Juan Goytisolo Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Dru Dougherty

Critical Essay by Dru Dougherty

Before his self-exile in 1963, Goytisolo was just one of the young neo-realists who kept alive the issue of social justice following the close of Spain's Civil War. Even then, in novels like The Young Assassins (1954) and The Party's Over (1962), his target was the bourgeoisie, the social and economic infrastructure that supported the Dictatorship and profited from its policies. But with Marks of Identity (1966), Goytisolo launched a project of introspection that in Count Julian (1970) and Juan the Landless (1975) led to a more inclusive view of the bourgeoisie. No longer was the novelist able to maintain the illusion that he was separate from the dominant class. Not only did it coincide with his intended readership, but the language in which he wrote was increasingly its creation. The novelist was therefore doubly "landless": excluded from the dominant culture by virtue of abhorring its materialistic values, he was...
(read more)