Ramón Gómez de la Serna has always been one of my favorite Spanish novelists. Today I am beginning to teach El novelista, a metanovel from 1925 featuring Andrés Castilla, a novelist, and numerous novels-within-the-novel. I think I may have taught this book in the early 90s at Ohio State. It fits my plan nicely of teaching Niebla, El cuarto de atrás, and Obabakoak.
I freely admit that Ramón is not a great novelist in the conventional sense. He is mostly known for his metaphorical inventiveness, not his mostly forgettable characters and non-existent or digressive plotting. Yet I still like him better than almost any twentieth century Spanish novelist.
2 comentarios:
How about Juan Goytisolo? And Luis Martin Santos?
I cannot say i love Goytisolo or Martín Santos. They are obviously key novelists in the development of the postwar novel, but I don't really have a deep affinity for either of them. I know I'm supposed to like them.
My favorite Goytisolo is En los reinos de Taifa, which is not even a novel.
I wouldn't have learned Spanish to read the modern Spanish novel, as I did to read poetry written in Spanish. Nothing in 20th century peninsular novel thrills me as much as Galdós and Cervantes do. Ramón comes the closest.
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