Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos

Dictatorship and Publicity. Cela's Pascual Duarte: The Monster SpeaksAuthor(s): JOSÉ B. MONLEÓNReviewed work(s):Source: Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Invierno 1994), pp. 257-273Published by: Revista Canadiense de Estudios HispánicosStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27763102 .Accessed: 25/12/2011 21:45

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JOSE B. MONLEON

Dictatorship and Publicity. Cela's Pascual Duarte: The Monster Speaks

Tomando como ejemplo la novela de Camilo Jos6 Cela, el presente trabajo analiza el funcionamiento y las implicaciones de la parad6jica esfera publica totalitaria que sirvi6 de base a la dictadura del general Franco. La prohibici6n en 1943 de una reedici6n de La familia de Pascual Duarte (1942) sirve de base

para la reflexi6n sobre el problema de la publicidad - del acto de hacerse

pd'blico - como factor que tiene repercusiones a la hora de asignar un significado

al texto. La censura de la novela hace que 6sta adquiera irremediablemente una

carga subversiva, pero en la medida en que no habia sido detectada por los

primeros censores surge el dilema de si la lectura ideol6gica se encuentra

limitada a consideraciones textuales o si, por el contrario, intervienen otros

procesos. La presencia de un contexto en un texto no se encuentra limitada a la

fi nci6n referencial del signo sino que puede ser registrada tambien en sus ausencias. La familia de Pascual Duarte puede haber sido una obra ideol6gica mente correcta, pero el hecho de que ofreciera el espectdculo de un monstruo que empunaba la pluma cuando le correspondia el silencio era en si mismo un cuestionamiento de la esfera ptblica totalitaria.

INTRODUCTION Toward the end of 1942, Camilo Jos6 Cela published La familia de Pascual Duarte. In the desolate Spanish cultural landscape immediately following the Civil War, the appearance of the novel caused passionate reactions: it

inspired vehement praise as well as tempestuous criticism (Urrutia 47).1 The book had been supported by official organisms and did not encounter major obstacles during its required revision by the censors. One year later, a second edition was prohibited. How can one account for this drastic change of attitude by the authorities? Was there an "erroneous" first reading, an act of

negligence on the part of the censors? Or does the text contain different levels of signification, a polysemy so contradictory that it allowed for

opposing ideological appropriations? In other words, must the blame be

REVISTA CANADTRNSE DE ESTLJDTOS HTSPANTcOS Vol XVIII 2 Invierno 1994

258

attributed to discursive and formal practices or to external - contextual -

considerations? This fluctuation in the decision of censorship could be understood as the

result of a concrete historical situation. In August of 1942, Ram6n Serrano Sufer and his followers in the Falange were removed from power. Their

departure signalled a political change within the regime that had immediate

repercussions in the cultural sphere. Thus, for instance, a glance at Escorial, one of the most influential literary journals of the time, reveals a clear modification of the magazine's general editorial policy: all articles eulogizing the values of the Falange or the feats of the DivisiOn Azul2 - a regular feature

during the first part of 1942 - disappear towards the end of the year. Likewise, in 1943, novels by such Falangist authors as Pedro de Lorenzo (La

quinta soledad), Gonzalo Torrente Ballester (Javier Marino), or Rafael Garcia Serrano (La fiel infanterla), who openly supported the Franco regime, were

prohibited. In 1943, as Alexandre Cirici demonstrates, Francoism entered a new ideological epoch that would tone down the virtues of militarism and exalt family and religious values (174).

For Jorge Urrutia, the problems encountered by La familia de Pascual Duarte were due to moral rather than political issues (56). This argument might seem consistent with the historical changes indicated. Nevertheless,

during Francoism - and particularly during the Forties - the distinction between morality and politics was always extremely fine. In any case, this historical explanation is not sufficient. La familia de Pascual Duarte is a text that faithfully reproduces the general ideological and moral principles of the

regime above and beyond concrete political junctures.3 Its subversiveness resides neither in the pages of fiction nor in those of history. A rather more

complex process is at work here, one that implies a becoming: the "private reading" undertaken by the censors was not negligent; yet, when Pascual Duarte entered the public sphere, a different reading (a "public reading") developed that completely transformed its significance.

