The testimonial novel and the novel of memory
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Abstract
When placing works of prose fiction within the framework of modernity, critics find that diverse styles and trends tend to conform to a basic structure, which Nil Santianez-Tio has termed a “spectrum of possibilities”: This spectrum has two poles: the realist pole (transparent language, tendency toward a transparent linguistic code, metonymical structure, unity of structure and subject, temporal organization, relation of subject to his/her biographic and social context, predominance of story over discourse, preference for unity and consistency, tendency to global visions, subordination to the principle of non-contradiction); the experimental, modernist pole (experimental and dislocated language, a dense linguistic code, metaphoric structure, dissolution of personal identity, spatial organization, predominance of fictional discourse over story, a narrative distanced from direct communication, rejection of global visions, epistemological doubt). In 1983 I proposed that a similar polarity existed between the testimonial novel, on the one hand, and the poetic novel, on the other. But whether one speaks of “realist” as opposed to “modernist” prose or of the testimonial as opposed to the poetic novel, it is certainly the case that the idea of literary polarity derives from what we consider “modern” literature. Both poles may be present at the same time, in the same writer, and even in the same work. These poles may exist in a relatively pure state or as subtle variations that combine the magnetic attraction of one to the other.