Anatomía de un instante by Javier Cercas: The Novel in its Embryonic State. (December 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Viestenz, William
• Is Part Of: Hispanic research journal. Volume 15:Number 6(2014)
• Page Start: 547
• Page End: 564
• Publication Date: 2014-12
• Subjects: Language and culture -- Spanish-speaking countries -- Periodicals; Language and culture -- Portuguese-speaking countries -- Periodicals; Spanish philology -- Periodicals; Portuguese philology -- Periodicals; Spain -- Civilization -- Periodicals; Portugal -- Civilization -- Periodicals; Latin America -- Civilization -- Periodicals; 909.097561
• DOI: 10.1179/1468273714Z.000000000106
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1468-2737

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="eng"> <title> <x content-type="archive" xml:space="preserve">Abstract</x> </title> <p>This is the first in-depth analysis of the taxonomic distinction between two genres that Javier Cercas has conceptualized for the understanding of his work: the <italic>relato real</italic> and the <italic>relato ficticio</italic>. Scholarship has often attached the term <italic>relato real</italic> to novels such as <italic>Soldados de Salamina</italic>, a generic classification that Cercas vehemently rebuffs. I argue that Cercas's interpretation of the 1981 coup d'état, <italic>Anatomía de un instante</italic> (2010), conceptually fits the lineaments of a <italic>relato real</italic> at its outset. As the work progresses, however, the text comes to resemble what Cercas classifies as a <italic>relato ficticio</italic>, which ultimately unveils the bivalent relationship that the two genres share and challenges the author's diametrical separation of the modes of discourse. Following Cercas's theorization of the two <italic>relatos</italic>, the putative incongruity between historical and moral truth plays a primary role in the evolution of genre in <italic>Anatomía</italic>. Cercas's exegesis of <italic>el Tejerazo</italic> ultimately reveals that the two variations of <italic>relato</italic> represent separate but complementary epistemologies, which gestures towards a postulate made by Paul Ricoeur that narrative imagination exerts a schematic function in the conceptualization and understanding of historical knowledge.</p> </abstract>