Private and public readings must not be mistaken for individual and collective readings. I am alluding to a very specific problem

- that of

censorship. The anonymous act of the evaluator, charged with the institu tional mission of policing the virtues or flaws of a given work and of

anticipating its public impact, is the private reading. The resulting dialogue of such a work once it comes into being

- once it becomes public - is the

public reading. In the first instance, the paradigmatic reader that the censor incarnates faces an isolated text, reproducing the illusory and idealized situation of future readers. In the second, the dialogical nature of the text, its intertextuality, the social mechanisms of review and criticism, the medium in which it appears, its concrete physical appearance, and so on, will dictate its reception.4

259

The Francoist literary public sphere emerges as a contradictory institution. On the one hand, it posits itself as representative of the bourgeois sphere, as a truly free medium where public opinion is rationalized; on the other, it is envisioned as an extension of the prerogatives of authority, as a tool for

exercising power.5 Literature must seem spontaneously to reach a public stature and represent a social consensus, while strict controls guide the

pathway to the presses. Censorship plays a fundamental role in this situation and should be considered a constitutive part of writing/reading under totalitarian rule.6 It is an absent presence in the text, but one that transcends "the trace of the other" of contemporary linguistic theory: "We must not

therefore speak of a 'theological prejudice; functioning sporadically when it is a question of the plenitude of the logos; the logos as the sublimation of the trace is theological" (Derrida 71). In this context, the logos is rather a remnant carrying the scars of nondiscursive practices: imprisonment, fines, exile, silence. Its transcendence resides in the censor - it materializes in The Censor.7

In the Spain of 1942, the public sphere is, ultimately, Francisco Franco: he

signifies, validates, configures. Censorship is not "the knot that binds power and knowledge," as the subtitle of Jansen's book indicates. Censorship is

power and knowledge. Displaying the medieval tradition that he so proudly defended, Franco incarnated order and peace, harmony extended to the most secret and conflictive corners: "In medieval documents 'lordly' and 'publicus' were used synonymously; publicare meant to claim for the lord" (Habermas 6). The literary body must reproduce Him,8 and the public negation of Him

appears to be confined to a phantasmagorical realm, to the limbo of between-the-lines. Paradoxically, this is also the place where censorship resides, for no textual acknowledgement of its presence can be allowed. Thus the illusion of a totalizing Sign in which the public and the private (presence and absence) collapse, lives a precarious stability. The Sign becomes bound to irony, to Its own negation, to a non-sign brought to life by the confronta tion between totalitarianism and the public sphere. Every time He speaks, the echoes of silence leave their imprint. Only the arbitrary repetition of

authority permits His Sisyphean affirmation; but His image remains for ever

condemned to distortion. To understand, therefore, the evolution undergone by La familia de

Pascual Duarte, it becomes necessary to examine closely the shape of this distortion for, as I will argue, the subversiveness of the text was not the result of a mystical process, of a revelation suddenly illuminating the between-the

lines, but rather the concrete outcome of an interaction between the text and a literary public sphere moulded by administrative censorship. The construc tion of a "totalitarian public sphere" - in itself a paradoxical concept -

generates a series of unexpected contradictions that will undermine both the

260

representation of authority and the representative character of opinion. Within such a model, the role and function of literature will not be restricted to a separate realm of aesthetics or entertainment, but will become rather a

political vehicle, a medium through which to build a public sphere. Art in

general will show an impertinent resistance to the taming forces of power, since social interpretation could defy private readings

- and even subvert

apparently correct writings. La familia de Pascual Duarte is a case in point.

PRIVATE READING La familia de Pascual Duarte resorts to ambiguity as a means of enhancing its polysemy (Livingstone 104). The novel unveils the possibility of diverse

readings and demands the active participation of the reader in the elabor ation of meaning. What were the motives that made Pascual Duarte kill the Count of Torremejia? When did he finally come out of jail? What is the exact role of the narrator in the final tailoring of the text? These and other

questions are not conclusively resolved, and, as Rose Marie Marcone has

noted, one of the functions of the transcriber is to call upon the reader to

complete Duarte's story, "to fill in the content of the missing pages, if any existed, and to provide logical conclusions and explanations for the unwritten

part of the text. The reader becomes involved in the production of the story, and the novel is constructed with this participation in mind" (13). But such

participation is not, by any means, a guarantee of success. The time of Pascual's release from prison is a case in point:

Es una contrariedad no pequena esta falta absoluta de datos de los dltimos anos de

Pascual Duarte. Por un calculo, no muy dificil, lo que parece evidente es que volviera

de nuevo al penal de Chinchilla (de sus mismas palabras se infiere) donde debi6 estar hasta el ano 35 o quidn sabe si hasta el 36. Desde luego, parece descartado que sali6

de presidio antes de empezar la guerra. (134)

The last sentence becomes crucial for a political understanding of Pascual Duarte. It is Jorge Urrutia's central proof for his argumentation that Duarte was not liberated by the Republican militia - since he was freed before the

beginning of the war - and thus must not be associated with the political prisoners that filled the jails of Spain. Anthony Kerrigan's translation, on the other hand, exploits the other possible interpretation of the misleading Spanish text: he was released after the breakout of hostilities.9 Since we are told that Pascual Duarte participated in the first weeks of revolutionary fervour, his release must have occurred shortly after July 18, 1936 - but then, of course, the narrator's doubts about the exact year make no sense. The

implications, in this instance, would be that Duarte had indeed been freed by the red militia and that his final crime had political connotations.

