Sterne Effects in Ramón Gómez de la Serna’s Novelas de la nebulosa

Abstract

Gómez de la Serna’s Novelas de la nebulosa, written between 1922 and 1947, are indeed the most refined and elaborate proof of an experimentation constantly related with the European literature of time. In the labyrinth of the plots of these novels we can observe the repertoire of cuts, stretches, suspensions, recoveries, of opening and closing curtains that make Don Ramón a clear initiate of the humoristic literature. Also in the Spain at the time of the edad de plata (1898-1936) the imaginaries of the literary humour re-emerge from the reject of the 19th century realism: novel comes back to winding roads, following again lives and opinions with digressive and introspective narrations and strange mixings between tragic and comic, it shows the asphyxia of literature only able to tell about itself. The aim of the paper is to explore in Gómez de la Serna’s El novelista some essential features of the literary humour, from the autobiographism to the writing in progress and to the combinatorial game between fiction and reality.