Growing Up in an Inhospitable World: Female Bildungsroman in Spain by Olga Bezhanova (review)

Olga Bezhanova skillfully breaks with prevailing assumptions about female Bildungsroman to identify and define trends in contemporary female novels of formation in Spain. Through her analysis of some of the most representative female Bildungsromane over three eras (late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Franco’s dictatorship, and the post Franco era), she explores connections among female novels of formation, history, and Spain’s social context.

The main challenge Bezhanova faces is critical expectations for how Bildungsroman should be defined. She points out that critical debate hinders this genre from progressing. Antiquated concepts about the Bildungsroman genre prevent the inclusion of more novels which could enrich the genre and broaden our perspective in defining novels of formation. Most fascinating about this book is the way she debunks traditional views of novels of formation to highlight the “impressive capacity [of the Bildungsroman genre] to transform and to adapt to changing historical, social, and cultural norms” (13). Bezhanova proves that Bildungsroman is not static and formulaic, but rather a genre that can evolve and even draw from other genres. She successfully synthesizes the evolution of theoretical perspectives and the female Bildungs-roman genre in Spain. In addition to its chronological structure, the arrangement of chapters challenges critical assumptions, explores relevant thematic and stylistic features in detail, and studies relationships to previous or future Bildungsromane. Her analysis of Fernán Caballero’s Las dos Gracias, Pilar Sinués’ La vida íntima, and Concha Espina’s La rosa de los vientos in the first chapter demonstrates that, despite critics’ expectations, female novels of formation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries acknowledge the importance of women’s growth, offering some possibilities through which women could develop in a rigid patriarchal system. This section allows for a better understanding of the position that women occupied in society and their limited options in developing and protecting their rights.

Bezhanova goes on to examine how their initial desire to advance in life became unattainable during Franco’s dictatorship. The importance of the Bildungsromane discussed in this section derives from the creation of a common space in which female writers could discuss and voice their concerns during a time when their characters were forced to stunt their growth and regress to a metaphorical state of eternal childhood. Her analysis of Rosa Chacel’s Memorias de Leticia Valle, Teresa Barbero’s El último verano en el espejo, Ana Moix’s Julia, and Esther Tusquets’ El mismo mar de todos los veranos, Bezhanova offers valuable insight into the inner workings of the minds of the writers and their female characters when repression and the patriarchal system were at their height in the Franco era. In fact, the circularity of these novels and the characters’ motivation to stunt their growth and infantilize themselves were key to understanding most of the female novels of development written in the subsequent decades.

The final three chapters illuminate Bildungsromane written after Franco’s dictatorship, not only because they represent her main contribution to the discussion of female novels of formation, but also for the cultural and social implications that go beyond literary analysis. The author identifies and defines three trends in the latter part of the twentieth century: the circular Bildungsroman, the reminiscent Bildungsroman, and the collective Bildungsroman. Her analysis diverges from the simplistic views of liberty that female novels of formation were expected to portray after Franco’s death. She argues that contemporary female Bildungsromane have not completely abandoned the conventions and themes of the previous decades.

The analysis of the circular Bildungsroman delves more deeply into novels by female writers of the time to reveal an underlying social problem—“the realization that traditional gender roles have changed” (143)—as well as the struggle of some women to adapt and cope with this new situation and, consequently, their decision to willingly stunt their own growth. Almudena Grandes’ Las edades de Lulú and Espido Freire’s Irlanda show...