Abstract
The present article analyzes the function of ideology, history, and genre conventions in Jaume Fuster’s “mythical novel”, that is to say, the trilogy composed of the following works: L’Illa de les Tres Taronges (1983), L’Anell de Ferro (1985) i El Jardí de les Palmeres (1993). Attention will be paid to Fuster’s double condition of writer and activist, which proves to be inseparable in his identity of a Catalan intellectual, as well as to the construction of an original narrative mode by means of fantasy elements. It will be argued that the trilogy employs a Tolkien-like basis of medievalizing marvelous in order to build an innovative literary work according to postmodern parameters and that Catalan secessionism and left-wing ideology are paramount in Fuster’s narrative strategy.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
All translations are by the author unless otherwise stated.
- 2.
Today he is probably known thanks to the Barcelona public library named after him, that was build in 2005 in the popular district of Gràcia and was designed by the Valencian architect Josep Llinàs.
- 3.
As Armitt (2005: 1) admits in her introductory study about fantasy, this term in English can refer to “utopia, allegory, fable, myth, science fiction, the ghost story, space opera, travelogue, the Gothic, cyberpunk, magic realism; the list is not exhaustive, but it covers most of the modes of fiction discussed in this book as «fantasy»”. However, despite including “ghost stories” in the list, the scholar distinguishes between fantasy, which would impose “absolute closure”, and the “disruptive, open-ended narratives” of the fantastic (Armitt 2005: 7).
- 4.
The term was coined by Oriol Pi de Cabanyes and Guillem-Jordi Graells in their interviews book La generació literària dels setanta: 25 escriptors nascuts entre 1939–1949, in order to name a group of writers who were born after the Spanish civil war and started their careers around the 60s. This book was to be published in 1971, but it was prohibited by the Francoist censorship, only to be available at the market only five years later.
- 5.
Few books may be remarked: the volume of erotic fiction Deu pometes té el pomer [The apple tree has ten apples] (1980), the horror and fantastic stories Lovecraft, Lovecraft (1981) or the science fiction book Essa Efa: recull de contes intergalàctics [S ef: a collection of intergalactic short stories] (1985). In these collections every short story was anonymous. In this way, its authorship was revealed only when appearing in some definite writer’s book.
- 6.
Surely, thinkers from abroad influenced these writers as well, for instance the Italian heterodox Marxist Antonio Gramsci, or other local ones, like Maria Aurèlia Capmany. However, Joan Fuster’s erudition and foresight was an open window to many contemporary theoretical approaches that turned out very helpful for Catalan young intellectuals in the censured and shut off culture of the Francoist Spain.
- 7.
For detailed information about the relations between Pedrolo’s literary works and his intellectual and political commitment, see Ferré Trill (2015).
- 8.
Indeed, Fuster and other writers of his sphere joined—or had ties with—a radical socialist party, the Partit Socialista d’Alliberament Nacional [Socialist Party of National Liberation] (PSAN), or other political organizations split or evolving from it.
- 9.
It is worth adding that Tolkien did not conceive The Lord of the Rings as a trilogy: “It was a work so large the publisher insisted that it be divided and issued as three separate volumes. Its sales success created tremendous popularity for the trilogy, as it came to be known, and set a fashion for trilogies in fantasy that has existed ever since” (Mathews 2002: 61). For a full comparison between Fuster’s trilogy and Tolkien’s model, see Gregori (2008).
- 10.
This controversial term was—and still is—used to designate the building of an extensive corpus and the applying of linguistic policies, both for consolidating and spreading the usage of Catalan to all scopes of life. It implied that this language was the “normal” option for the local population, since it was primordially used in Catalonia and other neighboring territories from the emergence of the foundational Christian political units while fighting against Al-Andalus in Middle Ages. Moreover, being the core value of the nation, Catalan was meant to have a priority usage in institutional and public mass media at the time when they were created and developed in Catalonia. This has been the main goal of “normalization”, which lacked for taking into account the connotations of the term, to some point analogous to “naturalization” or other appellations pointing to normative schemas under nature-related terminology. Josep-Anton Fernàndez’s El malestar en la cultura catalana: la cultura de la normalització (1976–1999) (2008) is a thorough analysis of the deployment of this concept from a cultural studies point of view.
- 11.
The term “medievalizing” does not imply that action is set in the Middle Ages, but in an indefinite place presenting objects, infrastructure, habits, and technology characteristic of medieval times, even if several of these elements might belong likewise to other eras. Indubitably, motifs taken from literary tradition are paramount for constructing medievalizing sets, yet this is a modern mode that does not correspond to—nor is included in—medieval marvelous, which was written in the Middle Ages under a quite distinct worldview paradigm. For an accurate but brief study about the medieval marvelous, see Morales (2002).
- 12.
That is why Fuster himself called „novel·la mítica” [mythical novel] the narrative genre that he applied to his trilogy (Nadal 1992: 36).
- 13.
On the other hand, multiple works hint at the allegorical nature of The Lord of the Rings as a British-based claim against totalitarianism, either communism or Nazism.
- 14.
This formulation arises from applying Michael Freeden’s theory of ideology to literary hermeneutics, specifically to complex readings of fantastic works. For a detailed explanation and argumentation, see Gregori (2015b).
- 15.
La Isla de las Tres Naranjas (1984) and El Anillo de Hierro (1985) were the result of assigning the translation to Basilio Losada, a renowned man of letters whose work is briefly analysed in Polish language in Gregori (2013), focusing on how the genre prejudices affected the translator’s final solutions.
- 16.
