ࡱ> DFABCc /jbjbSS 11 q\]V V V V 8 D TV $B B (j j j j j j vxxxxxx,ݖјj j j j j j~Lj j B j ~j j vhj vvv& eVV V R>v CHAPTER IV The Emblematic Paintings In Antagona, Ral, as the intratextual author, sets clear goals for his narrative. On the one hand, he wishes to use structure, language, and symbols to present a holistic approach toward an understanding of the complex factors that affect human perception and their relationship to the individuals understanding of his own identity. In addition, through the use of narrative tension and complex inter/intra-textuality, he hopes to represent the processes that form the basis for the evolving transformations we perceive as reality. These, in themselves, are ambitious goals, but the writer in Antagona takes them one step further when he adds the desire to animate those processes so that they spill over from the text to become an active part of that reality. J. T. Fraser has equally ambitious goals in his book Of Time, Passion, and Knowledge, in which he reviews the history of humankinds search for knowledge from the perspectives of diverse fields of knowledge, including philosophy, the sciences, linguistics, art, and mythology. His study effectively demonstrates that all things must be considered in relation to one another in order to comprehend the biological, spiritual, psychological, ethical, and intellectual processes constantly influencing and transforming reality. Fraser foregrounds these relationships and insists upon the importance of connectivi-ties, or the creative connections humans are capable of forming between dissimilar objects due to their capacity to form autogenic imagery. This capacity is the key to the creativity that has been crucial for the survival of the human species (Fraser 259). In general, reality and evolution converge to create adaptations in living beings to help insure their continued survival. But, as was explained in Chapter I, the human mind goes beyond such adaptations since it may be thought of as containing models of its environment corresponding to memories, expectations, and creative thought that merge in the generation of symbolic structures, such as language, that then go beyond the models needed or determined by existence. These symbols have great consequences for the species and and its environment because: ()via the brain, the mind may be seen to exert selection pressure upon the evolution of life (and changes in matter), just as life exerts selective pressure upon the evolution of other lives (and changes in matter) via organized matter, which is the environment of life (Fraser 260). In other words, autogenic memory, or creativity, may begin in our heads, but it is then forced upon the external environment through the functions of the brain and the body as behavior adapts to the new mental models created. Goytisolo makes reference to this process in the section of Los verdes entitled Recapitulacin, in which the narrator comments on beginning to write a book (II 1922). He likens the process to being in a new apartment in which one is not sure where to put the furniture, or to being a child as he begins to learn his own language. The consequences of these rearrangements, however, often spill over from the fiction being constructed within a text and the real life of the author, inevitably and irrevocably changing both. The text sometimes even contains ideas and scenarios that prove to be prefigurations of what will actually occur in the authors life; likewise, it provides the means through which s/he may suddenly come to understand the importance of something that happened in the past, and thus necessitate a reassessment of conclusions, expectations, and actions. This process is disorienting because it creates a kind of tem-poral dysfunction that disrupts the process of writing and of living. Things simply fall out of sync and this lack of rhythm is very frus-trating. The narrator compares the effects to those that occur when clock time does not coincide with the perception of time as it is experienced (II 22). The moments when everything is flowing together, when it all fits, are so few that, when they do occur, we experience them as transcendent, as something outside the norm. Most of the experience of life, then, is defined by that series of constant adjustments and dislocations, temporal and otherwise, that occur between our inner and outer worlds. The situation of an author in the midst of the experience of writing is just an example of the ways in which the interplay between pre- and postfiguration provides the human being a means by which to understand the reality that s/he is always in the process of creating. Frasers concept of creativity is a broad one that has a great deal of relevance to Antagona. Luis Goytisolo makes specific connections between narrative and other art forms, particularly poetry, painting, sculpture, and music, throughout the novel. We have seen the example of the Ideal City which is presented via a drawing that is then internalized as a model in an architect-turned-writers dream. What are the differences in the effects created by the use of these different art forms within the narrative and what purpose does their juxtaposition serve in Antagona? This chapter will indicate some of the ways in which the use of image and narrative fosters a process of connectivity that weaves together the elements of the text while at the same time expanding its capacity to inspire autogenic imagery in the reader. Goytisolo employs synesthesia as the narrative technique that most intentionally foregrounds the biological, psychological and narrative/ poetic processes that embody the concept of integrated knowledge. Optimally, synesthesia recreates synergy and establishes an environ-ment that facilitates the kind of supreme moment Ral describes in Recuento when words, meanings, and action come together yielding an enhanced perception of reality (I 577). The processes and effects created by the four emblematic paintings by Velzquez exemplify the power of autogenic imagery to incorporate memory, sensation, and expectation into an evolving web of meaning. Earlier in this study it was stated that human memory, with all its gaps and confusions, is usually conceptualized in terms of a before and an after along a time line. One event precedes or succeeds another and we often create retrospective narratives in order to link these events, stressing either the causality which led from one event to another or the lack thereof. When the latter is the case, humans react with confusion and disorientation and usually begin to create connections even when none truly exist. We like our stories to make sense, to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. When a written narrative deprives us of temporal and/or causal progression, we seek to impose it ourselves in some way or to understand what the author is trying to say through its absence. In one way or another, all of Antagonas narrators underscore this tendency. The experience of narrative, like life itself, takes time. It is not apprehended instantaneously; therefore, the process involved produces a particular kind of movement or dynamic between author, text, and reader. Paintings or sculpture, however, appear to be more static at first glance due to their nature as objects. Aside from the effects of environmental exposure or accidents, they do not change over time as events or objects recalled through memory do. The force of their impact on humans comes from their potentiality of instant encounter and appeal (Fraser 402). In order to explain how a static object can represent dynamic movement, Fraser calls on E. H. Gombrichs principle of meaning, based on and symbolized by Zenos paradox: It will be recalled that Zenos paradox of the flying arrow ingeniously invokes and mixes the various temporal Umwelts. But, whereas Zenos paradox implies an arrow which flies in our experience but is stopped in our imagination, in a painting, in sculpture, or in architecture the arrow is stationary in our experience but flies in our imagination. The connecting link between the stationary world of fine art and the dynamic image it invokes is Gombrichs principle of meaning. The artists gift is the capacity to retain a focus, in terms of meaning, while he freely travels among his (hence our) Umwelts. He functions as our time-roving ambassador. (Fraser 402) Works of art tap into the hierarchy of the many temporalities surviving in man and manipulate consciousness by creating conflicts or harmonies within its various levels (Fraser 404). Goytisolos recourse to this layered conceptualization of time and its implications has already been noted in the use of the rainbow in Ricardos image of the Ideal City and is reiterated in many other ways, such as in the repeated descriptions of cities and civilizations being built upon the foundations of earlier structures. Both biologically and psychologically, the evolution of the species reaches down into epochs long forgotten by written history or the conscious mind but still present in us in physical and conceptual vestiges that continue to influence our thoughts and behavior. Jungs collective unconscious and the archetypes he posits as being something like a psychological corollary to DNA reach back to these formative times for the species and connect contemporary humankind to its ancestors via the evolutions and transformations of these powerful images flowing from the subconscious. These levels exist simultaneously within us and are superimposed one upon the other as we develop from one stage to another, later stages incorporating, rather than eradicating, earlier ones; hence Freud was able to speak about reversion to earlier levels of perception, understanding, or behavior. For Fraser, the perception of a work of art leads the viewer back through the many psychological developmental stages which ultimately inform his conscious mind and affect his emotions and ideas within the fraction of a second it takes to see, or in a fuller sense, to experience it. Works creating a feeling of progression, balance, and harmony along the path of these developmental levels are ultimately experienced as ordered and peaceful, as in the case of classical Greek art. On the other hand, cubist paintings, as one example, might cause conflict or anxiety because the usual connections inherent in the progression of developmental levels are disrupted, thus fracturing, in some sense, the flow of perceptive levels which we interpret as coherence (Fraser 404). The same effects can be engendered in narrative by maintaining or disrupting temporal sequences, aspects of point of view, etc. Goytisolo made an interesting choice when he included Velzquez paintings because they are deceptive in certain key ways that parallel other choices made by Goytisolo in Antagona. They follow, or