platform Facebook and the application Snapchat. The article enumerates stages of change with reference to various communication tools, but it should be noted that the evolutionary process is continuous and its stages overlap. The indicated direction of change in online autobiographical practices, determined by the developmental realities of new media, is analysed in connection with processual media theory, as well as the concept of an ephemeral turn in a digital environment.

What are your thoughts? Exploring age-related changes in episodic and semantic autobiographical content on an open-ended retrieval task

ABSTRACT Older adults display impairments in accessing episodic, but not semantic details, when specifically requested to construct autobiographical events. How aging affects access to autobiographical information under conditions of low retrieval constraint remains unclear. We examined the production of episodic and “non-episodic” details in young (n = 25) and older (n = 24) adults on a novel autobiographical narrative task free from constraints on the type of information to be retrieved (Thoughts task), compared with the standard autobiographical memory and picture description tasks. Older adults generated fewer episodic and more non-episodic details on the memory task than young adults, however there was no age difference in detail profiles on the Thoughts task. Under these conditions of low retrieval constraint, narratives of young and older adults consisted of mostly personal and general semantic content. Young adults also provided less episodic and more semantic details on the Thoughts than the memory task, while older adults provided similar amounts of details across tasks. These results reveal that both young and older adults retrieve semantic autobiographical content under minimally constrained retrieval conditions. Moreover, aging may impact upon the ability to shift the detail types (episodic, semantic) provided in response to changing demands of different autobiographical narrative tasks.

A window into short-story construction: Richard Yates’ “Builders” and questions of the autobiographical content of his work

Richard Yates, most remembered for his Revolutionary Road (1961), was also the author of two fine and exceptionally well-crafted collections of short stories, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness (1963) and Liars in Love (1981). Yates was a writer of exceptional perception and unflinching clarity, yet some have criticized his work as drawing too heavily on autobiographical content. This article seeks to examine Yates’ 1963 story “Builders” to gain insight into this extraordinary author’s understanding of the writing process, his use of autobiographical or semi-autobiographical content, and to suggest new approaches for work on this still under-appreciated twentieth century author.

Dina Torkia’s Modestly: Beauty work, autobiographical habitus and the modest fashion influencer

The article examines the Islamic fashion vlogger Dina Torkia’s book Modestly in terms of the ways in which it combines beauty and fashion advice and tutorials relating to modest fashion, hijab styling and cosmetics application. Through a critical discourse analysis of the book’s narrative and its many beauty- and fashion-based images, the article stresses how, having gained renown as a social media-based influencer and vlogger, Torkia’s book represents a remediated approach to communication practices of beauty and style advice. Hence, in a printed book form, Modestly consistently combines instruction with autobiographical content. In this regard, the article explores the differing ways that Modestly articulates expressions of Bourdieu’s concept of habitus in the context of modest Islamic fashion. This is explored in terms of the nature of the beauty and fashion instruction that is the main focus of the book, but also in how the autobiographical aspects of the text articulate Torkia’s self-reflections on cultural and sartorial habitus in relation to a Muslim lifestyle, modest dress and beauty conventions and changing perceptions and articulations of cultural hybridity and intersectional identity.

Sentir et percevoir. Du coma à l’éveil de coma

The evaluation of comatose patients in coma or of those with a consciousness disorder (unresponsive wakefulness syndrome, minimally conscious state) is an important issue in their management. Neuroscientific data show that multiple brain functions (such as sensation, perception, motor imaging, attention) are preserved in some of these patients. Several studies have also shown that the use of personalized stimulation, i.e. that refers to specific autobiographical content, improves the chances to observe behavioral, vegetative, cerebral or cognitive responses in patients in a coma or with a consciousness disorder. Among other significant stimuli, music is a very reliable tool, probably because of its links with multiple brain functions (motor, arousal, emotional, autobiographical, etc.). These results suggest that despite a dysfunction in or lack of consciousness, the memory traces associated with these patients’ life stories, experiences, and preferences can still be mobilized.

Autobiographical Memory Content and Recollection Frequency: Public Release of Quantitative Datasets and Representative Classification Analysis.

Autobiographical memory (AM), the recollection of personally-experienced events, has several adaptive functions and has been studied across numerous dimensions. We previously introduced two methods to quantify across the life span AM content (the amount and types of retrieved details) and the everyday occurrence of its recollection. The CRAM (cue-recalled autobiographical memory) test used naturalistic word prompts to elicit AMs. Subjects dated the memories to life periods and reported the numbers of details recalled across eight features (e.g., spatial detail, temporal detail, people, and emotions). In separate subjects, an experience sampling method quantified in everyday settings the frequency of AM retrieval and of mental representation of future personal events or actions (termed prospective memory: PM); these data permit evaluation of the temporal orientation of episodic recollection. We describe these datasets now publicly released in open access (CRAM: doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.10246958; AM-PM experience-sampling: doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.10246940). We also present examples of data mining, using cluster analyses of CRAM (14,242 AMs scored for content from 4,244 subjects). Analysis of raw feature scores yielded three AM clusters separated by total recalled content. Normalizing for total content revealed three classes of AM based on the relative contributions of each feature: AMs containing a relatively large number of details related to people, AMs containing a high degree of spatial information, and AMs with details equally distributed across features. Differences in subject age, memory age, and total content were detected across feature clusters. These findings highlight the value in additional mining of these datasets to further our understanding of autobiographical recollection.

