Juan Benet
Benet's six novelettes are chronologically scattered throughout his entire career: from his first and seminal four-work collection, Nunca llegarás a nada [You Will Never Get Anywhere], dating back to the 1950s, up to his latest legend, "Numa," published in 1978 as part of Del pozo y del Numa (un ensayo y una leyenda) [Of the Well and Numa (an essay and a legend)]. In between, two important pieces were published: Una tumba [A Tomb] in 1971 and "Sub Rosa" in 1973, the latter being included in a book of short stories bearing the same title. The novelettes as a whole clearly reveal Benet's poetic imagination and narrative versatility.
You Will Never Get Anywhere is Benet's first formal step into literary creation, a collection of four novelettes written between 1958 and 1961, when the group was published…. They are well-built, well-written pieces that, had Benet not written anything else, by themselves would have placed him among the most original narrators in Spanish Literature. But most important, You Will Never Get Anywhere is in many respects Benet's seminal work. Many stylistic and thematic characteristics prevalent in his later works are visible in these early novelettes. Of special importance are his typical long, exhausting sentences, the enigmatic nature of characters, the consistent minimization of plot, the emergence of his mythical Región along with its ruins and overwhelming solitude, and man's inevitable failure embodied in one of Benet's most important images, that of the journey, which man must begin, even if he knows it will lead nowhere. The novelettes of You Will Never Get Anywhere are "Nunca llegarás a nada" [You Will Never Get Anywhere], "Baalbec, una mancha" [Baalbec, a Stain], "Duelo" [Mourning], and "Después" [Afterwards]. (pp. 31-2)
Juan, the protagonist [of the title novelette], recounts a trip taken in the past with Vicente, his wealthy friend, through northern Europe: France, Germany, Denmark, and other unspecified countries. His recollection covers the period of preparation and the trip itself. The mystery which clouds the story is progressively intensified with the detailed and introspective description of events. This description, however, is carried out not because of the events as such, but rather because of their metaphysical implications which enable Juan to evolve and elucidate his own conception of life and his vision of the world. The plot of the work, therefore, does not rest on the dynamic sequence of those events in time, but instead on their inner human value that motivates the character's search for himself and for his place in the world. Thus, the trip to northern Europe is a symbol of man's odyssey into himself. The more detailed it is, the more complete his concept of life becomes. Taking into account the development of the plot, this short story is a novelette that opens with what structurally constitutes its conclusion: the sketch of a drunken Englishman and what he says about the two traveling friends. After asking them why they force themselves to continue traveling aimlessly, he says that they are poor humans trying in vain to survive, "trying to rise again."… Acknowledging the truth of these statements (after the journey, but at the beginning of the narrative), remarks which when they were made had no meaning to either of them, Juan says somewhat regretfully that "we ignored him."… In the closing pages, the reader learns that the Englishman also said (consistent with what he has already stated about man) that "this common body, like to a vagabond flag upon the stream, goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide, to rot itself with motion."… The part of the English sentence which impressed Juan the most was "to rot itself with motion." He is not sure about the construction of the enigmatic language in which, he felt later, the truth was hidden. So in order to reveal it, measure its scope, as if impelled by the inner desire for self-definition, he must start the recollection of his symbolic journey. It should be realized that what his anonymous friend had to say is reproduced defectively, thus emphasizing the fallibility and the efforts to grasp the truth embodied in the English statement.