at least bring to mind, the Hellenistic tradition of symmetry and balance; but, at the same time, Velzquez appears to have purposely undermined any sense of harmony in his paintings with a variety of techniques which effectively decenter both meaning and form by creating ambiguity and contrast and a resulting sense of movement in the viewer. In Antagona, baroque art layered into an equally baroque narrative context is certain to create a dynamic multitude of interrelationships based on similarity and difference, inference and reference, inversion and paradox, all of which are designed to unsettle and challenge the reader. We are, of course, dealing with references to narrative descriptions of, or sometimes just allusions to, the paintings in question; therefore, at best, the verbal rendering of the actual image of the paintings is once, and often twice, removed. Even so, perhaps because they are so well known, they maintain their integrity as art objects (outside narrative) and so are capable of eliciting the responses described by Fraser and others. Las Meninas The first reference to Las Meninas comes late in Recuento, just before the end of the third person narration of Rals life, as part of a description of the sensation of strangeness he experiences while rereading the notes he wrote while in jail three years earlier. The notes, out of their original context, have lost the meaning they had at the time they were written, but they have gained another, more essential significance: Era como si para que recuperasen su significacin fuese necesario que de cuantos elementos personales hubieran servido de base al material all reunido,()no tuviese que quedar absolutamente nada, reducido todo slo a eso: palabras; como si todo aquello que haba destruido en sus notas tuviera que destruirse tambin en la realidad para que esas notas cobraran autonoma, entidad propia. Y slo entonces, aquella catica recopilacin de reflexiones, ncleos argumentales, descripciones, evocaciones, dilogos, etctera, pudiera recuperar su cohesin y sentido y, sobre todo, como de golpe, se le revelara la idea central: un libro como una de esas pinturas, Las Meninas, por ejemplo, donde la clave de la composicin se encuentra, de hecho, fuera del cuadro. (I 583584) This description of the thought process that led the narrator to connect the words written three years earlier to the painting demonstrate that the questions of perspective, context, and meaning are paramount in his mind. If we straddle the boundaries of painting and narrative, the key to the composition simultaneously refers to the spatial arrangement of the elements of a painting and to the organization and meaning of a text. In Rals novel, Teora del conocimiento, both Ricardo and el Viejo elaborate on the connections between the painting and the writing and reception of the literary text. First, Ricardo speaks to the implications of the text as a point of convergence between author and reader. He notes that there is a basic ambiguity in fiction that derives from ()la oscuridad que preside sus orgenes y el resultado final no menos que la interpretacin de ese resultado, una oscuridad consustancial a la luz que libera y sin cuya presencia simultnea sera inviable el proceso creador (II 507). This description of the dark-ness that is co-existent with the light it liberates can be interpreted as a cosmogony that goes beyond the nature of narrative to that of the universe itself. In narrative, as in reality, the possibilities are endless. That the author will feel compelled to write a certain way and that the reader will in turn approach that text with his/her own interpretation which will lead, ad infinitum, to other consequences, is a metaphor for what happens in the universe as diverse and ever more complicated combinations of elements interact and yield their own results. What differentiates narrative from other art forms is that the respective attitudes of authors and readers toward a text create tensions that would be difficult to translate into any other form of expression, such as the plastic arts, or even film: ()una dificultad tanto mayor cuanto ms profundamente la materia narrativa se halle encarnada en el lenguaje, cuanto ms intraducible sea, por tanto, a otros lenguajes (II 508). The author or the reader, seeing such a plastic representation of a written text, may not accept it as a valid interpretation of the work because it does not coincide with how s/he had imagined it via the act of reading. Ricardo states that, in principle, the final key to a text is in the author and vice versa, but only in principle, because the work will also be received by a reader who will imbue it with his/her own connections; therefore: ()la verdadera clave del fenmeno que genera la obra de ficcin reside, no en cualquiera de los elementos que integran el proceso, sino en la relacin que los vincule (II 509). So, even though contexts and readers change, one thing in the work will not change: ()la estructura de la relacin existente entre los elementos que la componen, el papel que cada uno de ellos, dentro de tal estructura, juega respecto a los otros dos (II 509). The key to any work, then, is not to be found in what we see when we look at a page, but rather in the forces that link and weave them together in the authors and in the readers minds during the act of creation/ reception. Again, this process is a corollary to that of the interactions of the universe. The basic forces, those basic antagonies, are the only immutable elements of reality; everything else is process and change, context and perspective. Ricardo states that the real author, of course, eventually dies, but that something of him always persists in the shadowy zones of the work as well as in the well-lighted ones. This observation leads him back to a consideration of Las Meninas: Hay algo casual en la composicin de Las Meninas? En ese autor integrado en el cuadro en el acto de pintar y en ese espectador cuya imagen virtual nos la ofrece el espejo del fondo, quedando en consecuencia fuera del cuadro la real, la de los reyes y la de quienquiera que a semejanza de los reyes lo contemple, la de cado uno de los espectadores silenciosos que se apian en la verde penumbra del Prado? (II 509) His questions are rhetorical, but imply their answer: no, of course not. The painter intentionally arranged the elements of his work so that, no matter what the time frame (even in the course of this description, we jump to a present moment in the Prado from the original time of the composition of the painting), he and the spectator are involved in a complex act of perception (including observing each other), juxtaposing multiple conflicting perspectives which must be integrated through the processes of perception and interpretation in order to apprehend the work as a whole. Finally, in Teora, the old man makes his own observation on the importance of the painting: Pero es slo en Las Meninas donde esa primera aproximacin al proceso creador se har concreta y precisa, no ya, como bien observa Ricardo Echave, por el hecho de introducir en el cuadro la figura del autor, presencia que por s misma no hubiera respresentado mayor novedad, sino, sobre todo, porque ese pintor, al que vemos en el acto de retratar a la infanta en compaa de su menudo squito, est a la vez dentro y fuera del cuadro, al igual que los ojos que lo contemplan y que vemos difusamente reflejados en el espejo del fondo, unos ojos que, adems de ser los de los reyes, son los nuestros y los del propio pintor. Exactamente a donde yo iba: slo ve aquel que es capaz de verse a s mismo mirando lo que ve. (II 572573) The ultimate erasure of the boundaries of perception would be the elimination of the dichotomy of inside and outside. The multiple perspectives in the painting speak to this desire to transgress the limitations inherent in the duality between agent and observer. This would be to achieve the omniscience of the gods and, as el Viejo notes, whether humans can or whether they wish to achieve this is questionable. After all, look what happened to Faust or to Mr. Hyde (II 573). In her article, Mise en abyme and the Making of Meaning in Luis Goytisolos Antagona, Kathleen Vernon discusses the emblematic nature of the Velzquez paintings. Las Meninas, in her view, reflects a definitive if deceptive icon of the author at work, the problematic nature of which is best exemplified by Matilde Moret whose muddling of roles between author and reader points to the ambiguities inherent in them (232). Sometimes, the author does serve as an interpretative guide to the work in question, but in Antagona we are never presented with a single, authorized or authoritative image of the author. In fact, multiplication of authorial masks serves to subvert and ultimately to radically reshape our view of the authors role (Vernon 234). Goytisolos inclusion of explicit and implicit authors, as well as readers/spectators creates a double focus, which opens to a triple perspective allowing the work to go beyond the limits of the merely self-reflexive (234). Las Meninas thus creates multiple readings through its roles as object for meditation or contem-plation and as a stimulus for action. Vernon makes another important point about the analogy created between Las Meninas and Antagona. Las Meninas has an absence of thematic center, of content contained in any traditional sense which makes it difficult to accept that the focus of the work is simply the painter painting (235). The title of the work already displaces that focus, thereby deflecting meaningthe maids of honor do not seem to be the subject so much as does the painter. It does not clarify meaning but exists as a provocation to the reader. It denies the very key promised to the reader incapable of discovering it first in him or herself (236). Multiple perspectives, crossed and counter-crossed gazes and relationships, displaced or deflected focus, visibility and invisibility, forced movement of the spectators gaze, and, above all, ambiguity of meaning are the elements of the painting on which Goytisolo will build as he moves throughout Antagona. This does not exclude it from serving a myriad of other specific intra- and intertextual purposes, such as addressing the role of the author, the uses of metafiction, the meaning of mimesis, the important literal and sym-bolic uses of light and shadow, the creation of structure, the manipu-lation of perception, etc. The paintings ability to engender connectivities in a broad range of contexts is demonstrated by the fact that Michel Foucault describes it in detail in his book, The Order of Things, and points to many of its techniques and themes as those which helped to define the intellectual and perceptual shift from the paradigm of classical thought to that of modernity. Focusing on the various directions of the gazes of