Трагічний блазень французької літератури як топос ідентичності (з художнього досвіду Віктора Гюго і Поля Верлена)

The symbol, as an archetype with inexhaustible meanings, remains a relevant object of scientific research. Especially when it comes to symbols used by different national cultures. One of such symbols, an image of the tragic fool, is quite favoured by the writers of romanticism and the turn of the twentieth century. A general interest in their artistic and aesthetic systems, the multiplicity of interpretations of archsymbols, and the specifics of their authorial and national manifestations in literature determine the relevance of this study. The subject of the study is the specifics of the image of the tragic fool in the works the French writers iconic for romanticism (Victor Hugo) and symbolism (Paul Verlaine). Historical and literary, comparative and typological, archetypal scientific methods are used in the work. Their potential made it possible to consider the functioning peculiarities of the image of a tragic fool through the prism of identity. The broad context of this problem made it possible to solve several objectives: to outline the origins of the image; determine the factors of its actualization in the romanticism and modernism works; and analyze the authors’ versions of interpretation. Herein is the novelty of the study. The results of the study are as follows: in French literature of romanticism and symbolism — given such a common ideological and artistic basis for their aesthetics as individualism — in Hugo’s romance the tragic fool is a grotesque mark of the era, a symbol of unresolved complex social problems. In contrast, the symbolist Verlaine perceives the tragic fool an alter ego of the contemporary artist in particular and a man of the era in general, giving preference to aesthetic and philosophical priorities over social. The high potential of the autobiographical content of the image of the tragic fool is a peculiar feature of the modernist interpretation. He functions both as a lyrical hero and a mask of an autolyrical character. In literary mystifications, it is a character under a double mask. In the artist’s chosen strategy of realization of the life scenario, this symbol is expressed in the form of feigned asociality, épater le bourgeois, primitivism as an imitation of creativity, self-parody. Further studies are promising; the image of the tragic fool in various national literatures is a common tool for writers to mockingly demonstrate the “interior” of the social and world order. At the same time, the tragic accent of this image lies in the tradition to perceive one’s work as a manifesto of “hateful love” for one’s time, homeland, and the world.

Differential associations between impaired autobiographical memory recall and future thinking in people with and without schizophrenia.

The ability to think about future events serves a range of important functions. People with schizophrenia show impairments in future thinking. However, whether these impairments are specific to positive or negative events and to what extent they are associated with impairments in verbal fluency and autobiographical memory remains poorly understood. People with schizophrenia (n=93) and people without psychiatric diagnoses (n=111) were asked to generate future events and retrieve past autobiographical events and they alsocompleted a test of verbal fluency. Participants also completed questionnaire measures of the positive and negative dimensions of schizophrenia and depression symptoms. People with schizophrenia generated significantly fewer positive and negative future events than controls. In a linear regression, the interaction between diagnosis and autobiographical memory retrieval explained a significant amount of variance in the number of future events that participants generated even when accounting for symptoms and verbal fluency. Past and future thinking abilities were correlated in controls but not in people with schizophrenia. People with schizophrenia may not rely on autobiographical content to imagine the future and may rely instead on semantic processes. Interventions that improve past and future thinking amongst people with schizophrenia are warranted. Compared to control participants, people with schizophrenia have marked difficulty generating possible, positive and negative, future events. Unlike controls, for people with schizophrenia there is no relation between their ability to remember past events and their ability to think about the future. People with schizophrenia may have difficulty using their memories for their past to imagine and simulate possible future events.

I vitelloni como primera etapa en la expresión del sentimiento de nostalgia en la música que Nino Rota compuso para el cine de Federico Fellini

This article analyses in depth the music of one of Federico Fellini's first films: I Vitelloni (1953). It is the first part of a study that wants to go through films with clear autobiographical content among those directed by Federico Fellini. This part of his filmography is not at all marginal, since it includes about half of the films directed by Il Maestro, among them some of his masterpieces, such as La dolce vita or Otto e mezzo . The methodology combines, mainly, audiovisual analysis and textual analysis.

