Constructing Spain

The Re-imagination of Space and Place in Fiction and Film, 1953–2003

Nathan Richardson

Does fiction do more than just represent space? Can our experiences with fictional storytelling be in themselves spatial? In Constructing Spain: The Re-imagination of Space and Place in Fiction and Film, Nathan Richardson explores relations between cultural representation and spatial transformation across fifty years of Spanish culture. Beginning in 1953, the year Spanish space was officially reopened to Western thought and capital, and culminating in 2003, the year of Aznar’s unpopular involvement of his country in the second Iraq War, Richardson traces in popular and critically acclaimed fiction and film an evolution in Spanish storytelling that, while initially representative in nature, increasingly engages its audience in spatial practices that go beyond mere perception or conception of local material geographies.

In original readings of films by Luis Berlanga, Luis Buñuel, Alex de la Iglesia, Alejandro Amenábar, and Julio Medem, and novels by Juan Goytisolo, Antonio Muñoz Molina, and Javier Marías, Richardson shows this formal evolution as a necessary response to developments, restorations, and transformations of local landscapes that resulted during these years from various human migrations, tourist-invasions, urban development plans, resurgent nationalisms, and finally globalization. As these changes occur, Richardson traces a shift in the works studied from mere representation of spatial change toward actual engagement with shifting physical and social geographies, as they inch ever closer toward the production of an actual spatial experience for their audiences. In the final chapters of this book, Richardson offers in-depth and highly original readings of the storytelling projects of Medem and Marías in particular, showing how these two artists invite readers to not only reconceive hegemonic notions of space and place, but to practice alternative notions of being-in-place. In these final readings, Constructing Spain, points to the newest developments in contemporary Spanish narrative and film, a rise of new grammars of creation to challenge the ongoing capital-driven creative destruction of globalized Spanish geography.

University Press Copublishing Division / Bucknell University Press

Pages: 352 •

978-1-61148-396-3 • Hardback • December 2011 • $126.00 • (£97.00)

978-1-61148-397-0 • eBook • December 2011 • $114.00 • (£88.00)

Subjects: Art / Film & Video, History / Europe / Spain & Portugal, History / Modern / 20th Century, History / Modern / 21st Century, Literary Criticism / European / Spanish & Portuguese, Social Science / Customs & Traditions, Social Science / Regional Studies, Social Science / Sociology / Urban

Constructing Spain

The Re-imagination of Space and Place in Fiction and Film, 1953–2003

Hardback

eBook

Summary

Does fiction do more than just represent space? Can our experiences with fictional storytelling be in themselves spatial? In Constructing Spain: The Re-imagination of Space and Place in Fiction and Film, Nathan Richardson explores relations between cultural representation and spatial transformation across fifty years of Spanish culture. Beginning in 1953, the year Spanish space was officially reopened to Western thought and capital, and culminating in 2003, the year of Aznar’s unpopular involvement of his country in the second Iraq War, Richardson traces in popular and critically acclaimed fiction and film an evolution in Spanish storytelling that, while initially representative in nature, increasingly engages its audience in spatial practices that go beyond mere perception or conception of local material geographies.

In original readings of films by Luis Berlanga, Luis Buñuel, Alex de la Iglesia, Alejandro Amenábar, and Julio Medem, and novels by Juan Goytisolo, Antonio Muñoz Molina, and Javier Marías, Richardson shows this formal evolution as a necessary response to developments, restorations, and transformations of local landscapes that resulted during these years from various human migrations, tourist-invasions, urban development plans, resurgent nationalisms, and finally globalization. As these changes occur, Richardson traces a shift in the works studied from mere representation of spatial change toward actual engagement with shifting physical and social geographies, as they inch ever closer toward the production of an actual spatial experience for their audiences. In the final chapters of this book, Richardson offers in-depth and highly original readings of the storytelling projects of Medem and Marías in particular, showing how these two artists invite readers to not only reconceive hegemonic notions of space and place, but to practice alternative notions of being-in-place. In these final readings, Constructing Spain, points to the newest developments in contemporary Spanish narrative and film, a rise of new grammars of creation to challenge the ongoing capital-driven creative destruction of globalized Spanish geography.

Details

University Press Copublishing Division / Bucknell University Press

Pages: 352 •

978-1-61148-396-3 • Hardback • December 2011 • $126.00 • (£97.00)

978-1-61148-397-0 • eBook • December 2011 • $114.00 • (£88.00)

Subjects: Art / Film & Video, History / Europe / Spain & Portugal, History / Modern / 20th Century, History / Modern / 21st Century, Literary Criticism / European / Spanish & Portuguese, Social Science / Customs & Traditions, Social Science / Regional Studies, Social Science / Sociology / Urban

Author

Nathan Richardson is associate professor of Spanish at Bowling Green State University.

Table of Contents

Preface

1. Introduction: Spanish Territories, Global Geographies: Exploring Space and Place in a New Spain
A Short Spatial History of Spain
Making Money Different(ly): Space and Capital, or the Urbanization of Consciousness
Creating Space/Making Reality in a Third Millennium

2. The Production of Space and Place in Franco’s Spain, 1953-1970
Once Upon a Place: ¡Bienvenido, Mr. Marshall!
Este cuento se ha acabado: the Spanish State in the Late Francoist Era, 1953-1970
The Ends of Spanish Space: Reivindicación del Conde don Julián

3. Building Beyond Spain: Readings from the Spanish Novel, 1970-1989
The Beginning of a Promising Friendship: El invierno en Lisboa and the Flows of Postmodern Space
A Nation-State of Shadows: Muñoz Molina’s Beltenebros, 1944–1989
Antonio Muñoz Molina (1991- ): Riding Beyond the Storm

4. Sacred Spain: Creative Destruction in the Spanish Cinema, 1961-2000
The Postsecularization Thesis, or Buñuel’s Desperate Call for Life: Viridiana
1975-1990: Secular Disenchantment and Sacred Movidas
1990–2000: The Rituals of Design, Corruption, and Consumption in El día de la bestia
1990-2000, II: Cyber-Messiahs in a New Spain: Alejandro Amenábar’s Abre los ojos

5. The World Will Be Redonda, or the Dark Back of Community: the Narrative World of Javier Marías, 1989-1996
Searching for Community in a Syrup-preserved World: Todas las almas
The Rise of a Kingdom: Corazón tan blanco, Mañana en la batalla piensa en mí, and other Marías challenges, 1989–1996
Arriving at Redonda: Negra espalda del tiempo

6. Preserving the House While Pursuing the World: Julio Medem’s Engagement with Basque Space, from Vacas to La Pelota Vasca, 1992-2003
Vacas: Rethinking (Again and Again) Intimate Basque Space
Expanding Basqueland: La ardilla roja and Tierra
Circling Eden: Los amantes del círculo polar
From Euskal Herria to Euskal Hirria, or How to Build a New Basque City: La pelota vasca

Afterward: Spanish Grammars of Creation: Re-conceiving, Perceiving, and Practicing Space for the Twenty-First Century
Notes
Bibliography
Index