the characters in the painting and the fact that the subject of the canvas depicted in the painting is unavailable to us, he postulates that: No gaze is stable, or rather, in the neutral furrow of the gaze piercing at a right angle through the canvas, subject and object, the spectator and the model, reverse their roles to infinity. And here the great canvas with its back to us on the extreme left of the picture exercises its second function; stubbornly invisible, it prevents the relation of those gazes from ever being discoverable or definitely established. The opaque fixity that it establishes on one side renders forever unstable the play of metamorphoses established in the centre between spectator and model. Because we can see only that reverse side, we do not know who we are, or what we are doing. Seen or seeing? (5) This kind of ambiguity ultimately creates the dynamic of the work as well as providing an apt metaphor of reality as an infinite series of randomly activated possibilities. The confusion of relationships, the invisible spaces, the shadowsthese are the elements that create the gaps in our perception and our knowledge, according to Foucault. Likewise. they are the impetus for creating new connections, for overriding old limits and envisioning new conceptual frameworks. So, initially, Goytisolo uses Las Meninas to refer to strict questions of per-spective involving the effects of time on the decontextualization of subjective material so that it may be used to elicit a broader range of symbolic meanings in a fictional narrative. It then extends to include the differences between working with narrative material from an outside (third person) or an inside (first person) perspective; and from there it quickly broadens to deal with the ways in which time, context, and subjectivity alter the perception of the processes inherent in the ever-expanding webs of possibilities constantly being created within reality. Las Hilanderas The Velzquez painting associated with Los verdes de mayo hasta el mar is Las Hilanderas. The painting, described just before the fantastic voyage in Chapter VI, has a structural as well as a thematic significance for Los verdes, that, like Las Meninas, extends to encompass Antagona as a whole. When the painting is mentioned, the narrator is reflecting on the reciprocal nature of the changes generated between the text as it is being written and the author who is writing it: Realidad, ficcin autnoma, ficcin que se revela como mbito final de la realidad primitiva, etctera, incidencias y variaciones concntricas que van desde la transposicin literal hasta el desplazamiento y la transmuta-cin de la materia narrativa, conforme a un proceso correlativo que se efecta paralelamente en el propio autor. Una obra que, a semejanza de Las Hilanderas, consta de tres planos simultneos: un primer trmino de trabajo, mujeres hilvanando la materia prima de lo que ha de convertirse en trama del tapiz; un grupo de damas en segundo trmino, ms iluminado, contemplando el tapiz que se les muestra en aquel preciso momento, ()y el fondo, el tapiz expuesto en aquel preciso momento, uno de tantos tapices de tema mitolgico(). De los tres planos, qu duda cabe, es en el primero, en el del taller, donde propiamente se encuentra el centro del cuadro, y no tanto por su proximidad, por su especial realce debido a la perspectiva, cuanto porque constituye el verdadero nexo de unin entre los otros dos, el tema mitolgico del fondo y las transacciones relativas al producto acabado. (II 7879) There are obvious parallels between the structure of Los verdes (and Recuento, La clera, and Teora for that matter) and the painting. Bozena Wislocka, in the article Velzquez y Antagona, in El cosmos de Antagona, points out the correlation between the symmetrical composition and the doubling of the human figures in the painting and the groupings of the characters, most of whom have at least two possible names in the workshop text being created. Ultimately, this doubling, or even tripling, is echoed throughout Antagona in the way that internal parts reflect one another in terms of character, theme, and plot. The reflection process here, however, is not classically mimetic; it includes the principles of transmutation and transformation, the inevitable result of the interaction of the spectator/ readers perception of and perspective on what is being seen/ read. In Los verdes, with its insistence on process and its relation to structure including symbolic structure, the positioning of elements within the composition of Las Hilanderas is of paramount importance. In his description, the narrator tell us that the workshop itself is the focus of the painting because it creates the nexo de unin between the mythological theme and the transactions related to the final work. Robert Spires, Antonio Sobejano-Morn, Lisa Arbus, Andrew Sobiesuo and other critics who have analyzed the metafictional aspects of the novel have indicated the significance of Los verdes in this respect since one of its main functions within Antagona is to depict the process which ultimately produces a fin-ished text. The process, however, before it ever reaches the stage of words written on a page, is transpiring within the mind of the author who has imagined and discarded many possibilities before ever com-mitting anything to paper. The perspective is the key to the formu-lation of materials, and that perspective is necessarily located outside the words and symbols through which the author hopes finally to communicate his vision. While noting the ambiguity of interpretation the painting engenders, Wislocka stresses the strict parallels of composition between it and Los verdes. The composition is very defined: A primera vista, domina la impresin de un taller de tapices en pleno trabajo. La composicin est muy definida: dos salas, la del fondo algo ms elevada; en cada una se encuentran cinco personajes femeninos. Los dos grupos son doblemente simtricos, ya que en cada uno de las dos salas hay dos mujeres a la izquierda, dos a la derecha, y una en el centro. Esta composicin tan regular se repite estrictamente en la estructura del libro. La realidad novelesca tiene, dentro del libro, su correspondiente rplica. Todos los personajes, el narrador incluido, tienen sus exactos y simtricos dobles: Ral-Ricardo, Walter-Willy, Krista-Cristina, etc. (8182) Wislocka likens this presentation to that of facing mirrors which invert and duplicate the characters. In this way, the tapestry can be seen to reflect or mirror the last chapter of Los verdes, Periplo, in terms of its mythological function. According to Wislocka (82), the orgiastic journey, in which real and fictitious characters coexist, is, as it is stated in Los verdes: () va de acceso a niveles ms altos, en un intento por alcanzar la plena integracin o disolucin de la conciencia, es decir xtasis, trance y orgasmo a la vez que alcohol, y sangre, danza y copulacin colectiva, as la creacin, la obra (II 42). In Wislockas argument, the serene composition masks the original chaotic disorder preceding any work of creation which is the theme of the tapestry. He refers to the study of Velzquez work by Gustaf Cavallius, who believed the tapestrys theme to be derived from the version of the Athene-Arachne myth found in Ovids Metamorphoses. According to him (in Wislockas words), both Ovids work and Velzquez present: () un mundo cambiante: entes irrelacionados entre s se funden, lo inanimado se vuelve animado, lo desprovisto de la vida llega a adquirirla. La gente se hace, se convierte en cosas; objetos y sustancias pierden a veces sus formas, deshacindose parcial o completamente en la nada. Los sexos se mezclan y la distincin entre hombre, mujer y hermafrodita se hace arbitraria. (82) In Los verdes, we witness the gestation of a work of art, supposedly still without a coherent form. This is, of course, an illusion, because we are holding the finished, and coherent, work in our hands; still, the effect is that the work exists in an undifferentiated form, or, as Wislocka describes it, in a state prior to creation. The critic then refers us to Mircea Eliades work The Sacred, Myth, and History, which discusses the ritual return to the cosmic night or to the primal waters of regeneration (Wislocka 83). By building on Eliades ideas, it can be seen that the orgiastic, Dionysian quality of the voyage in Chapter VI of the volume that leads to the encounter with those primal waters functions on several levels. On the one hand, it is a surrendering of the rational to the irrational, of consciousness to the subconscious. It is also a regression to more primitive stages of development. Again, if we return to the idea of vertical time representing an evolutionary, developmental process in which the vestiges of each progressive stage remain active within it, then this voyage represents a submersion and surrendering of control in order to reconnect with that consciously forgotten, yet still active primal state. There are stages to this process reflected in the progressive descent of the characters through the caves under Granite House after they disembark from their boat (in Jung, a symbol of reason). They must even pass by the gatekeeper, the character of Aurea converted, in a succession of episodes in Los verdes, into the ultimate female archetype, the anima, guardian of the unconscious, who speaks to the travelers through the vulva rather than the mouth. The symbols used in the description of Aurea in the cave tie into a web of mythic significations: Se hallaba desnuda y tendida en aspa sobre un amplio lecho de pieles alumbrado por antorchas, envuelta en emanaciones sulfurosas, acaso simple aura o reflejo de sus propios crteres, de sus propios fuegos del cuerpo al entrar en contacto con el silencio de hielo que constituye el centro. Tena una cicatriz en la garganta, o tal vez nicamente una grieta o fisura como las que a la larga se presentan en cualquier escultura tallada en madera, y hablaba, en consecuencia, con la vulva (). (II 100) This image speaks of humankinds primitive nature, the instincts of the cave, the sulfurous mysteries of hell, and the realization that what really determines our actions and the nature of our beings is the lower area, (what Matilde Moret will call el sur), the genitalia, that represent instinct and the unconscious. The voice of conscious-ness and reason, the upper voice of the throat and mouth, has been viciously slashed. The unconscious has taken control and the rational self, the ego, is at its mercy. Divested of the concerns of the ego, the travelers arrive at the lake at the center of the earth. Unlike in the drawing of the the Ideal City earlier in the volume, this lake is not reflective, but crystal clear, and, as they peer into its depths, images slowly rise to meet their gaze, reconnecting them to those nights spent