121
Emilio G. Gamero y de Laiglesia, Galdós y su obra, II. Las novelas (Madrid: Imprenta Ruiz, 1934), discerned that Máximo Manso is both «un ser efectivo y real» and «hechura de la fantasía del novelista» (p. 86) but, not knowing what to make of that, made nothing of it. Walter T. Pattison, given to positivistic sleuthing, rejects out of hand the denomination of Manso as an autonomous character («El amigo Manso and el amigo Galdós», Anales Galdosianos, 2 [1967], 151, n. 72).
122
Joaquín Casalduero, Vida y obra de Galdós (1843-1920), 3rd ed. (Madrid: Gredos, 1970), p. 223; reprinted from Homenaje de poetas a Pierre Darmangeat (Paris: Les Éditions Polyglottes, 1966), pp. 83-90.
123
«La interdependencia de los personajes galdosianos», Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, No. 250-252 (1970-71), 129.
124
«El amigo Manso: Galdós with a Mirror», MLN, 78 (1963), 167.
125
Realidad, ficción y símbolo en las novelas de Pérez Galdós (Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo, 1967), esp. pp. 100-07. A propos of Felipín Centeno he says that «el autor descubría en sus personajes mismos de novela la posibilidad de sentirse ellos como seres reales, pero, al mismo tiempo, de hallarse conscientes de ser criaturas de ficción» (p. 79). Some of his introductory remarks, which he restates in his conclusion (p. 291), bear repeating here: «Nos hallamos situados, así, frente a un arte que se propone ser una representación fiel de la realidad, pero que insiste, al mismo tiempo, en su carácter estricto de ser un mundo de ficción. [...] el hecho de convertir esta preocupación de arte en sustancia misma de novela viene a constituir una de las peculiares maneras que adopta el novelista para llevar a cabo este proceso de transformación de la realidad en un mundo de ficción. La novelística de Galdós revela, así, una dimensión interior de arte que es consustancial a su propia creación» (p. 11).
126
For example, Leon Livingstone, «Interior Duplication and the Problem of Form in the Modern Spanish Novel», PMLA, 73 (1958), 393-406, includes a brief discussion of El amigo Manso in support of his postulation that this technique of interior duplication and character autonomy is a statement of a relativist metaphysic in which fiction and reality have no fixed outlines. Monroe Z. Hafter's introductory remarks in «Ironic Reprise in Galdós' Novels», PMLA, 76 (1961), 233-39, might suggest that he is to take up the problem of internal repetitions of the fictional construct, but he deals, rather, with characters' reflection of each other. He extrapolates the self/other antinomy from complementary pairings cither of characters or within characters and thereby dramatizes Galdós' subtle illumination of an elusive human reality. Eamonn Rodgers, in «Realismo y mito en 'El amigo Manso'», Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, No. 250-252 (1970-71), 430-44, aware of the frame's presence throughout the novel, takes note of Manso's mythic dimension but remains tied to a defense of the label of realism. Nancy A. Newton, «El amigo Manso and the Relativity of Reality», Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, 7 (1973), 113-25, cleverly weaves Manso's autonomy into her thematic considerations. She defines his trajectory from object-centeredness to subject-centeredness as «a dynamic act of auto-creation» (p. 122) and takes note of the special textual kinship between Galdós and Manso as a «deliberate rupturing of the fictional illusion which the nineteenth-century realist novelist normally makes every effort to maintain» (p. 115). Ricardo Gullón, «El amigo Manso, novela galdosiana», in Técnicas de Galdós (Madrid: Taurus, 1970), pp. 57-102, reprinted from Mundo Nuevo, No. 4 (1966), 32-39, and No. 5 (1966), 59-65, examines various aspects of the Galdós text but is more interested in enlacing it with Niebla and in defining its self-exposure as a metaphor of the life process than in extracting its metanovelistic components. He does remark on the first chapter's «operaciones de magia» (p. 77); he also registers Máximo as an archetype of fiction, «personaje de papel, ente inventado que no recata sino proclama su condición artificial» (p. 61). Gullón was among the first to give Manso his real due, but he did not choose to analyze the novel as a commentary on the creative act. Since the completion of my essay, Arnold M. Penuel has published a brief note, «Some Aesthetic Implications of Galdós'El amigo Manso», Anales Galdosianos, 9 (1974), 145-48, which bears on Manso's autonomy and Galdós' concern for fiction.
127
One is tempted to agree with José F. Montesinos' apparent hyperbole: «Nunca como en esta novela irónica ha comprendido el escritor tan claramente el sentido de su actividad creadora» (Galdós, II [Madrid: Castalia, 1969], p. 29), but precisely because in the context of our discussion, the statement -ironically- is not hyperbolic at all.
128
References to Galdós' novels other than El amigo Manso are taken from the Obras completas, V, 4th ed. (Madrid: Aguilar, 1965).
129
«Rhetoric in La sombra: The Author and His Story», Anales Galdosianos, 6 (1971), 10-12. Turner confuses the categories of author and narrator, but her point is well taken.
130
Cornea develops this idea in Ch. VI, «La realidad como ficción», in Realidad, ficción y símbolo..., pp. 80-99.