261

Is Pascual Duarte un rojo? In strict textual terms, an affirmative answer would be unsustainable. The murder of the Count of Torremejfa

- the only crime with possible political connotations - is not in fact narrated and, therefore, the motivations behind Duarte's action remain unknown. His

punishment will be carried out by garrote vil - an execution reserved for

non-political criminals - after due process, a very improbable occurrence in the climate of the Civil War. Rafael Osuna sees in the preservation of Duarte's civil persona by the fascists the political irony of the novel: in the

un-political characterization of Pascual resides the political nature of the text

(86-87). In other words, a discursive absence appears as the depositary of

meaning, as the locus for subversiveness. The censor could hardly be blamed for missing what was not in the text; how this vacuum acquired a body

-

and yet maintained its textual absence - after the novel became public is the

process that needs to be addressed. But first, let us assume that such a political interpretation could be

produced within the boundaries of a private reading. The opening of Pascual Duarte's confessions would then haunt the entire narration, hovering over the unfolding of the story: "Yo, seror, no soy malo, aunque no me faltarian

motivos para serlo" (15). This surprising initial affirmation directly contra dicts the documents that precede Pascual's narration. The transcriber has

already stated his judgment: "es un modelo de conductas; un modelo no para imitarlo, sino para huirlo" (6); Pascual's own letter to Joaquin Barrera L6pez confirms his intrinsic evil nature: "No quiero pedir el indulto, porque es

demasiado lo malo que la vida me ensef16 y mucha mi flaqueza para resistir al instinto" (8). Even the act of dedicating the text to his last victim enhances the cruelty of the character.

The framing of Duarte's confessions is therefore double: it physically encircles his narration, legitimizing it through the old recourse to non

fictional texts; but it also frames it - conspires against it - by conditioning the reading that must be undertaken. Faced with these introductory accusations,10 the phrase "Yo, seftor, no soy malo" emerges as a paradox that

admits only two resolutions: either it must be discarded as the tactical defense of a murderer bound to execution (in spite of Pascual's own refusal to request a pardon) or it must be accepted, believed (in spite of Pascual's evil life). The (private) reader is thus called upon to cast a judgment, to decide between Pascual the monster or Pascual the victim. In the first case, society is redeemed by an aberrant manifestation of nature; in the second, it

emerges as guilty of engendering such a monstrosity. A political transgression therefore could only occur if the latter interpretation prevailed.

When the novel was published, it immediately generated uncertainty among its readers. The history of Pascual Duarte's reception duplicates, in fact, the dichotomy osed by the text. The first reviews, appearing in 1943

262

tend to confirm the private reading and highlight the monstrous character of Pascual; after the book's prohibition, the history of criticism has been inclined to choose the second option: Pascual is not bad and he demonstrates it (Ilie 40), his delinquency is the result of an unjust society (Vines 930), he is a Paschal lamb victimized by society (Urrutia 54). It would seem, then, that a subversive public reading came into effect as a consequence of

censorship. The arbitrary act of the regime engineered the redemption of Pascual.

Nevertheless, absolving Pascual of his responsibilities is not necessarily a

condemnation of Franco's Spain. On the contrary, the narration's chronology situates the events with precision in the historical framework preceding the

military uprising of 1936. If society is to blame, then the role of saviour that Franco so persistently manipulated would be confirmed: the liberal

(anti)tradition engendered such aberrations as the Second Republic of 1931 and Pascual Duarte. The ambiguities in the novel, therefore, do not allow for

appropriations of an opposing political sense. Ultimately, a private reading would have to acknowledge that Cela's work reproduced the principles of the

regime and that Pascual's admission to the public sphere could only serve to

expose "un modelo ante el que no cabe sino decir: -ZVes lo que hace? Pues hace lo contrario de lo que debiera" (6).

Rafael Osuna tries to solve the mystery of the book's prohibition by establishing a sequence of interpretation. A first reading would see Pascual as a red monster (authorization); a second one, would come to the realization that the novel blames society (prohibition); finally, a third reading would uncover that the New State was not at risk (re-authorization) (93-94). Such a sequence is difficult to prove, particularly if one takes into consider ation the fact that the first reviews already noted the third reading. In the first issue of the magazine Lazarillo (1943), Ernesto Gim6nez Caballero commented:

De este chico enfermo [Cela] -con sangre internacional en las venas que le empujara instintivamente al Tercio extranjero- acababa de salir la visi6n de una Extremadura

increible, aunque la sospechibamos desde anos, desde los crimenes rojos excitados por

la Nelken. (1979, 939)

The Extremadura portrayed by Cela was thus perceived as an example of the menace that justified the military rebellion, regardless of whether Pascual Duarte or society were to blame.