star-gazing as children when man and nature were seen as an integrated and miraculous whole. They sign a book for visitors, recognizing it as an honor and a rite of passage. As they sign, they respond to the notes made by previous visitors to this communal space, visitors they only know by the notes they made, but with whom they share an implicit understanding, and even a sense of humor, across space and time (II 102103). The narrator speculates on the importance of this interaction and arrives at the conclusion that it is not the author, or the individual, who chooses his/her themes or plots. They choose him/her. They are molded by the context of his/her existence, of the place, time, and circumstances within which s/he lives. Nevertheless, they existed before him/her; they are of a collective order, whether expressed through the powers of consciousness or those of the unconscious. They possess him/her and make him/her look like their creator when, in fact, the reverse is true. Night yields day and chaos yields the Earth, and not vice-versa, and so, to understand their origin it is necessary to look in las reas ms oscuras de la personalidad de su autor, esas reas que, como la Noche en relacin al Da, siempre estn al otro lado, igual que la Muerte y el Sueo, hijos de la Noche, lo estn respecto a nosotros (II 104). Just after this point in the text, the voyagers begin the reverse journey, the climb back up to the realm of consciousness and reason. The obstacles in their way are expressed in terms of the astrological opposition of the planet Uranus in Aires and of Mars in Libra. Uranus, in Greek mythology, was the husband/son of Gaia, the Earth mother, and the father of the Titans, the Furies, and Cyclops. He is ultimately overthrown by his son, Saturn. Mars, on the other hand, was the Roman god of war, but in the Greek system, his name was Ares. The planets mentioned are symbolic of usurpation, war, and aggres-sion, while the astrological signs reflect a concern with the creative principle and a balancing of the forces which affect mens lives (both are air signs, related to the thought process). In astrological terms, Uranus was in Aires during the late 1920s until the mid 1930s. According to the English astrologer Lyn Birkbeck, people born during these years, like Goytisolo himself, were led: () to reassert a most basic human right: the freedom to do what you want to do. Such a raw and primary impulse can give rise to extremes: from being obstreperous and reactionary on one end of the scale, to, at the other end, having the courage and stamina to stick to your guns as you fight to establish a new beginning in some field of human endeavor. (315) Mars in Libra also highlights social concerns and the need to obtain a balanced view of reality, specifically by not allowing other people undue influence over ones opinions. The characters finally find an escape route in the astrological trine formed by Pluto in Cancer and Jupiter in Scorpio. On the one hand, this combination of signs and planets points to the influence of Pluto, the god of underworld (as opposed to Uranus, considered to be the god of heaven), and the Roman Jupiter, the god of all in heaven and earth. Going back to the subject of the tapestry in Las Hilanderas and taking an astrological point of view, Pluto and Athene are strongly linked by the fact that they are both clthonic; they are creatures of the underworld. This conclusion has been espoused by those who have traced the development of the Athene character to a pre-hellenic water goddess, a fact that explains why the shield Athene carries is emblazoned with the image of the Gorgon Medusa (Guttman and Johnson 98). Both Cancer and Scorpio are water signs and are therefore linked to the emotions. Cancer, the fourth sign, is governed by the moon, the mediator between the formal and the informal worlds (Cirlot 37). In Orphic teaching Cancer was related to the threshold through which the soul enters upon its incarnation(Cirlot 37). Scorpio, the eighth sign, corresponds to the span of mans life which lies under the threat of death (that is, the fall). It is also related with sexual function (Cirlot 280). If we add up the numbers associated with their positions, we arrive at the number eight, the number of regeneration. So the linking of these two signs speaks to death (the price of the fall in Christian terms) and regeneration in both a biological and a spiritual sense. Pluto was in the sign of Cancer from 19121939, a time period concerned with the struggle for power and the need for personal and national security (Birkbeck 325). Astrologers believe that Pluto has a great impact on the subconscious which then expresses itself in social trends, one of which is the legacy each generation will leave. In this case, the legacy is a disenchantment with war (Birkbeck 325). Jupiter in Scorpio manifests itself in the concept of no pain, no gain (Birkbeck 268). People with this aspect in their astrological chart intimately intertwine their material and emotional lives, are drawn to the mysterious, and loathe the superficial. Sexuality and eroticism are the domain of Scorpio, so it is often through desires and relationships of this type that the individual learns the most important lessons of life. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, all of the planetary relation-ships mentioned to this point reflect Luis Goytisolos personal astrological chart. He, himself, then, is the source of the obstacles and the possibilities within the text. His perspective, if we believe his statements in the novel, does not solely emerge from him as a specific individual, but flows through him from forces beyond his person. The text leads the reader toward the idea that the forces of the universe have converged and been conveyed through him; in the same way, he and the narrative he is creating and then passing on to the reader will continue to operate upon reality, creating new possibilities as it combines with the readers world. This view opens up the individual to the recognition of powers flowing to him, of which he is a receptacle, but which then s/he transforms and sends out into the world again via her/his thoughts, actions, and the simple fact of his/her biological being. It combines collective and personal perspectives in a way that values the integrity of both and explains personal uniqueness in broader terms. It also stresses the importance of the opening of the mind and the spirit to many sources of understanding, some rational and some beyond the limits of reason to understand or describe them. Returning to Los verdes, the reader is told that, in order to escape the subterranean world the characters must travel: ()por aguas seguras, sin temor a contratiempos, hacia Neptuno y, una vez all, hacer escala el tiempo que fuera preciso, en espera de que se verificase la conjuncin de Urano y Marte. Cuando la conjuncin se produ-jera, una sbita vibracin sacudira la nave y, a ciento sesenta grados de distancia, un vivo destello sera la seal de que la constelacin de Acuario haba abierto sus puertas. (II 105) The ship symbolically moves from the waters of the personal subconscious to the outer reaches of space, the cosmic depths of the twentieth century. Once Uranus and Mars arrive at a conjunction (a joining of their symbolic forces), the way will be clear and the forces of the universe will direct the travelers as they seek the doors of the constellation of Aquarius, whose influence will bring about a promised time of harmony and understanding. Aquarius as a symbol carries a dual force containing active and passive aspects, evolution and involution(). All Eastern and Western traditions relate this archetype to the symbolic flood which stands not only for the end of a formal universe but also for the completion of any cycle by the destruction of the power which held its components together (Cirlot 1415). Cirlot notes that after the destruction, all elements are reabsorbed into the Oneness, whereupon, the creative cycle begins anew (15). I have already made reference to the fact that Goytisolo challenges the guiding principle of western civilization, reason, and sees it as the power which can no longer hold the components together. This doesnt mean that it is to be discarded, but rather, like the literary work itself, put into perspective and balance. The use of Velzquez paintings to emphasize the necessity of going outside the frame to see the totality can be applied to the concept of using reason as a frame for all knowledge. Only by going outside it can we see truly its benefits and its limitations without denying the other sources of knowledge which might inform us. The reference to Aquarius can be understood as signifying the completion of the cycle of knowledge that has centered itself within the principles of reason and the need to return to the oneness from which it came in order to discover other avenues of knowledge. This returns us to the subject of the tapestry in the background of Las Hilanderas which centers around the myth of Pallas Athene and Arachne. In brief, Athene, the goddess of wisdom, was born from Zeus head, supposedly after he swallowed her mother, Metis (Medusa, Female Wisdom) (Walker 74). She was subsequently linked with Pallas, whose Palladium was a lingam, later Romes greatest fetish (Walker 74). From this description we can see that the figure has erotic overtones which fully tie into that theme in Los verdes. One version of the myth is that Athene was challenged by Arachne, a mortal famous for her artistry, to a weaving competition. Athene chose as the subject of her tapestry the majesty of the gods, whereas Arachne depicted their amorous adventures (the Rape of Europa). Athene was so infuriated by the perfection of Arachnes weaving that she tore it to pieces. Distraught, Arachne hanged herself. Athene took pity on her and turned the rope into a web and Arachne into a spider. According to Walker, this tale came from classical authors (principally Ovid) who misinterpreted images of Athene with her spider-totem and web (54). Athene was originally the Fate-Weaver, and the fly caught in her web symbolized mans helplessness in the hands of destiny. The fly was an archaic symbol of the human soul, even thought to be the actual embodiment of the soul in passage from one life to the next; thus divine psychopomps like Baal-Zebub (Beelzebub) were called Lord of the Flies because they conducted souls (Walker 54). Another perspective is revealed when we examine the subject of Arachnes tapestry. Europa, the full-moon, was originally a mother goddess. In the Hellenic tradition, she is kidnapped and raped by Zeus who transformed himself into a white bull to carry her away. In earlier civilizations, however, images of her are found triumphantly riding on the Sun-bull, her victim.