Cercas y Unamuno: «La velocidad de la luz» y «Cómo se hace una novela»

Abstract

This study demonstrates the many ways in which «La velocidad de la luz» (2005), of Cercas, not only is modeled on techniques of «Cómo se hace una novela» (1927), of Unamuno, but that it reproduces –with its fictitious «Cercas» and its allusions to the historical Cercas– the historical Unamuno and the fictitious «Unamuno» of his well-known novel. Like the «Unamuno» of Cómo se hace, the character «Cercas» is obsessed with his public persona, which threatens to devour his true personality. Contrary to «Unamuno», «Cercas» realizes that the purpose of his writing is not to eternalize himself at all cost, not even to create literature out of his personal life, but to expiate the unexpiable guilt that he feels on account of having offended and betrayed various people. Cercas’s novel renders homage to the most transparent of Unamuno’s metanovels, but it seems to censure Unamuno’s alleged tendency not to question his motivations to the maximum degree, a censuring that Unamuno’s novel is perfectly capable of refuting.