PUBLIC READING The private reading of La familia de Pascual Duarte could resolve all the textual ambiguities in accordance with the uidelines that controlled the ates

263

to publicity. Nevertheless, its public appearance created a tremendous impact and opened the road for a series of works that would conform what came to be known as tremendismo. Given the irreproachable ideological character of the novel, the attacks - and the defenses - centred on its aesthetic values. The crude naturalism used by Cela was targeted as the vehicle responsible for

altering the sensibility of Spanish readers. Cela would rightly complain about the ironic reaction to his novel: "es curioso lo espantadiza que es la gente que, despues de asistir a la representaci6n de una tragedia que dur6 tres afios

y cost6 rios de sangre, encuentra tremendo lo que se aparta un apice de lo socialmente convenido (no de la tradici6n literaria espafiola)" (Amor6s 272).

Moreover, Pascual Duarte was not an isolated literary case in its depiction of a crude reality: Falangist literature, in general, cultivated a mysticism of violence that generated novels glorifying cruelty (Urrutia 74). The trans

gression effected by the novel resided neither in its politics nor in its aesthetics. Subversion inhabited a more volatile space: breaking the confinements of the text, it came into being as the result of relations activated by the presence of the novel in the literary public sphere. The

dialogical character of Pascual Duarte, as Cela pointed out, called upon the

past, upon a literary tradition firmly rooted in the picaresca; but it establis hed a dialogue in the present with the echoes of silence.

The concept of the public sphere requires some clarification. It does not

imply the Habermas model - that is, an institution that allows "private persons" to discuss "public issues" in order to check the power of the state. Such a public sphere connotes, as Nancy Fraser indicates, "an ideal of unrestricted rational discussion of public matters" (113), a proposition that could hardly function under a totalitarian regime. In fact, within the

development of Western societies, the public sphere must be conceived as

"the prime institutional site for the construction of the consent that defines the new, hegemonic mode of domination" (Fraser 117). That Franco's

personalist dictatorship required the simulacrum of an ideal public sphere indicates the extent of the historical power acquired by such an institution.12 If the public sphere is the site of domination, then it also becomes the site of resistance. The opposition to Francoism would soon perceive the peculiar nature, and vulnerability, of the public sphere under a modern totalitarian rule: in spite of censorship

- or, more precisely, because of censorship - the

apparent house of reason could be transformed into the trenches of conflict. The relevance of Pascual Duarte was that it inadvertently ushered this

possibility into publicity. The creation of the literary public sphere in Franco's totalitarian society

followed a very basic principle: to project a unitary and harmonious image, exempt from any acknowledgement of conflict.'3 Pio Rodriguez summarizes the paradoxical character of such a principle: "The National Movement, as

264

was the case with German Nazism and Italian Fascism, had invented a

movement without dialectic or conflict, smoothly controlled by state power" (65). The imposition of harmony required the adoption of specific measures:

"Against the democratic principle of diversity Fascism has always advanced the principle of spiritual, racial and national unity. In practice this unity signifies exclusion and discrimination" (68). The totalitarian public sphere admits only the voice of submission. Dissidence -

political as well as aesthetic -

belongs to silence, to the obscure realm of exile. This exclusionary act

forged two monolithic blocks: on the one hand, an absolute, monovalent

public "I"; on the other, a many-headed demon, one "absent other" invested with all the connotations that had been discarded from the public realm.14

In order for the literary public sphere to conform to absolute norms, the State has no option but to establish institutions charged with the mission not

only of preventing dissidence but also of promoting its own values. The final

public image was not intended to reflect society (in spite of the official

propaganda) but rather to illuminate, from above, a vision of consensus - in

opposition to contubernio, Franco's favourite term to designate any agreement reached outside the public sphere. In the case of the press and other means of communication, the task of propagating the regime's doctrines was, to a certain extent, feasible; in the case of artistic production, the issue became

more complex. The State, of course, would subsidize some publications; but there could occur instances in which works adhering to the official ideology did not reproduce, at the same time, the values that needed to be propa gated. Pascual Duarte, for instance, did not contain, as Urrutia points out, moral or political points that were inconvenient; it simply did not articulate desirable issues: "La censura no podia cortar; en todo caso hubiera tenido

que afiadir" (102). The preface to the 1939 law creating the Direcci6n General de Arquitectura

reveals the concern with which Francoism addressed representation. The aesthetic ordering of the public space was understood as a direct expression of the State:

