Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Tocarnos la cara: Solidarity as Unachievable Ideal
- 2 La conquista del aire: Money as Obstacle to Solidarity
- 3 From La escala to Lo real: Solidarity as Pathway to a Revolutionary Horizon
- Conclusion
- An Interview with Belén Gopegui
- Writings by Belén Gopegui
- Works Cited
- Index
1 - Tocarnos la cara: Solidarity as Unachievable Ideal
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Tocarnos la cara: Solidarity as Unachievable Ideal
- 2 La conquista del aire: Money as Obstacle to Solidarity
- 3 From La escala to Lo real: Solidarity as Pathway to a Revolutionary Horizon
- Conclusion
- An Interview with Belén Gopegui
- Writings by Belén Gopegui
- Works Cited
- Index
Summary
It was suggested in the Introduction that the concept of solidarity can be considered pivotal in interpreting Gopegui's narrative. However, her second novel, Tocarnos la cara, which is the focus of this chapter, is the first to engage with it concretely. In the earlier La escala de los mapas, it could be argued that the importance of solidarity is obliquely and ambiguously advanced via the negatively articulated critique of the protagonist Sergio Prim's withdrawal from social life following his failed quest to locate a space for shared intimacy. In this sense, intimacy can be seen to function as a kind of barometer of wider social solidarity. yet having concluded that the problems concerning reader reception were rooted in the use of a first-person narrative by a single, homodiegetic narrator, Gopegui chose to mediate this intimate, direct address in her next novel by inserting a second perspective. There was also an important change with regard to content, as she shifted her attention from the dilemma faced by a single, rather eccentric, individual to the interaction of a group. Moreover this group is concerned with a shared project with a social aim rather than a romantic conflict over a relationship. These decisions can be thought to mark the beginning of a more explicit engagement with solidarity in contemporary Spain, and an effort to foreground the social critique that Gopegui felt had been disregarded by readers of La escala.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Belén GopeguiThe Pursuit of Solidarity in Post-Transition Spain, pp. 22 - 77Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2011