two new women writers from spain

TWO NEW WOMEN WRITERS FROM SPAINAuthor(s): Catherine G. BellverSource: Letras Femeninas, Vol. 8, No. 2 (1982), pp. 3-7Published by: Asociacion Internacional de Literatura y Cultura Femenina HispanicaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23020887 .

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TWO NEW WOMEN WRITERS FROM SPAIN

Two new Spanish female writers who deserve to be noted

arc Soledad Pu6rt.olas and Cristina Fernandez Cubas.^" Both

have published first works that have already captured the

attention of Spanish critics. Although El bandido doblemente

armado by Soledad Pu^rtolas is a novel and Mi hermana Elba by

Cristina Fernandez Cubas is a collection of short stories,

both books reveal a common concern for the meaning or impact 2

of relationships between friends or family members. Both

works are brief, simple and fast moving. Stylistic economy

enhances the precision of their expression, the spirit of

suspense and the intensity of their message.

Mi hermana Elba includes four different stories. The

first, "Ltinula y Violcta," contrasts two very different

women who become friends: one is sensitive and withdrawn

and the other is talkative and extroverted. Violeta's ulti

mate death is due £\s much to her own inaction and dependence

as to the destructive consequences of Ldnula's overbearing

cuergy.

Violeta's apparent mental unbalance and the mystery of

her identity for the townspeople anticipates the mystery, the

bizarre behavior, and the question of sanity in "La ventana

dc] jardfn." The narrator in this story goes to visit two of

his former friends on their farm on the outskirts of an un

named town. His recall at the outset of the story of the un

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usual behavior of his friends' son, which he excused before

as a joke, becomes the unsettling reality of the ensuing

narration. The story traces the narrator's increasing anxi

ety as he begins to suspect his friends' insanity and he

comes to discover the total isolation of their sick son.

Confined to his room, little Albert has been taught a pri

vate language: for him "amigo" means glass, father is "cu

charamother is "escoba," and his name is "011a." The nar

rator attempts to rescue the boy from his environment, but

his plan fails.

"Mi hermana Elba," the story that provides the title

for the entire collection, also includes an abnormal chiId,

but she participates in common reality. The central focus

of the story, however, is not little Elba, but her older

sister, the narrator. Rereading her diary, the narrator re

creates the two years that marked her passage from childhood

to adolescence. She recalls the friendship that disappeared,

the death of her beloved sister Elba, and the childhood

games that gave way to her initiation into romance. The in

voluntary cruelty of her friend Fatima, who returns to school

one year dressed as a grown-up and seeking more mature

friends than the narrator, is tempered at the end of the

story by its concluding note of happiness.

The last story of the collection, like the first, con

trasts the personality of two friends. Eduardo is destroyed

by the influence of his wife and becomes an alchoholic when

he discovers that she has used docility and submission to

conceal her careful analysis of him. The other friend re

mains faithful to Eduardo despite his ruination.

These four different stories all share a common theme

of progressive physical or moral destruction. The plot of

each is resolved with death, two stories ending with a lit

eral death and two ending with a ruined life equivalent to

death. Friendship seems to be the only force that gives

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meaning to life and psychological sustenance to people.

Fernflndez Cubas favors the use of the narrator protag

onist to orient her stories. Two of her narrators are fe

male and two are male. They all retell significant exper

iences from their past. This sense of memoirs is empha

sized in the case of two of the stories in which diaries

provide the basic structure for the narration. Cristina

Fernandez Cubas, a literary surprise, as the critics have

called her, succeeds in creating a united but varied fic

tional world with a minimum of literary artifices.

Like Fernandez Cubas' short stories, El bandido doble

mente avmado, recipient of the Premio S6samo of 1979, is

narrated by its protagonist and presents the contrasting

personalities of two friends. Terry, one of the friends,

explains the difference between them using, as metaphor,

the example of a type of problem known as " el bandido doble

mente armado." Confronted with two coins to be tossed, a

person can adopt two possible strategies: either he can in

tuitively bet on one of the coins, or he can choose one coin,

toss it until it fails him, and then procede with the other

coin. The narrator had chosen the first attitude: never

having assumed any risks, he had limited himself to the

known and to observing reality from a distance without

really participating in it. The other attitude, just as ex

treme and just as destructive, was the one Terry had assumed.

He changed his line of action often, almost allowing himself

to be consumed by the vertigo of constant risk taking. Both

avenues have deprived each one of developing the best in

himself. Terry entraps himself in increasingly more cri

minal activities that will undoubtedly lead to imprisonment,

while the narrator sinks into his passivity still unable at

the end of the book to develop the literary skills he had

demonstrated as a young boy.

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The novel traces the narrator's relationship throughout

his life not only with his school pal Terry but also with

the rest of Terry's family. Faithful friend and counselor

to all of them, the narrator serves as a necessary psycho

logical support for them and as the structural axis around

which the plot of the novel revolves. Because the book is

narrated from the vantage point of the protagonist, our at

tention is directed toward the Lennox family rather than to

ward the narrator himself. He seems more of a catalyst than

a director of the lives of the other characters. This pas

sive function of his reconfirms his stance of observer be

fore life.

Solcdad Pudrtolas avoids dramatic conflict in the

structure of her plot, preferring instead to expose the

evolving human relationships of her characters. The setting,

although suggesting at times Spain, France, or the United

States, is unspecified. This lack of specificity allows the

book to create an environment that is both mysterious and

realistic. This dual climate together with its precise de

scriptions and clearly delineated characters has suggested

to some an influence of Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammet

on Putfrtolas' work.

Both Cristina Fernandez Cubas and Soledad Pudrtolas are

refreshing additions to the contemporary literary scene of

Spain. Perhaps of a minor key, both nevertheless demon

strate a sensitivity for the exploration of intimate rela

t ionsh i ps.

Catherine (I. Bel Ivor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

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NOTES

Soledad Puertolas, born in Zarazoza, received her M.A. at the

University of California, at Santa Barbara. She has published a study on Baroja and articles of literary criticism as well as working as a

journalist. Cristina Fernandez Cubas, a Catalan born in 19^5, also works as a journalist.

2 "El bandido doblemente armado (Madrid: Editorial Legasa, 1980).

Mi hermana Elba (Barcelona: Tusquets Editores, 1980 and 198l).

^Milagros Sanchez Arnosi calls her "una sorpresa literaria": Insula, No. 1+13 (abril .1981), p. 8, and Luis Sufien refers to Christina Fernandez Cubas as "una excelente sorpresa": Insula, No. Hl5 .(junio 1981), p. 5.

h . . This is the opinion of the editors of her book as expressed on

its back cover.

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