La necesidad de ordenar la vida material del pals con arreglo a nuevos principios, la

importancia representativa que tienen las obras de la Arquitectura como expresi6n de

la fuerza y de la misi6n del Estado en una 6poca determinada, inducen a reunir y ordenar todas las diversas manifestaciones profesionales de la Arquitectura en una

Direcci6n al servicio de los fes pdblicos. De esta manera, los profesionales, al intervenir en los organismos oficiales, serin representantes de un criterio arquitect6 nico sindical-nacional, previamente establecido por los 6rganos supremos que habrin de crearse para este fin. (Cirici 120)

265

The Oficina de Informaci6n y Censura was the entity in charge of guarding the access to the literary public sphere. At the same time, its duties included the dissemination of material whose publicity was, very often, mandatory. This office (and others such as the Delegaci6n Nacional de Prensa) issued

orders, directives, scripts, general and particular norms - sometimes

including the font size - about information that had to appear in newspapers and journals. Thus, for instance, on November 7, 1941, the Delegaci6n Nacional de Prensa distributed the following directive relating to a campaign aimed at collecting funds for the Divisi6n Azul:

Ha de darse a toda la campana un tono de cordialidad, vibrante, emocionado, sincero

y de intensidad creciente hasta el final, huyendo del t6pico y del comentario de

encargo, a fin de que en la unidad de los trabajos se observe, no un sistematico matiz

de consigna, sino una coincidencia de sentimiento espontanea y viva, que rinda la

maxima eficacia y responda a la justicia, tambien maxima, que inspire el homenaje.

(Sinova 162-63)

This imposed "spontaneous consensus," silently shaping the image of Spain, was difficult to achieve within the artistic realm, a fact that helps explain why, a few years later, literature would assume the burden of challenging the

public sphere: the neo-realism of the 1950s has been accused - even by its own practitioners

- of betraying literature in favour of politics. Yet it was

only because writers had a profound awareness of the literary nature of neo realism that they could exercise artistic freedom, re-appropriate and publicly vindicate their own voice.15

Francoism tried to create an exclusive representation of itself that

functioned, at the same time, as a reflection of the totality of Spain. The

collapse of social diversity into "one" ("Espafia, una") image of recognition, vertically emanating from Franco, required a careful control of its contours:

any intrusion, any distortion would immediately mean a questioning of the transcendental sign itself. The information about crimes, for instance, reveals the ultimate insecurity affecting the authoritarian public sphere. In a first

instance, their inclusion in the newspapers' respective section had to connote some moral lesson. According to Sinova:

La principal obsesi6n de las autoridades era mostrar un pais en orden, y ademas

alimentado, trabajando y feliz. Cuando no podian presentar esta estampa, los servicios de vigilancia de la Prensa se encargaban de que los periddicos la dibujaran. La informaci6n de sucesos se concibi6 como uin recurso que servia para este fin. Por ello habia de tener una fmnalidad moralizante. (246)

266

By 1941, it became apparent that the simple presence of these events in the

public sphere was problematic. On November 18, a censorship directive tried to regulate their presence: "A partir de hoy todos los crimenes y sucesos de la misma indole deberin reducirse suprimidndose los detalles macabros y dejando simplemente la noticia" (Sinova 245). Nevertheless, the preferred practice was to omit them totally (Sinova 243), since their public recognition had to be assimilated within the portrayal of Francoism. The monstrous intrusion of conflict represented not only a social and moral attack on the

principles of the literary sphere, but also a politically subversive act.

During the post-war years, the monster generated by the process of

exclusion, and hiding in the shadows of silence, was primarily "el rojo;' the red menace. "El Bolchevismo va vestido de ruso, tiene ojos oblicuos, sus hombres son como bestias, huelen mal, andan borrachos, y sus huestes las

recoge de todos los fondos miserables, embrutecidos, esclavizados y desesperados de los pueblos" (Gimenez Caballero 1939b, 75-76). The

objectives of communism, as defined by the official Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada Espasa Calpe. Suplemento Anual 1945-1948, were "destruir la familia, para convertir a los hombres en salvajes" (1409). With the Decree of April 18, 1947, the boundaries of monstrosity acquired a final legal formulation. The law was enacted to suppress the activities of the guerrillas still operating in

parts of the country, but the introductory paragraph reveals a clear intention to dehumanize Republican Spain, to depoliticize the motives that had caused the Civil War. Under the association of banditry and terrorism, the "other"

was transformed into an intrinsic criminal:

Los delitos de terrorismo y bandidaje, que constituyen las mis graves especies delictivas de toda situaci6n de postguerra, secuela de la relajaci6n de vinculos morales

y de la exaltaci6n de los impulsos de crueldad y acometividad de gentes criminales e

inadaptadas, requieren especiales medidas de represi6n, cuya gravedad corresponda a la de los crimenes que se trata de combatir. (Boletin Oficial del Estado, May 3, 1947)