(Walker 287). Parting from this myth, its Greek counterpart represents an inversion which posits the supremacy of the masculine over the feminine principle, and, in social terms, of patriarchy over matriarchy, reason over chaos. In Velzquez painting, the references to the myth are subtle and indirect. They also build upon an intertextual framework: given the timing of Velzquez trips to Italy, his interactions with Titian, and the creation of this particular work, it is highly likely that he had Titians work, The Rape of Europa, in mind: Behind them (Pallas Athene and Arachne), we can just detect the head of a bull and some fluttering drapery. Because we share with Velzquezand probably members of the courta knowledge of Titians Rape of Europa, we are able to identify the theme of the tapestry. Europa carried off by Jupiter in the form of a bull was, according to Ovid, the first subject woven by Arachne in her contest with Pallas Athene. Titians painting was among the many paintings by him in the Spanish royal collection copied by Reubens during his visit to Madrid in 1628. (Harris 160) Just as Reubens created his own version of the theme, so did Velzquez. In his work, Athene is imperious and dignified before her mortal opponent, and Arachnes punishment is: at most only hinted at by the musical instrument placed prominently in front of the tapestry. Music was the traditional antidote to the bite of the giant spider, the tarantula (Harris 160). His representation, based on allusion and deferred references, is, in visual form, what the reader contends with throughout Antagona. The metaphorical, symbolic level of the text looms larger and becomes more interrelated in its connectivities the more that the reader brings to it in terms of formal and experiential knowledge. The references to the confrontation between reason (the masculine principle) and the erotic or instinctual (the female principle) are a fundamental theme in Antagona. The unstable forces created by their dynamic tension are alluded to in the ambiguity inherent in the Arachne myth, complete with its reference to misinterpretation and the effects of time and culture on understanding. All of these interactions play into the complex web Goytisolo is creating. In an earlier quote, reference was made to the fact that the author does not choose his work, it chooses him. Like the fly, he is caught in the web of fate, but also, through the process involved, he is effecting, along with the reader caught in the web of his fiction, a life passage, a passage of the soul from one world, that of fiction, to another, that of reality. Inevitably the frontiers between one world and another become blurred and this leads to an even greater complexity which feeds the creative process. Goytisolo juxtaposes the painting to his description of the Periplo. The image feeds the narrative through an integration of classical symbolism, Pythagorean numerical symbolism, astrology, and the mythical realms of both the past and contemporary civilization. The confluence of themes and structures yielded up by the painting in combination with the narrative actively demonstrates the ways in which knowledge builds upon itself and is constantly molded by the past, the present, and our ability to engender autogenic imagery which will ultimate help to form the future. I believe that this type of activity corresponds to that which Goytisolo describes as the interaction of memory, the present moment, and prefiguration within Antagona. Taken together, they form a kind of eternal present in which past, present, and future, reality and fantasy, are so contextu-alized and interrelated as to forge the integration of instant and duration. Las Lanzas and La Clera de Aquiles In La clera de Aquiles, the author continues to present us with references to classical mythology, interpretations and misinterpre-tations, the interplay of the visible and the invisible, and the themes of displacement and creative ambiguity. In this text, there is a notable change in narrative voice. Matilde Moret, the only female voice in Antagona, serves, in part, to give us an outside view of Rals thoughts and narrative theories. In this way, her inclusion can be seen as an effort to recreate the interactive role of the spectator implied in the composition of Las Meninas. Whereas she may fulfill that function vis a vis Ral and his work, Matilde herself is a mass of contradictions and neuroses who makes every effort to dominate the readers understanding of her narration. In other parts of Antagona, characterization is consistently down-played in order to emphasize process and synthesis without the distractions of personality and plot. But, as Goytisolo has noted, this is one character who got away from him. Both in spite of and because of her blindness when it comes to her own life and character, the reader connects with her explicit and implicit personas even more as s/he goes around her to understand her text. The Velzquez painting presented as emblematic of this text is Las Lanzas (The Lances, also known as The Surrender at Breda), but Matilde also discusses a second painting, supposedly by Poussin, called La Clera de Aquiles. As it turns out, this painting is a figment of Matildes very active imagination, but it plays a key role in her narration and in the overall theme of Antagona. While, as we will demonstrate, the two paintings work in unison to give insight into Matilde and Antagona as a whole, the more important of the two, according to the author, is the phantom painting which serves the function of an analogy within the text: ()Las Lanzas es aqu una mera cortina de humo; aqu, el verdadero cuadro (equivalente a Las Meninas de Recuento y Las Hilanderas de Los Verdes) es justamente La Clera de Aquiles, exista o no exista (Goytisolo, Nolens 29). In section nine of Chapter III (note the numbers), Matilde offers us a relatively long and rambling monologue based on a kind of free association of topics, the direction of which is sparked randomly by a word, a memory, a theme, a person, etc. While it is possible to locate the connections between one thought and another, they are not of the same sort nor category and the section flies in all directions: a philosophy of life; a discourse on the analogous development of life, love, and illness; advice on maintaining good health; a commentary on Ral and his relationship with his wife, Nuria; and background on her book, El Edicto de Miln; just to name a few. An important point in trying to follow her narrative is that Matilde consistently contradicts her own statements. For example, she declares that exercise is absolutely necessary and that therefore she engages in routine, vigorous sport; but then, well, actually, she reveals herself (one thinks, without realizing it) to be a better spectator than athlete, content to watch everyone else come flying down the ski slope because what really matters to her is being able to breathe that great alpine air and look good in ski clothes (II 169170). For someone who emphasizes the importance of having and being a privileged reader, Matilde demonstrates a remarkable inability to focus her narration in the direction of any one interlocutor. At times she is a woman talking to herself in an intimate environment, lost in thought, so to speak; and at other times she directs herself clearly to her supposed reader to give advice on such things as the value of natural medicines. Whether in an indirect or direct manner, the effect is that she is talking alternately to herself, to Camila, to Ral, or to the extra-textual reader, often jumping from one to the other without transitions. The confusion projected by Matildes thought process in this section is symptomatic of that of the whole volume, and, once again, we are dealing with a deferred or displaced central focus. Her unreliability as a narrator (although in this volume we can at least point to a clearly defined narrative voice which was not always the case in Recuento and Los verdes) opens the way to a conversation between the reader and Ral, as well as between the reader and Luis Goytisolo. The three way perspective can be visualized as both a triangle and as a series of concentric circles with Matilde in the center and Goytisolo and the reader in the outer ring; but both dynamics, with the different energies they create, are repeated in the volumes tripartite structure. Within La clera, as explained in Chapter II of this study, the structure creates an outwardly projected, triangular energy, under-scored by the love triangle between Matilde, Camila, and Roberto. Within Antagona as a whole, the effect is more circular. Matilde and her text are at the center of one circle, enveloped by the broader context created by Ral and Antagona, enveloped in turn by the contexts, which are a mix of reality and fiction, of Goytisolo and of the reader. The circles are linked by everything that produces connectivity between and amongst the players, whether real or fictional. It is important to consider all of the above as background for understanding the use of Las Lanzas and the imaginary work, La Clera de Aquiles, in the text. Matilde declares that Las Lanzas is not just a painting; it is a conception of life (II 164). She then presents rhetorical questions that lead directly to her own interpretation of the theme of the painting: why does the town of Breda surrender?; is it because of the sharpened spears, or due to the prolonged assault on the city indicated by the smoke in the background?; or is it indicated by the key at the compositional center of the work (164165)? Es decir: una llave que es la clave tanto en el terreno plstico como en el temtico, y respecto a la cual, las armas que la orillan, la perspectiva en fuga de las agudas lanzas, son meros elementos de realce. Despus, tras la hipcrita cordialidad con que la ofrenda es acogida, vendr una vengativa luminaria de hogueras purificadoras, ()el ineludible escarmiento. Pero la ciudad, aquello cuya suerte, cuya integridad, cuya existencia misma est en juego, se habr salvado. La rendicin como alternativa nica a la destruccin. O la llave o el destino de Troya. (II 165) This Velzquez painting is the only one with a historical background still extant from his work. It depicts the surrender of the Flemish town of Breda to the Spaniards, on June 2, 1625. Because of the valor of the city while under siege, the Spanish army, led by Ambrogio Spinola, allowed the conquered foe, led by their governor, Justin of Nassau, to march out of the town armed and with flags flying. It is speculated that Velzquez used an engraving of the town as the likeness for his painting, and that the central action, the turning over of the key, actually came from a scene in a play by the seventeenth century playwright, Caldern de la Barca, rather than any historical account (Harris 126). The painting, then, is