The artistic complexity derived from the Englishman's statements is unique and important to the total structure of the work, for the following reasons. (1) From a novelistic point of view, Juan recalls his journey and thus this novelette is created. He knows where and when it started and ended. From a metaphysical point of view, he is in the same situation as the reader; he is about to embark and does not know his destination. It is the tension between these two realities that enhances the artistic beauty of the work…. The reader knows from the Englishman that man's voyage in life will lead nowhere, yet he insists on reading the work, that is, binding himself to continue with Juan's self-discovery, which is also his own. (2) Thus, the reader and the protagonist, who shows him the way to nothingness, at the end become the drunken Englishman, both able to reach the same conclusion about themselves. (3) Juan and the reader follow in the footsteps of the Englishman, whom they unfortunately ignored and whose words—"you will never get anywhere"—they did not heed. (4) Ironically, the truth given at the beginning is the truth found and experienced at the end. In addition, that same loose truth of the beginning becomes at the end the unifying element which circularly structures the work, which is seemingly formless. This circular structure is aesthetically satisfying since the idea of an odyssey is developed. The actual destination of both the character and the reader becomes their point of departure: nothingness. One may say that if they reached nothingness, philosophically, they got somewhere. But that somewhere, in the poetic context of the work, means nothingness, which in the final analysis is nowhere, and hence the title of the work. This thematic and artistic vicious circle is another aspect that makes Benet's literature an essentially enigmatic experience. (pp. 32-3)
Benet's preoccupation with the traditional concepts of time and character in "You Will Never Get Anywhere" is minimal. These two technical elements are subject to the total vision of the work revealed through the inner reality of Juan. Character and time, rather than ends in themselves, are only means to the end of novelistic architecture … This is one of the reasons why the reader may experience difficulty in following the trend of thought and reflection wrought by the dense narration of the story. (p. 34)
It is enlightening to examine together the main thematic and technical characteristics of You Will Never Get Anywhere as a whole, that is, as a work of art in which its parts, although independent from each other, comprise a total structural unity embodying a specific vision of life. The four works underline man's nothingness in time and space. An individual, a family, a generation, or an entire era is rooted in nothingness to bear, in turn, nothingness. This pessimistic cyclical pattern makes of the characters in all these novelettes not so much individuals developed according to traditional tenets of depiction, as symbolic shadows whose raison d'etre is subject to the total vision of the work. That is, character is not subjugated to any ideal of realistic consistency, but to the effectiveness of the system of expression…. The same conviction of artistic independence from the traditional concept of the novel is also perceptible in the author's skillful engineering of plot and handling of time. With the possible exception of the first two novelettes, where "something happens," plot is minimal, almost nonexistent. Events, stripped of their realistic apparel, do not stand for themselves as signs of chronological sequence, but are almost imperceptible references in the midst of the characters' (or the narrators') flow of reflections. The events are there not for the plot's sake, but for the elucidation of the characters' conceptions of the world. The order in which they are arranged is determined by the characters' patterns of reflection rather than by a chronology of occurrence decided by the author, which explains why juxtaposition of past, present, and future is found throughout the collection. The fragmentation of Benet's typically long sentence through repeated subordinate clauses containing past, present, and future becomes the symbolic microcosm of the organic juxtaposition in the plot of the work, which in turn is the composite image of man's labyrinthine existence.
Other important technical modes common in the collection are (1) the use of symbols to infuse a variety of levels of reality and to give structural unity to the work, since these symbols are developed and transformed into extended metaphors; (2) the careful elaboration of mystery, paralleling life's enigma in which characters and readers are trapped and must find their way out through an interpretation of man's destiny; (3) the implementation of irony and absurdity in the character's thoughts and actions, which inevitably lead him to nowhere; and (4) the persistent recurrence of uncertainty regarding the distinction between reality and fantasy, between the natural and the supernatural, as in the case of the flying cups of "Afterwards." Benet's approach to reality, to conventional reality, recalls that of García Márquez, yet there are no grounds for implying influences from the latter upon the former, for this collection appeared six years before Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. (pp. 39-40)