The guerrilla-fighter/bandit/terrorist -

profiled in a way that could apply to the figure of Pascual Duarte - was dispossessed of a rational motivation, reduced to an instinctive (evil) nature unchecked by a tolerant (evil) society. The political was subsumed and class struggle would thus encompass a series of unexpected connotations:

Nosotros -los imperiales- no ignoramos en cambio que la lucha de clases es una

realidad eterna de la Historia. Porque siempre ha habido ddbiles y poderosos, feos y guapos, tontos e inteligentes, cobardes y valientes. Y siempre existir4 la lucha y el odio, del miserable, del feo, del tonto y del cobarde contra el pudiente, el apuesto, el capaz y e1 hombre bravo. (Gim6nez Caballero m3a,35 m phanascis in the orignal)

267

The project of depoliticizing dissidence created an undifferentiated semiotic chain: one single signifier, Marxism, assumed all the values cast out of the

public sphere.16 Its inclusion was allowed in order to force a concatenation of moral, social and aesthetic significations. The literary public sphere, therefore, univocally conditioned the perception of the monster.

The censor's private reading of Pascual Duarte reached the conclusion that the novel did not question the ideological principles of the regime. The caretaker of absences had fulfilled his duties. The problem now resided in

determining the consequences of presence. Could its publication affect the

rigid imagery forged by state organisms? Could a public reading contradict the promotional efforts of the literary sphere?

Pascual's confessions end with the murder of his mother. Yet the crime for which he is going to be executed corresponds to the killing of the Count of Torremejia. Following the tradition of Lazaro de Tormes, this appears to be the veiled case that - literally

- frames the narration. Pascual's adventures, therefore, could be read in terms of this final murder (Sobejano 24), as a

means of understanding this unnarrated last act. The nature of this crime - the only one with possible political connota

tions - is of particular relevance. As the dedication clearly indicates, the Count represents for Pascual a father figure: "A la memoria del insigne patricio don Jesds Gonzalez de la Riva, Conde de Torremejia, quien al irlo a rematar el autor de este escrito, le llam6 Pascualillo y sonrefa" (13). The affectionate patrician used the same nickname, Pascualillo, with which Duarte addressed his own son. His murder, then, could be considered a case of

parricide. Furthermore, in the Spanish Penal Code in force during the 1940s,

parricide included the murder of the father as well as that of the mother. The

killing of the Count, therefore, is in a sense a redundance, and its textualizat ion becomes unnecessary. When the confessions reach the climactic moment

of the mother's death, the case has been fully explained, for the case is

parricide, and not the revolution. Or, in other words, the political events of

1936 become subsumed into a social-moral category - which would also help

explain why Duarte was not executed by a military squad. A public reading should not have been subversive. Pascual Duarte aptly

reproduces the goals of depoliticizing the Civil War, of dehumanizing the "red hordes." Yet it also tested the perils inherent to a univocal literary sphere: the absence of difference in the semiotic chain might have been intended to reduce revolutionary - or simply liberal - reasons to natural instincts; by the same token, such an identification ran the risk of creating the opposite effect, of politicizing moral, social and aesthetic categories. The structural ambiguity of the novel could allow a debate not only of Pascual's degree of "redness" but also of the degree of rnonstrosity of "the red:'

268

The Roman Law inherited by Francoism conceived regicide as an act of

parricide, since parents were "la base de la familia, que a la vez lo es de la

gens, de la tribu y de la naci6n" (Enciclopedia Universal Espasa Calpe, 1920,

294). Thus, when Pascual kills the head of his family he is, in fact, publicly ritualizing a political act of subversion against the head of the nation. To

portray the apolitical character of the monstrous Pascual Duarte could also lead to his humanization, to the politization of parricide. Is Pascual good or

bad? Is "el rojo" good or bad? All answers, all private and public resolutions of the question ultimately condemned him, and thus confirmed the ideology of Francoism. But the question itself, the enunciation of a debate, subverted the totalitarian public sphere.

THE MONSTER SPEAKS In 1835, in France, Pierre Riviere - a peasant

- killed his mother, his sister and his little brother.'7 The press immediately reported the event, not only for its monstrosity but also for its legal and political implications, since it coincided with an attempted regicide. In jail, Riviere wrote his confessions,

explaining his motives with impeccable logic. His mother and sister tormented his father. To free the latter from such a miserable life, Pierre decides to sacrifice himself and murder the two women. Yet, he reasons, in order to truly liberate his father, he must also hide his sacrificial gesture. By killing the beloved little brother, Riviere will make sure that his father will

despise him. His own execution would not be a painful and haunting experience for his father but rather the beginning of a free life.