“[….] he observed the gradual vanishing of the fighting spirit that reigned in certain circles from the Transition’s beginning, the passing away of the dreams of the young people that had seen Franco’s death and plenty of hopes claiming for radical changes, rupture and alternative sociopolitical models, mainly based on socialist or social anarchist options. During this process followers got less and less encouraged, with the gradual defeat of these political options, losing their ideological naivety and assuming in the 80s and the 90s ideological and cultural attitudes that were of «resistance type»”.
- 17.
For a deeper account of the novel and its relation to normality as an ideological discourse, see Gregori (2015a).
- 18.
Being the first book of the trilogy, the title would be a subtler allusion to the three branches of patriotic pine mentioned above. One fact reinforces this interpretation: the heroes must get the banner with the symbol of the three oranges in order to live in a peacefully harmony.
- 19.
The narrative voice in marvelous texts does not tend to be emotionally involved, but in the trilogy the narrator is Guiamon, a poet who loyally accompanies the hero for singing his epic deeds. Both narrative subjectivity and other author’s strategies, often based on irony, tone down the incredulity that readers are supposed to experience when meeting a marvelous work. As a matter of fact, Armitt (2005: 7) broadly remarks this point alluding to Todorov’s seminal study Introduction à la littérature fantastique (1970): “[…] where genre fantasy implies complicity on the part of readers, the literary fantastic actively seeks out reader hesitancy as a means of building in competing readings of the text, typically resolving around two choices, the psychological or the supernatural”.
- 20.
Roger is a mercenary that becomes a people’s vigorous leader thanks to fate, whereas Garidaina is a princess that shows no embarrassment of being a plebeian’s partner.
- 21.
The so-called blue estelada, with a white star, is older and strongly reminds of the design of the Cuban flag or of those belonging to other countries set free from colonialist control. The red one, with a red star, was created by left-oriented fractions of the separatist movement linked to the PSAN.
- 22.
Jassot lives in Airut, which is the inversed transcription of “Túria”, that is, the river on the banks of which is situated the city of Valencia, being one of the salient motifs in Estellés’ lyrical work. In fact, it is understandable that the link between the physical poet and his fictional translation is a geographical element belonging to this place, because his literary works refer abundantly to the urban reality of Valencia.
- 23.
This term refers to Shklovsky’s formalism, which considered de-automatization the way to fully understand art as a means of experiencing the process of creativity: “By «enstranging» objects and complicating form, the device of art makes perception long and «laborious». The perceptual process in art has a purpose all its own and ought to be extended to the fullest” (Shklovsky 1990: 6).
- 24.
As Mathews (2002: 5) puts it, “[…] satire bears a similarly close relationship to fantasy, but it, too, is nearer to the real world than to pure fantasy. […] satire may depart into fantasy, but usually the departure is tinged with the awareness of exaggeration and unbelievability, and the literary focus or thematic purpose turns away from the fantastic toward the real”.
References
Armitt, L. (2005). Fantasy fiction: An introduction. London & New York: Continuum.
Fernàndez, J.-A. (2008). El malestar en la cultura catalana: la cultura de la normalització (1976–1999). Barcelona: Empúries.
Ferré Trill, X. (2015). Manuel de Pedrolo i la nació (1957–1982). Barcelona: Edicions del 1979.
Fuster, J. (1983). L’Illa de les Tres Taronges. Barcelona: Planeta.
Fuster, J. (1985). L’Anell de Ferro. Barcelona: Planeta.
Fuster, J. (1993). El Jardí de les Palmeres. Barcelona: Planeta.
Gregori, A. (2008). Lo maravilloso tolkiano en la trilogía mítica de Jaume Fuster. In J. Wilk-Racięska & J. Lyszczyna (Eds.), Encuentros, II: Encuentros con la literatura y el teatro del mundo hispano (pp. 150–163). Katowice: Oficyna Wydawnicza WW.
Gregori, A. (2013). Gdy gatunki kolidują: Analiza przekładu katalońskiej trylogii mitycznej Jaume Fustera na język hiszpański. In S. Puppel & T. Tomaszkiewicz (Eds.), Scripta manent – res novae (pp. 67–76). Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM.
Gregori, A. (2015a). Jaume Fuster: la ideologia de la normalitat a través de la meravella fantàstica. In C. Cortés, C. Sinner, & K. Wieland (Eds.), La recuperació de la literatura en català: de la anormalitat a la normalitat (pp. 55–67). Aachen: Shaker.
Gregori, A. (2015b). La dimensión política de lo irreal: el componente ideológico en la narrativa fantástica española y catalana. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM.
Jackson, R. (1986). Fantasy: The literature of subversion. London & New York: Routledge.
Mathews, R. (2002). Fantasy: The liberation of imagination. London & New York: Routledge.
Morales, A. M. (2002). Lo maravilloso medieval y sus categorías. Puebla: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla.
Nadal, M. (1992). Jaume Fuster: Una literatura cinematogràfica. Serra d’Or, 386, 35–38.
Pi de Cabanyes, O., & Graells, G.-J. (1971). La generació literària dels 70: 25 escriptors nascuts entre 1939–1949. Barcelona: Pòrtic.
Shklovsky, V. (1990). Theory of prose (B. Sher, Trans.). Elmwood Park, IL: Dalkey Archive.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gregori, A. (2019). Fantasy, History, and Politics: Jaume Fuster’s Trilogy, or the Undone Catalan Nation. In: Casanovas, P., Corretger, M., Salvador, V. (eds) The Rise of Catalan Identity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18144-4_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18144-4_15
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-18143-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-18144-4
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)