already based on a variety of reference points, both narrative and visual, historical and fictional. Harris points out that what differentiates Velzquez painting from others of the time period on similar subjects is the transformation of the scene by the portraiture within them (128). Particularly noteworthy is the courtly elegance in the attitude of conqueror to conquered captured by Velzquez art (Harris 128). Given the way in which Matilde interprets the painting, she is then able to draw parallels between its underlying dynamic and that of life and love, health and disease. Her understanding of these processes is very much colored by the siege she is waging for Camilas affections. She thinks that she is manipulating Camila and her male lover by allowing them to carry on their affair with her full know-ledge. She is willing to wait for Camilas surrender to her superior power when Camila tires of the obviously inferior Roberto. For Matilde, love and war are the same in that their intent is to exert control over another by means of a superior force or power. They are: () en esencia, aspectos diferentes de una misma prctica consustancial a la naturaleza humana. En ambos casos podemos encontrar, a modo de instancia ltima, un ataque y una defensa, repliegues y despliegues, movimientos cambiantes en uno y otro sentido, al igual, asimismo, que en la enfermedad (II 165). Matilde sums up this discussion of the purposes of war and the interactions she perceives to be similar to it in this way: Lo que realmente constituye el ncleo de la cuestin es la victoria de la ciudad sobre s misma por medio de un rescate: esa clave, la llave (II 167). The process survives in the various activities which become symbols for it. Like reading, writing, a war, or a love affair, each participant approaches an object which serves as stimulus for creative action. The contradictions, the open spaces, the opposing or mirrored viewpoints, the signs, and the images encountered fuel the process and push the individual past his/her previous limitations toward new perspectives. Kathleen Vernon states that Las Lanzas offers the reader a hermeneutic key to the text (234). Matildes intensely subjective interpretation of the painting prepares us for the equally subjective reading of her book, El Edicto de Miln, by emphasizing the fundamental interdependence of reading and reader, of the subjectivity of the real reader with that object which is the work (238). That attitude is necessary and inevitable and, Vernon notes, the best authors know how to use it to their advantage. Vernon also notes that by using Las Lanzas Goytisolo points to the fact that the socio-historical references of a work of art disappear over time; therefore, content and the meanings that might be attached to it are its most unstable elements (238). This point was made by Ral in his interpretation of Las Meninas. Structure and process are the most important factors and activity in the interpretation of any text. To further underscore this point, Matildes imaginary painting, La Clera de Aquiles, is included in the narrative. Matildes reference to this painting that she mistakenly ascribes to Poussin occurs in the third section of the volume, immediately after a discussion of an affair with a woman named Claudia. Her story leads her to reflect on the fact that, in love, hay siempre una importante dosis de sugestin, de autosugestin, quiero decir (II 280). She then moves to the process of suggestibility that occurs between author and text or reader and text. As an example, she calls on the memory of her time in Paris when she would stop in the Louvre to contemplate Poussins La Clera de Aquiles. Although she notes that Poussins work was not generally appreciated at that point in time, she found herself drawn to the work: Para empezar, la especial fascinacin que sobre m ejerci, de innegable carcter literario, difcilmente hubiera superado el nivel de la ancdota y alcanzado semejante capacidad de fascinar, sin una oportuna solucin plstica del drama representado: la ira de Aquiles al verse desposedo de Briseida. (II 281) This painting and its emotional theme impressed Matilde so much that she almost named her book for it. As it happens, it is but a figment of her imagination. Still, within her autogenic memory, this painting is emblematic of la clera de quien, una vez ms, se siente objeto de la traicin y el abandono, como si de antemano alguien o algo le hubiese condenado a ello (II 281). The theme of anger and betrayal, emphasized throughout Antagona, underscores a concept of life as a struggle or war between internal and external forces. Bozena Wislocka interprets the role of this painting in La clera as emblematic of a state of siege, be it between Matilde and Camila, or between the author and the reader: El autor, al crear una novela, se convierte en una realidad independiente, en un fuerte, y es el lector quien, con el acto de leer, intenta asediarlo, conquistarlo, penetrar aquella realidad que se muestra cerrada delante de l (85). The text is seen as the battleground between the author and reader; it is both the object and the origin of the battlefield (85). So, how does the author protect his work from the assault? Wislocka finds the answer in Matildes statement: Invertir el asedio, dejar que las fuerzas asediantes se estrellen una y otra vez contra los muros inexpugnables de nuestra ciudad (II 329). In this case, it is Goytisolo who has inverted the assault by making it more than obvious that Matilde is an unreliable narrator. If the reader believes her, s/he will miss the point of the text. Moreover, in case the reader missed all the other clues, the fictitious Poussin painting is there to prove the point (Wislocka 86). Kathleen Vernon also points out the fact that the phantom painting vanishes in error and confusion before our very eyes, a symptom of all that is problematic in Matilde (238). What remains, however, is her insistence on the validity of her intuition, even when the physical object toward which it was directed in her mind dissolves. This repeats themes already discussed with respect to Las Meninas and Las Hilanderas. For Vernon, Goytisolos intention in using these paintings is to focus on the importance of the specular function of the text and the fact that it reflects back to us what we put into it, all the while transforming what we see due to our interaction with the words on the page. In the context of La clera, this mirror reflects a dramatization of the reception process (238). In her view, the interpolated novel, El Edicto de Miln, and the painting demonstrate the fundamental interdependence of reading and reader, of the subjectivity of the real reader with that object which is the work (238). Vernon builds on some of the points made earlier by Robert Spires in his commentary on La clera in his book, Beyond the Metafictional Mode. Spires, however, develops in greater detail the theme of displacement, relating it to the question of the text as an aesthetic experience based on illusion (104). Luca, Matildes protagonist and alter ego in El edicto, appears to be the most real character in the novel; just as, I would add, Matilde is the most real character in Antagona. The portraiture animating Velzquez painting is also operating in this text; however, the metafictional context foregrounds the conventions creating that illusion in such a way that the reader comes to realize that Luca: () is not only fictitious but a fiction three times removed. In effect this laying bare of the game places the illusion under erasurecrossed out, as Derrida, following Heideggers lead, graphically demonstrates the concept. Yet since it is merely under erasure, the illusion is still visible, the aesthetic experience still exists. (Spires 104) Through the violation of boundaries, the author is able to reveal the text as a sign which demonstrates the absence rather than the presence of reality. While Spires intent is to demonstrate the use and effects of metafiction in the text, mine addresses this deferment, or absence, from a different direction. If we return to Matildes analogy of war to love and illness, then the absence of reality so clearly foregrounded in the text precludes any understanding of a text, or any other art object, as the end result of a process, i.e., a product. It can perhaps best be understood as a momentary symptom, a visible manifestation of an underlying process whose course will affect the intensity, if not always the cause, of the symptom it produces. Many symptoms are ambiguous and do not clearly define the internal process, whether biological, psychological, or physical, producing them. In fact, given the predispositions of the person or situation involved, they may lead us, as we seek to establish the links between cause and effect, down many a garden path. The case studies of Freud, Jung, and any medical textbook are filled with examples. In Matildes case, her account of her family history and her interpretation of the myth of Achilles provide many clues relating to her peculiar interpretation of both the real and the fictitious paintings in her narration. On the one hand, she feels abandoned by her father, but she is also furious with the mother she thinks severed her father from her. In her mind, her father and his memory have been victimized by the cowardice of her mother who rejected him because of his alignment with the Republicans in the Civil War. She lived that, and her mothers indifference toward her, as a betrayal. Her interpretation of the Achilles myth is very much colored by these factors and reflects her peculiar style of logic. Matildes life takes on odd twists and turns as she places herself in situations destined to repeat that initial betrayal, and her interpretation of the myth reflects in thought what has been borne out in action. Matilde relates that, during the course of an autoanlisis she discovered a parallel to her own case in that of Achilles (II 309). Upon reflecting on his actions at two key moments in the siege of Troy, the abandonment of the fight and the reinitiation of it, she draws parallels to her own life and to historical events. Matilde, so as to understand Achilles actions at those two moments, goes back to her version of the events of his childhood (II 309310). She contends that, within the context of the Iliad, Achilles is portrayed as un peligroso perturbado(II 309), famous for his anger and aggression. She dismisses the importance of the mythical Achilles heel and the idea that he was semi-divine, considering as more significant the fact that, as a child, he was subjected to a terrible dicotoma (II 309): Me refiero, claro est, a su feliz iniciacin en la vida bajo la tutela del centauro Quirn, al desarrollo de sus facultades fsicas a la par que intelectuales en directo contacto con la naturaleza, aprendizaje