Novela y sociedad en la España contemporánea (1994–2009) (review)

In Spain's long history, several landmark years stand out. Monumental years such as 1898, 1936, and 1975 mark notable moments; yet, embedded in these dates are implications that run deeper than the historic event itself.

In Novela y sociedad en la España contemporánea (1994–2009), Carmen de Urioste Azcorra successfully defends the year 1986 as a milestone in Spain. The year not only marks the entrance of Spain into the European Economic Community (today known as the European Community and one of the three pillars of the European Union), the affirmative vote for Spain to continue as part of NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization), and the second socialist party's win since the beginning of the transition to democracy, but it also represents Spain's struggle to define its identity in the years after Franco's regime. The author anchors her study to the paradoxical relationship between the globalization and individualization of Spain and its citizens, specifically from 1986 onward. It is precisely the tension between the construction of community, or lack thereof, and the individual's reflection of what is, or what is not, community that marks Spanish literature of the 1980s and 1990s.

The organization of the book is effective, which creates a fluid and enjoyable read. Chapter 1, "Cultura española y cultura europea," presents a brief timeline of Spanish history from 1975 to the present day, draws attention to movements like the Madrilenian movida of the 1980s, and, overall, sets the cultural and historic basis for the remaining seven chapters. Highlighting the economic and cultural changes that occurred during the years of the transition to democracy into the 1990s, Urioste stresses that the Europeanization of Spain is the root of the subsequent individualization of the Spanish citizen. Her argument is solid; she cites important scholars such as Manuel Vázquez Montalbán and Anthony Giddens to support her claim that the consequence of the 1986 entrance into the global economic scene was the reexamination of sexual, gender, and ideological Spanish identity in cultural and artistic movements.

Each of the remaining seven chapters is devoted to one or more novels—José Ángel Ma-ñas, Juan Bonilla, Lucía Etxebarria, Benjamín Prado, Care Santos, Ray Loriga, and Almudena Grandes are the authors included in Urioste's study—that wrestle with collective and individual Spanish identity. In the novels by these seven authors, themes like sex, family, urban life, and collective memory point toward a society still in transition, still searching for identity. Furthermore, just as she does in the introductory first chapter, Urioste constructs a strong theoretical framework that generously supports the argument of each subsequent chapter. In Chapter 3, "La sociedad del espectáculo: Nadie conoce a nadie de Juan Bonilla," the author skillfully employs the ideas of Bakhtin and Derrida to aid her case that play (jouissance) is one way to help negotiate reality and to gain knowledge about the world that surrounds us. Chapter 6, titled, "Deseo y violencia: Aprender de huir de Care Santos," introduces Delueze and Guatarri's theory of desire, which supports her claim that desire is a social production that attempts to give structure to a community and at the same time may alienate the individual within that community. Urioste highlights the Foucauldian notion of the human being in the metropolis as she studies Ray Loriga's novel El hombre que inventó Manhattan in Chapter 7, and she fittingly reminds us of Pierre Nora's theory of historic memory as she analyzes El corazón helado by Almudena Grandes in the last chapter.

In this era of "going green," kudos must be given to Editorial Fundamentos for choosing to print the book on ecological, chlorine-free paper and for donating at least .7 percent of all profits to nonprofit organizations that advocate human rights in developing countries.

Unfortunately, a few typos—not placing a written accent mark and overlooking gender and...