The arguments of monstrosity are absolutely rational. The publication of Riviere's memoirs originated a confusion within dominant epistemology. The

problem resided not in the essence of the monstrous crime but in the fact that Riviere wrote his confessions. The logic of unreason questioned the

principles sustaining the literary public sphere: could a monster expound reasons? Did the appropriation of discourse by unreason effectively dismantle the public sphere? Was the silencing of monstrosity an arbitrary

- and therefore irrational - act?

If the case that sustains Pascual Duarte's confessions is the final parricide, that of the novel itself is quite different. The frame - the notes and documents preceding Pascual's narration - posits the problem of publicity: "Me parece que ha llegado la ocasi6n de dar a la imprenta las memorias de Pascual Duarte" (5) is the opening sentence of the novel, and corresponds to

the transcriber's note. The next document is a covering Letter, from Pascual to Don Joaquin Barrera L6pez, accompanying the manuscript. In it, Duarte reflects on the act of writing and clearly shows that his endeavour was not conceived as a private matter but rather as a "confesi6n pd'blica" (8). Finally, an extract from the Last will of Don Tnaquin Barrera TLAnez focuses on his

269

wishes that the manuscript he received "sea dado a las llamas sin leerlo" (io).

Discharged of his responsibilities, the public fate of the text is left to Providence (io).

The dilemma raised within La familia de Pascual Duarte anticipates (or, from a historical perspective, duplicates) the problem confronted by the novel: the central issue surrounding Pascual Duarte's narration resides in the

appropriateness of its publication, in whether it should enter the public sphere or remain in silence. The final decision rests on the transcriber, who

openly assumes the role of the censor:

He preferido, en algunos pasajes demasiado crudos de la obra, usar de la tijera y

cortar por lo sano; el procedimiento priva, evidentemente, al lector de conocer

algunos pequefios detalles -que nada pierde con ignorar-; pero presenta, en cambio,

la ventaja de evitar el que recaiga la vista en intimidades incluso repugnantes, sobre

las que -repito- me pareci6 mis conveniente la poda que el pulido. (5-6)

On the one hand, this passage represents a clear defense of censorship, a

justification of absences. But the transcriber will commit two fundamental

transgressions. The first one is his own inclusion in the text, his own

publicity, his open reflection on the act of censorship: the acknowledgement of a presence that questioned the illusionary assumption of consensus

sustaining the totalitarian public sphere. The second one is to yield the floor: "Pero dejemos que hable Pascual Duarte, que es quien tiene cosas interesan tes que contarnos" (6). With this act, the reasons that configured Pascual's

subjectivity would unfold publicly, disallowing - "Yo, seror, no soy malo"

- an immediate condemnation, and empowering the public sphere with its

legitimate function: to discuss matters of public concern. For Nancy Fraser,

In general, critical theory needs to take a harder, more critical look at the terms

"private" and "public:' These terms, after all, are not simply straightforward

designations of social spheres; they are cultural classifications and rhetorical labels. In

political discourse, they are powerful terms that are frequently deployed to

delegitimate some interests, views, and topics and to valorize others. (15)

Pascual Duarte's access to publicity meant, precisely, a questioning of such

designations, an unveiling of the political construction of the literary sphere. One of the apparent inconsistencies of the novel lies in the enunciation

of Duarte's story. McPheeters and Ilie, for instance, coincide in their

appreciation: it is difficult to believe - as with Pierre Riviere - that a peasant like Pascual Duarte, with a minimal elementary education, could write with such a degree of philosophical irony (Ilie 38). Indeed, many of Pascual's criminal acts result from his ineptness with words (Gull6n 4) Yet, this

270

monster manages, through language, to convey the portrait of a dreamer

(Vines 932). It is in language where Duarte becomes human. His textualiza tion of dominant values (he agrees with his own imprisonment, defends

society, advocates his own execution) blurs the distinctions strictly drawn in

the public sphere: the monster's humanization carries with it the

dehumanization of the "public I." Thus it is the appropriation of a discourse

which, by definition and imposition, does not belong to him that constitutes the novel's final offense. By breaking silence, Pascual spoke .for all those exiled from the literary sphere. Was he a monster?

The subversive character of La familia de Pascual Duarte did not reside in

interpretation, in the private or public incorporation of absences. It inhabited rather a more obvious and elusive realm: enunciation. The novel might have been ideologically correct, but the presence in the literary sphere of a self that took up the pen when he belonged to silence represented, in and of itself, a

transgression. A few years after its prohibition, the novel would be readmitted. It was the logical redressing of censorship's futile decision: the act of becoming public could not be erased, and Pascual Duarte's existence had subtly

- but irremediably -

changed the literary sphere.