que tan brutalmente haba de interrumpir su madre, con el intil pretexto de salvarle, dndole una educacin de nia en esa especie de convento de monjas que, para un Aquiles, debi de ser la corte del rey Licomedes. La clsica espantada ante el destino, ya que fue all justamente, en la corte de Licomedes, donde el astuto Ulises acert a reclutar al joven Aquiles, con su disfraz de nia y todo, para la guerra de Troya. (II 309) Achilles betrayal then, took the form of being separated from his wise tutor to pass for what he could never be (female) in Licomedes court. Matilde chooses to ignore the fact that his mother reached this compromise, like the city of Breda, to save him, even if her efforts were ultimately in vain. In fact, the battles at Breda and at Troy are somewhat similar to this situation. After the scene portrayed in Velzquez painting, the fight was subsequently renewed and then lost by the Spaniards. Ultimately, the siege was ineffective. Matildes twisted logic is revealed when it is understood that the action she praised earlier in the text (the saving of the city) is now being interpreted by her as the ultimate betrayal. She goes on to refer to Dante, saying that he tried to trick the reader when he compared the kidnapping of Ganymede by Jupiter (since Ganymede wished it), and the kidnapping of Achilles by his mother (since Achilles would have preferred to be with his tutor). According to her, the sense of betrayal and inferiority Achilles felt as a result of his mothers action had its repercussions in his arrogance and superiority complex. For that reason, whenever circumstances undermined his sense of omnipotence, he, naturally, flew into a rage (II 310). Perhaps Dante knew, as Matilde obviously does not, that Achilles and Heracles (mentioned in Recuento) both lived in female disguise, recalling the priesthoods of Homeric and pre-Homeric times who wore womens clothing to attain the powers of divinity (Walker 8). This knowledge, were one to be aware of it, would cast quite a different light on their activities. Matilde is sure she has been clear in her explanation; but, just in case, she continues and includes references to Venus Aphrodite (according to her, the symbol of division and duality) (II 310311). She somehow decides that the problematic results of Venus birth were due to the fact that her mother cut off her fathers penis and threw it into the sea (II 311). This explanation, of course, overlooks the part of the Hellenic myth in which Uranus/Zeus rapes both his mother, Rhea, and later his sister, Hera. To say that Matilde is out of touch with her feminine side seems quite an understatement. She has fully incorporated western civili-zations validation of the masculine over the feminine. To her, any acceptance of the feminine, except as she might appreciate the female body as an aesthetic object, is to admit inferiority. Though stereotypes rarely apply in Antagona, it would seem that Matilde is a classic Jungian case of a woman possessed by the animus. She seeks only to control, whether it be Camila or the reader, so as to counter her own profound sense of vulnerability, and she is irrevocably doomed to failure. All of Matildes explanations are projections of her own problems and as such demonstrate another function of autogenic memory. Her projections eventually and inevitably become her reality and, although the reader understands that they demonstrate her lack of understanding of her own situation, her inability to step outside the frame of her existence, it is clear that, fictions though they may be, they do mold her past, present, and future reality as well as the reality of those around her. Ultimately, Matilde lacks the ability to synthesize multiple perspectives. She is all agent and no observer. She is locked within the needs of her ego and her fear will not allow her to go beyond those boundaries, uncomfortable as they are. If she were to surrender herself to the unformed chaos of the unconscious, it would most likely engulf and destroy her. Psychologically, Matilde and Ral have a lot in common; ultimately, the difference is that his character faces his fears and pushes beyond them and hers never does. In the final analysis, they are two faces of the same person whose perspective makes the ultimate difference in their development. The two paintings, as applied to Matildes character, both symbolize surrender, loss, and the mere postponement of an ultimate failure. Within the broader context of Antagona, however, they speak to a struggle attuned to every source of insight, knowledge, and perspective available to the individual. Matilde is Goytisolos manual on how not to read his novel and how not to live ones life. Esopo Following the pattern of Recuento and Los verdes, the old mans discussion of the Velzquez painting, Esopo, comes near the end of Teora del conocimiento, the volume bearing two title pages, one ascribing the work to Luis Goytisolo and the other to Ral Ferrer Gaminde. In the critical studies written concerning the importance of metafiction in Antagona, this volume represents the product, the end result, of Rals creative journey, and so exists as a theory of literary creativity. In this analysis I note the validity of that conclusion, but point once again to the idea that the metafictional aspect in the novel is but one in a series of interrelated structural devices. It provides yet another framework or perspective for dealing with the the question of a full engagement in the sources feeding the life process. In many ways, the use of metafiction represents the consummate integration of the observer and agent functions because it foregrounds process and structure and simultaneously observes and acts on them. If what Matilde says in La clera is true (and sometimes it is), Ral is already, at the point of her narration, a well known author with books to his credit. So, if Teora is the result of the process begun in Recuento, it is reasonable to argue that Matildes narration is either subsequent to the publication of Teora, or that Recuento and Los verdes are also novels written by Ral and published previously to both La clera and Teora. Another point of view could be that Ral is the intratextual author of all four volumes; that, like Velzquez when he painted himself into Las Meninas, he wrote La clera in order to include himself in the painting. Luis Goytisolo gives an indirect nod to himself in La clera which becomes explicit in Teora when Goytisolos name is actually mentioned by Ricardo. Within the context of the four parts then, Ral would stand both inside and outside his work, a position echoed, in the spirit of Las Hilanderas, by the inside/outside position of Luis Goytisolo and, subsequently, of the reader. Again, we can envision this situational framework as a series of closely interrelated concentric circles, with the text as the proverbial stone dropped in the water. The relative position of one part to another depends on the perspective from which the text is being read. The use of metafiction in the novel allows, and indeed compels, the reader to distance him/herself from the particulars of the text in order to perceive more clearly the levels on which this literary game is being played and so more fully appreciate the complexities of their interactions. The integration of the knowledge derived from an appreciation of each level leads to an aesthetic, intellectual, and perhaps even spiritual, appreciation of the whole that has the potential to be as transformative to the reader as it was to its author. This interpretation yields an understanding of Antagona as a working example of an active engagement in the life process. It emphasizes, through the story of the emptiness of Rals life before he began to write, why this kind of engagement is needed, the difficulties and the risks inherent in it, the demands it places on society and the individual, and the rewards it may bring. It is, in other words, a lengthy parable. In the old mans narration, the description of the life of the forest can be seen as a fable about its inter-relationships, and, as literary genres, both fables and parables exist as avenues to the teaching of a lesson (II 534535). As we might expect, Goytisolo layers into this part of his novel all the various definitions of the word lesson or moral (in the sense of moral of the story). In the old mans internal struggle with el Moro (the consummate other within the context of Spanish history), we see the concepts of good and evil being played out and finally resolved, thus exemplifying the moral of know thyself, one of the inscriptions supposedly engraved on Apollos shrine at Delphi. The concepts of moral duty and ethics, although with a heavy dose of irony at times (do as I say, not as I do), is a theme of the old mans legacy. But, above all, his tone and his words are those of a teacher; his reflections are meant to be a practical lesson about life. His words are the treasure more valuable than gold. Some-times he speaks truths which are immediately recognizable by the reader, and sometimes the author uses his weaknesses, as he did Matildes, to establish a dialogue which flows around the character, connecting Ral/Goytisolo with the reader. The narrator validates the old man, however, by using his voice to give the reader an understanding of the novels purpose as he discusses what one should look for in a text: Novelas que nada tienen de imitacin de la realidad, de mimesis, ni tampoco de insustancial rechazo de toda realidad, como tan vanamente se pretende a veces; no, nada de eso: novelas que son una metfora de la realidad, esto es, que proceden por analoga, nica va de aproximacin al objetivo propuesto, un objetivo que, como en el caso del pensador, tiene ms de recorrido que de meta, o mejor, un objetivo cuya meta es justamente el recorrido, impulso creador que, al tiempo que reflejarse a s mismo en las obras que genera, sea reflejo analgico del proceso creador por excelencia. (II 538539) Goytisolo puts descriptions of Antagona in the mouths of several characters, but this is the description which speaks most eloquently and succinctly to its intent. Velzquez portrait of Aesop, then, is emblematic of the purpose of Antagona. In terms of his treatment in the painting, in history, and in literature, Aesop is a prototypical example of the erasure of boundaries, creative ambiguity, and the movement and dispersion of meaning present in both Velzquez paintings and in Antagona. First of all, there is no certainty that Aesop the person ever existed even though Herodotus and Plutarch both speak of him as a slave who lived in the sixth century B.C. An Egyptian biographer of the 1st century A.D. asserted that he was a slave on the island of Samos who gained his freedom from his master and went to the court of King Lycurgus in Babylon to serve as a