"Numa" is Benet's latest novella, published as part of his book Del Pozo y del Numa (un ensayo y una leyenda) [Of Pozo and Numa (an essay and a legend), 1978]. It deals with the mysterious and ubiquitous guard Numa, already in Benet's fiction a legend in his own right. He is charged with watching over the sacred forest, a forest menaced in vain and persistently by an anonymous outsider or intruder. The mystery of both Numa and the intruder, and their instinctive desire to protect and tread upon the forest, is successfully sustained throughout the entire narrative discourse in the same way it is sustained in Benet's other major works. But unlike these works, this "legend" contains a deceptive intention and a special narrative method which the author employs to create—for the first time—a complete and comprehensive account of Numa. The reader is led to believe that this is the opportunity to grasp fully the elusive nature, personality, character, intentions, and intuitions of the legendary Numa. To this purpose Benet incessantly accumulates a variety of information concerning these vital aspects of Numa. (pp. 47-8)
Every bit of information ironically both creates and destroys the objectivity of the legend. This is important to emphasize here because this literary piece, this legend, is supposedly the most thorough and complete portrayal of Numa in Benet's fictional world. And the reader sees that, indeed, it is complete but at the same time, and paradoxically, helps very little to clarify the mystery of the character. The brilliant and persuasive reasonings handled by the objective narrator in the exposition of his material make him appear as a very reliable instrument for the discovery of the inner truth about the two opposing and irreconcilable forces (Numa-intruder) and motivations that make up the legend or history of Numa's domain—or, one may say, of Franco's Spain. One understands the narrator's lucid state ments. He says (and it is simple, just like Numa's mind) that he, Numa, knows exactly what his mission is: the protection of the forest. His consolation is that he has this limited function in life, which he needs as it needs him. (pp. 48-9)
As suggested earlier, this legend is, among other things, an extended metaphor of Franco's Spain. Unlike Benet's other works, here the reference to Spanish historical reality is more subtle. Between the lines, one finds allusions to the traditional confict between Republicans and Nationalists, allusions to Juan Carlos as the young and timid successor of Franco, allusions to Franco's semidivine right to rule Spain in death as well as in life. The substructure of meaning, of course, does not undermine the universality of the conflict implicit in the narration. Instead it enriches and enhances its ambiguity: it is one thing and also another, both at the same time.
As in Benet's major long works of fiction, in this legend plot is reduced to a minimum, making the narrative an immobile body of discourse. The confrontation at the end, between Numa and the unknown intruder who, more than a real person, seems to be a recalcitrant shadow in Numa's paranoid mind, is the only spark of action in the whole legend. It is not a plot in the traditional sense of the word, but rather an epilogue or appendix, attached to the end in order to show in action the conflict reasoned in the discourse of the text. The intruder seems to die by two shots, one in the buttock and the other in the face. For the reader's momentary relief, or better yet, for his further confusion and exhaustion, Benet resorts—as he does in his other works—to some recurrent symbols: the cloud of dust and the gray lamina of water wherein the two protagonists of history or legend must remain forever. Numa's legend (forest) is as eternal as the change of the seasons or as certain as the intruder's hopes that will turn inevitably into failure.
Benet's use of the third-person narrative point of view is effective. He does not allow Numa or the intruder to speak to the reader or to each other. They are confined to their corners of silence and solitude, there to live, fermenting mutual hatred and hostility, with no hope for communication or possible reconciliation. As they are mysterious to each other, so are they both to the reader and to the narrator. The language Benet uses to build this mysterious legend is consistently technical, cold, and precise. His clauses are extensive and broken in his usual fashion, with parentheses, hyphens, and commas, all contributing to make the text purposely an inflexible, alienating, and exhausting narrative discourse. (pp. 49-50)
To the present, Benet has published two major collections of short stories: 5 narraciones y 2 fábulas [5 Tales and 2 Fables] and Sub Rosa, that is, a total of fifteen short stories and two very brief, witty fables. As in the case of the novelettes, these two collections reveal Benet's artistic unity within a narrative variety. Enigma and futility continue to be the central forces of artistic creation and life, in Región or New York, among the young and the old, in situations of love, lust, greed, ambition, or death. Benet's short fiction, including the novelettes, is a gallery of enigmas incarnating passions that cover "a large part of human behavior's complex spectrum." (p. 51)
Vincente Cabrera, in his Juan Benet (copyright © 1983 by Twayne Publishers; reprinted with the permission of Twayne Publishers, a Division of G. K. Hall & Co., Boston), Twayne, 1983, 152 p.
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