Nostalgia, Motherhood, and Adoption: Two Contemporary Swedish Examples

This paper explores the notion of nostalgia in two recent Swedish narratives of transnational adoption: Christina Rickardsson’s Sluta aldrig gå, 2016, (published in English as Never Stop Walking in 2017), and Cilla Naumann’s Bära barnet hem (“Carrying the Child Home”, 2015). The two narratives deal with adoption from South America to Sweden, include autobiographical content, and enable a comparison between an adoptee memoir (Rickardsson) and a parent-authored text (Naumann). Both texts center on maternal images, but the analysis suggests that Rickardsson’s narrative echoes the borderland nostalgia characteristic of adoptee writing. The adoptee memoirs, being reflective in mode and restorative in purpose, occupy a borderland between the two forms of nostalgia described by Boym (2001), while interrogating the temporal, spatial and affiliative boundaries of transnational adoption. Naumann’s nostalgic enterprise incorporates the mirrors, doubles and ghosts of reflective nostalgia. These representations are a fruitful means to represent the “other” family, and the alternative lives that were left behind in the process of adoption. Ultimately, her text suggests the limitations of the autobiographical mode and illustrates the capacity of fiction to provide a symbolic register in which to articulate the unspeakable aspects of adoption.

Carmen Martín Gaite, el juego de la vida y la literatura by José Jurado Morales

Reviewed by: Carmen Martín Gaite, el juego de la vida y la literatura by José Jurado Morales Joan L. Brown Jurado Morales, José. Carmen Martín Gaite, el juego de la vida y la literatura. Visor, 2018. Pp. 256. ISBN 978-8-49895-196-7. José Jurado Morales, Catedrático de Literatura Española at the University of Cádiz, Spain, is a leading expert on canonical Spanish writer Carmen Martín Gaite (1925–2000). Among his books are one definitive volume on her short stories and another on her novels. Carmen Martín Gaite, el juego de la vida y la literatura presents nearly two decades of original scholarship on Martín Gaite's literature. As with his earlier books, this collection demonstrates Jurado Morales's talent for synthesizing her work. New and compelling ideas are rooted in a profound knowledge of Martín Gaite's life and literature and enhanced by a sweeping command of international scholarship and literary theory. A bonus for the reader is Jurado Morales's direct and engaging style. Although the term "page-turner" is not usually applied to volumes of literary criticism, it is an appropriate descriptor for this one. The book opens with a preliminary chapter entitled "Carmen Martín Gaite: de la vida a la literatura." This introduction previews the volume's contents; it also reveals Jurado Morales's personal introduction to the author, when he first read her 1958 novel Entre visillos as a university student—a discovery that will resonate with many readers. Six thematic divisions organize the book's fourteen chapters. Fittingly, the first section is entitled "El fundamento autobiográfico." The opening chapter, "Tentativas autobiográficas," supplies a portrait of the woman who "vivió para escribir y escribió para sentir que vivía" (12). The next chapter, "Experiencia vital y escritura poética," traces the autobiographical content of Martín Gaite's poetry over time, and the third chapter, "Viaje a El cuarto de atrás," offers a succinct overview of her celebrated autobiographical novel from 1978. Section 2, "Amistad y literatura: Ignacio Aldecoa," features two essays on the relationship between Martín Gaite and Aldecoa. "A modo de homenaje: Esperando el porvenir" is an incisive review of Martín Gaite's 1994 memoir of the generation of mid-century, and "Los pasos encontrados de Martín Gaite e Ignacio Aldecoa" is a revelatory exploration of Aldecoa's impact on Martín Gaite. Generational connections are further developed in section 3, "Etapas de aprendizaje: cuentos del medio siglo," whose two chapters focus on the author's short stories. In "'Un día de libertad,' primer cuento de Martín Gaite," Jurado Morales finds characteristics in her first short story that will typify all of her future work, and "Algo más que cuentos de mujeres" demonstrates how Martín Gaite's stories contain some of her most transcendent social criticism. Part 4, entitled "El arte de pensar," presents four chapters related to narrative. "La entrada en el castillo: una poética del lector" defines Martín Gaite's relationship with her readers and with writing itself. In "Vivir el tiempo," time and temporality are analyzed across the author's fiction and nonfiction. The third essay in this section, "Sobre Los usos amorosos del dieciocho en España," elucidates the affinities between Martín Gaite's historical scholarship on the eighteenth century and her creative writing, demonstrating how both fields are informed by identical concerns. The final essay in this group, "La narrativa de Martín Gaite o la esencia misma del ensayo," also makes new connections across genres, showing how Martín Gaite's novels enact conceptions of literature and narration that are rooted in conventions of the essay. The last phase of Martín Gaite's career is the subject of Section Five, "Las novelas de supervivencia." In "De vida y literatura existencial: Lo raro es vivir" Jurado Morales traces the existential aspects of this 1996 novel, and in "Mundo interior y sociedad posmoderna: Los parentescos" he explores reflections of postmodern Spain in Martín Gaite's last, unfinished novel, published in 2001. The volume closes with part 6, "Texto sobre texto." This section contains...