Throughout Goytisolo's literary production, but especially in the later works (1966 to the present), there is a pronounced desire to re-evaluate and reorder the literary tradition of Spain. Don Julián, typical of this obsession with Spanish literature, can be read as a recreation of literary history, a rereading and reassessment of the works which have come to be known as classics. Goytisolo's reading, his vehemently negative attitude toward some texts and profound admiration of others, is his writing. This intertextual element allows Goytisolo to place himself and his own text within the very tradition which he attempts to destroy. (p. 615)

Of all the facets of Spanish culture and history which Goytisolo considers as characteristic of a theocratic and politically tyrannical society, the most salient is censorship. It is a constant theme in his book of essays, El furgón de cola, and is integrally related to the problems of literature and language which are basic to his writing. Laws prohibiting the dissemination of certain written, auditory, or visual material have far-reaching consequences for Goytisolo, for these laws touch upon a variety of literary problems. In the first series of essays of El furgón … Goytisolo discusses the direct results of censorship in terms of the relationship between literature and society especially in the post-Civil War Spanish novel. The existence of censorship and self-censorship necessarily situates all that is written within a political arena. The writer is by definition politically engaged because the act of writing always has the potential of becoming a threat to the established order. Goytisolo, however, wishes to go beyond a thematic criticism of the intolerance of the regime because he believes that to denounce a dictatorship in a literary work using the same rhetoric as that of the regime is not a radical enterprise. One must attack the rhetoric itself; invade, subvert, and destroy it…. To attack censorship as effectively as possible is, therefore, to confront the language of censorship, to rediscover the silence which the laws have produced.

Don Julián is the result of a search for a silenced language, a work which exalts certain texts (Góngora, Larra, Cernuda, Américo Castro) and ridicules others (Unamuno, Azorín, Sánchez Albornoz, the Spanish press). Yet the relationship between the praiseworthy and the defamed texts is not one of a simple contrast between the positive and the negative, for Goytisolo's own writing is not above the same scrutiny applied to the other texts. Like Cervantes, Goytisolo destroys and recreates his own narrative. His text becomes one of many intertexts within the body of Don Julián…. In Don Julián there is an interplay and ultimate unity of diverse elements: commentary and self-commentary, parody and self-parody, protagonist and author. The result of this self-critique is a tension between opposing forces, the new versus the old, creation versus destruction, life versus death. The unity of these elements is in effect Goytisolo's solution: it is the way in which he can accomplish (or thinks he can accomplish) his task inside and outside language.

Goytisolo's self-conscious manner of writing is apparent from the beginning…. The comparison between a play and Goytisolo's own text leads to a further analogy between a play within a play and a text within a text. Comments such as these which reveal the process of literary creation are interspersed throughout Don Julián as the reader becomes unable to remove himself from the work of art. There is no pretense of achieving an accurate representation of reality. Like certain modern playwrights who subvert the notion of "suspension of disbelief" (Pirandello for example), Goytisolo makes clear that the words in his text are (as are all words) representations of objects and not the objects themselves.

This self-consciousness—the frequent allusions to language in general and to the specific act of writing—is a device which allows us to focus on the dominant tension throughout the work: destruction on the one hand and creation on the other. All the words, images, and motifs which expose this process of creation and destruction also point to the text itself, that is, to Goytisolo's own act of writing…. Within the linguistic destructiveness lies the act of literary creation, the construction of a text, an activity in which Julián becomes the text. If Julián is a literary creation and if Julián's nature is to destroy, he must destroy himself and reproduce himself. The conflict between self-destruction and self-creation marks the central tension of Don Julián. (pp. 615-17)

It is significant that the search for authenticity (textual and real) is undertaken with a constant incorporation of outside texts within the main text. The exposure of the text's own developments through frequent references to the act of writing and to the very text which is being written is tempered by the constant presence of outside texts. Julián is not only the embodiment of the text itself; he is extracted from outside sources. Thus Goytisolo's textual self, the identification of the author with his own text, is revealed through the mise en abyme as well as through the use of his own text as a mirror of others.