University of California, Los Angeles

NOTES

1 The defense of the novel tended to highlight its vitality, its aesthetic qualities, its

originality; the attacks were normally based on moral grounds. For an extensive

summary of La familia de Pascual Duarte's reviews see Urrutia.

2 The Divisi6n Azul was a Spanish military force fighting communism in the Soviet

Union in support of the German troops.

3 In October of 1942, Martin Torrent, presbyter of the Alcall prison, published a book,

lQu6 me dice usted de los presos?, addressing the central moral issues developed in

Cela's novel. As for the political and ideological implications see, for instance, Sanz

Villanueva (249).

4 It must also be emphasized that I am here referring concretely to the novel: the private reader will have only the power to suppress and therefore will concentrate on the

textual presences. Later I will address the different attitude of censorship vis-c2-vis the

press.

5 I am, for the moment, following Habermas's general arguments in relation to the

development of the bourgeois public sphere - as they can be applied to the Spanish

situation.

6 Censorship's existence is not an anomaly in the history of literature but rather a

constant presence. There are, of course, different degrees and forms of controlling the

literary public sphere that depend on - and help shape - various social organizations:

totalitarian regimes and liberal democracies require, by their own definition, diverse

modes of control. From institutionalized administrative censorship to the market place;

271

from the Inquisition to national security; from the zealots of morality to the guardians of discourse, the access to publicity has never been free. Here I will limit myself to the

effects of administrative censorship in a totalitarian regime. For a recent discussion see

Jansen.

7 I am thus objecting to the restrictive limitations of a general or abstract interpretation of the trace: to attach it ontologically to discourse omits taking into consideration the

non-discursive guardians of what can or cannot be difference (see note 5). 8 As Habermas indicates in relation to the Middle Ages, such a "publicity of

representation [is] inseparable from the lord's concrete existence, that, as an 'aura'

surrounded and endowed his authority" (7). I am not trying totally to conflate the

Medieval lord and Francisco Franco. There are unquestionable historical differences, one of them being precisely the contradictory character of the public sphere that I am

highlighting. Nevertheless, the irresistible Medieval connotations of the Franco regime will shape and dominate many of its policies and institutions (see note 12).

9 It must be noted that Kerrigan's introduction indicates that his is the only English translation done in close cooperation with Camilo Jose Cela. Furthermore, this

consultation takes place after Cela's meticulous revision of the novel for the

publication of his Obras completas, in 1962. io For German Gull6n, the transcriber represents the proto-intellectual of the postwar

period, prejudging Pascual's memories in accordance with the oppressive climate

dominating those years (2-3). One must not forget though that Duarte himself shares

such a dominant view. I would add that the transcriber also represents the censor,

evaluating the validity of the text. In any case, "proto-intellectual" and censor very often coincided in the same person

- Cela being a case in point. ii See, for instance, Jos4 Luis Castillo Puche's commentary "A prop6sito de La familia de

Pascual Duarte (Ya, November 21, 1943). It is also worth mentioning that Jesds Revuelta found the novel "no-inmoral" (Ya, September 20, 1943), a term which

implied objecting to what was not said, to the textual absences. The Catholic magazine Ecclesia found it "una obra literaria notable" that, nevertheless, should not be read

"mis que por inmoral ... por repulsivamente realista" (quoted by Rodriguez-Pudrtolas 380). Cela, by the way, was the censor in charge of this magazine between 1943 and

1944 (Sinova 300). 12 The Francoist regime would openly engage in a Medieval reconstruction of the

legitimation of power - Franco ruled "by the grace of God." Its ruling praxis,

nonetheless, demanded popular consent manifested through the existence of a public

sphere. The creation of an apparent representative parliament - or Cortes - as well as

the recognition of a "public opinion," channelled through the press and through literature, are two of the most obvious (and necessary) contradictions that the State

had to admit.

13 I am referring to the first stage of Francoism. As the regime evolved, the fundamental

framework of the public sphere would also change. This becomes particularly noticeable after 1966, when the new Press Law of Fraga Iribarne completely transformed the rules of "publicity."

14 Claudia Schaefer recognizes the existence of this dichotomy in the Spanish New Order

(267). In a way, I am unintentionally providing an answer for the questions that she

raises at the end of her article.

15 This does not imply that realism was the only formal challenge through which such a

vindication could take place. I am suggesting that, given the configuration of a public sphere where the pre-allotted spaces of fantasy and reality had suffered a radical

272

dislocation, the recourse to realism required as much formal self-consciousness as

future experimental (re)vindications. 16 In his study of fascist literature, Julio Rodrfguez-Pudrtolas analyses Hitler's Mein

Kampf, in which it is clearly indicated that diverse enemies have to be portrayed as

belonging to a single category, since the recognition of diversity could easily lead to a

questioning of the self (22). 17 For an extensive analysis of this case, see Foucault.

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