The relationship and integration of the elements of intertextuality and autotextuality are evident in the contrast between Alvaro and Julián. The many identities of both characters mark Goytisolo's ability to bring together the most diverse entities. Julián is transformed into an Arab warrior, an insect, a wolf, James Bond, an asp; in addition there are changes in name: Julián, Ulbán, Bulian, Urbano. Alvaro, in like manner, is Seneca, Unamuno, Don Alvaro Peranzules ("abogado"), Alvarito, Little Red Riding Hood, as well as a reminder of the Alvaro in Goytisolo's previous work, Señas de identidad. Yet the most crucial identity change in both characters is their ability to become one another. At times Alvaro and Julián are presented as separate beings, each displaying opposing characteristics. Don Alvaro Peranzules ("abogado"), for example, is the object of satire in his pedantic evocations of Spanish culture. He offers the narrator some Spanish excrement and tells him to take in the wonderful aroma. Julián, on the contrary, constantly shows his disgust for everything Spanish; he attempts to destroy all that Alvaro symbolizes—Spanish customs, Spanish literature, Catholicism, the very geography of Spain. Yet in other situations Julián and Alvaro appear as a single entity with two sides. These situations revolve around a recurrent seduction of Alvaro by Julián, a seduction in which Alvaro becomes Julián, and Julián, Alvaro.

In one instance there is a symbiotic relationship between the two, as the innocent Alvarito submits to the violence and cruelty of the infamous Julián. Alvarito always returns to his torturer, and in like manner, the beatings and flagellations revitalize Julián. Julián sees himself in Alvarito…. The scene ends as Alvarito hangs himself rather than allow his mother to be raped by Julián…. (pp. 618-19)

The close relationship between sex and death is akin to Goytisolo's dual concept of writing as a form of verbal suicide and as a form of procreation. Goytisolo rewrites his own renditions of the events of the text, undermining the previous signification of his own words. In this undertaking there is a death and recreation of these words as they reappear in different situations. Each time the verbal assassination comes to a climax there is a linguistic rejuvenation. The destruction never seems to end, regenerating itself constantly. (p. 619)

Nearly every chapter subdivision of Juan sin tierra draws the reader's attention to the act of literary creation by direct comments or reflections on the text's own development. Unlike Don Julián, in which explicit commentaries on writing are scarce, references to the pen and the hand that wields it abound in the last volume of the trilogy. (p. 620)

From the beginning of the trilogy to the end, one of the most frequent and significant features is the author-protagonist's state of flux, a never-ending division, duplication, and permutation of identities. Yet in the last section of the final phase of the trilogy, Goytisolo puts a stop to his own dynamic process of writing. Even though intertextuality affirms the ability of a text to change and disguise its identity, the end of the trilogy denies this possibility. In the final words of Juan sin tierra Goytisolo's world seems to freeze. The change is permanent. There is no longer a need to write, for the exploitative, oppressive, and repugnant self (an embodiment of the Spanish language) has been killed. The verbal suicide has accomplished what he wanted: an end to textual and existential multiplicity. (pp. 621-22)

Yet toward the end of the trilogy of Goytisolo's glorious self-annihilation is intended as an attempt at reconciliation of the plurality of selves. The final act is a mediation between the destruction of sacred Spain inside the act of writing and outside it. In the culminating pages, art is reconciled with the world. The exiled Spanish author longs for this recovery throughout his linguistic journey and truly believes that the search has ended joyously. Goytisolo's sense of his own self-integration, his oneness with the world, unravels, however, when we take into consideration an important consequence of ironic discourse: the awareness of inauthenticity does not presuppose authenticity. The fact that Goytisolo mimics his predecessors and subverts their intentions, the fact that he infiltrates a previous text and corrupts its meaning, and the fact that he disguises himself as an embodiment of the very culture he violates: these facts cannot permanently relieve the anguish and alienation which inspired the series of assaults. The perverse pleasure received from these acts of treason is momentary and ultimately heightens the tension that caused them. The eventual result can only be further rebellion and aggression—a perpetual regeneration of linguistic subversion. (p. 622)