riddle-solver. According to that account, Aesop died at Delphi. In spite of these ancient records, there is now doubt about his existence as an historical entity. Like Matildes phantom painting, however, the question of whether Aesop was a real, living being is not nearly so important as the fables that name brings to mind. In fact, the very name elicits the same type of simultaneity and depth of perception that Fraser ascribes to works of art, but in a different way, by playing on intellectual and historical sensibilities rather than visual and emotional ones. Also, fables are very much a part of the childhood experience in western civilization. It is clear that Goytisolo gives great importance to the childhood years in shaping the individual and his/her understanding of the universe; so it is natural that the figure of Aesop, on several levels, underscores and ties together many of the narrative threads in the tapestry of Antagona. The old mans description of the painting in Chapter X comes within the context of attempting to define the consummate thinker. He begins his narrative (Chapter VII) by explaining what he perceives to be the difference between philosophers and thinkers and, according to his analysis, the type of thinking done by philosophers has clearly had a deleterious effect on western civilization: La humanidad se idiotiza progresivamente en virtud de la creciente ignorancia que atrofia las facultades intelectivas del hombre. El problema viene de lejos y, de querer remontarnos a sus fuentes, no habra ms remedio que llegar al origen mismo de la palabra filosofa, inventada en mala hora por aquellos nefastos amantes de la sabidura, que mejor hubieran hecho dejando en paz lo que no es susceptible de ser amado ni odiado en la medida en que, por definicin, puesto que no la poseemos, no sabemos qu es() (II 529) For the old man, wisdom is like: () un libro cerrado cuyo contenido desconocemos o como un camino que hay que recorrer, caso de estar interesados en saber a dnde conduce, si es que realmente conduce a alguna parte (II 529). He then speaks of thinkers as being superior to philosophers and names Pythagoras and the pre-socratics as the only ones who truly deserve the title of thinkers. For him, as has been mentioned before in our study of numbers: () ellos olfateaban los rastros de una sabidura desapare-cida, los restos del naufragio () (II 529). He goes on to give a scathing condemnation of Socrates, Aristotle, and Descartes whose insistence on reason as the definition of knowledge has led inevitably to the modern concepts of history, chronological order, a museum approach to man, and the path of progress he has supposedly followed, as well as the supplanting of philosophy with science (II 529532). In his view, the history of science is a long series of corrective actions taken in response to errors previously committed with the following effect on the psyche of mankind: Algo as como tener que correr y correr porque a cada paso que damos hundimos el suelo, porque no seguir corriendo equivaldra a caer en los abismos que dejamos abiertos a nuestras espaldas (II 5531532). Given this attitude, it is understandable that the old man rejects the image of Lorenzo dMedici as the perfect representation of the thinker and embraces Aesop: Esopo el esclavo, el fabulista, el sabio (II 569): Un hombre pobremente vestido y humildemente ambientado que, direc-to en su estrabismo, mira de hito en hito al espectador que le mira: la tnica de basto tejido marrn sujeta a la cintura mediante un pao; la jofaina y la bayeta, los instrumentos de su quehacer cotidiano; el pesado libro que sujeta su mano derecha, parte de s mismo, se dira, ms que objeto simplemente asido, un libro que, como si de un espejo se tratase, es reflejo difano del contenido de ese libro. Viejo a la vez que vieja, irnico y afable, despiadado casi en su clarividenciarisueo el ojo derecho, implacable el izquierdo, una clarividencia equiparable nicamente a la de un dios cado, rasgos que, perfectamente expresados en su representacin plstica, hacen de ella, no slo la obra cumbre de su autor, sino tambin de todos los tiempos. (II 569) The old man gets carried away a little at the end; this is not usually considered to be Velzquez finest painting, but it is the one which best expresses the old mans understanding of the life process based on his long experience. There are many similarities of character between the old man and Matilde Moret. They are both arrogant and egocentric in the extreme. Neither has much patience or tolerance for opinions other than their own, and they are very judgmental. As Gonzalo Sobjano has observed, Matildes character has a certain Nietzchean quality reminiscent of that exhibited in his Ecce Homo (89106). In some ways, this observation can be extended to the old man. They are treated quite differently by the author, however. As we have seen, Matildes lack of perspective and her inability to distance and see herself from someone elses point of view inevitably undermine the very control that she seeks to establish over her reader and her life. While the reader notes the old mans foibles and lapses of perspective, the character is never totally divested of his narrative authority. He and Matilde both say things that the reader recognizes as being valid; but we have the sense that the old man is on a journey toward self-realization, a journey which Matilde is too frightened to undertake. The Jungian archetype which best characterizes Matildes behavior is that of the animus. Both the anima, which contains the creative principle, and the animus, which carries within it the principle of logos or reason, have functions which must be balanced in each individual. When one or the other predominates, or is repressed, the individual is subject to projections and neuroses of the type we see in Matilde. In women, according to Jung, the anima predominates and the animus is the inferior function. This is no way undermines the capacity for reason in women. The anima and animus, like all archetypes, are expressed in many ways. In a woman, a positive manifestation of the animus archetype facilitates an expression of the creative force to achieve a balance between subjectivity and intuition, typical of the anima, and reason. When expressed negatively, however, the woman may seek to force her convictions on others by means of insistence or intensely emotional scenes. In its negative expression, the animus archetype can be brutal, aggressive, and blindly stubborn (Von Franz, in Man and his Symbols 191). Matilde exhibits all these traits. For the man, the situation is reversed. His animus predominates and his anima is the inferior function. Once again, an inability to recognize and put to positive use the anima function can result in grave imbalances. In fact, it is my contention that Goytisolo is postulating that western civilization suffers from an intense animus complex in which the anima has been severely repressed and denigrated. Hence the misogynist nature of contemporary society as demonstrated in Antagona by the authors depiction of society, the Church, and by the characters, specifically Matilde. Matilde is a clear example of a woman incorporating into her own self-image all the negative messages that society projects onto the archetypal feminine. The ways in which Rals creative journey are represented in the text speaks to the need for society to reincorporate the anima, the eternal feminine, back into its understanding of the nature of life, at both the individual and the collective levels. It is in this way that we can understand the part of the old mans description of Aesop when he refers to the fact that the character is viejo a la vez que vieja (II 569). The figure of Aesop has incorporated within it the best of the animus and the anima. At this point, we are but one archetypal step from the hermaphrodite, a sym-bolic figure occurring throughout the novel. In Chapter XI, there is a dream-like sequence in which a banquet is occurring in the old mans house. The banquet, like the dream sequence of Periplo in Los verdes, is replete with mythological imagery. The old man is strangely isolated throughout his description of the banquet. At first he is sitting before the fire with his back to his guests. The mirrors and windows form screens from which emanate the images of the many guests, both historical (Aesop, Dante, Milton, Goethe, Casals) and fictional (el Moro and other characters from Antagona) and their activities. Images and metaphors are repeated throughout the scene which stress the victory of totality over duality. Carlos-hijo is transformed into the mythological puer aeternus, and the hermaphrodite who reconciles the duality of the sexes and represents: ()el signo vivo de la fertilidad orignial, el anuncio de un nuevo mbito, de un nuevo recin nacido, a la vez que del final de algo, la ltima luz de ese viejo a la vez que vieja cuya extincin pre-cede necesariamente a todo nuevo nacimiento (II 591). Within this image, which incorporates part of the description of the Aesop painting, the old man illustrates the interrelated cycles of life and creativity. As he faces his hatred of el Moro the old man gains the power he needs to face himself, with all his strengths and weaknesses. Once he realizes that he must resolve his inner duality, he is able to project the archetype of the wise old man within the novel. The wise old man is the ultimate father figure who helps others with his advice and his support. He also represents a comprehensive understanding of reality. For men, according to Jung, the archetype represents the maximum awareness and integration of the conscious and the uncon-scious into the Self: I should like to emphasize that the integration of the shadow, or the realization of the personal unconscious, marks the first stage in the analytic process, and that without it a recognition of anima and animus is impossible(). The recognition of the anima gives rise, in a man, to a triad, one third of which is transcendent: the masculine subject, the opposing feminine subject, and the transcendent anima. With a woman the situation is reversed. The missing fourth element that would make the triad a quaternity is, in a man, the archetype of the Wise Old Man() and in a woman the Chthonic Mother. These four constitute a half immanent and half transcendent quaternity, an archetype which I have called the marriage quaternio. (Jung, Aspects of the Feminine 179) The old mans subject matter alludes to his continuing personal journey toward completing the quaternity or the squaring of the circle previously mentioned in our discussion of the Ideal City. For all that he may be short-sighted in many respects, his comments on human nature and on the value of certain kinds of activities and knowledge find a resonance in the reader who has, by now, spent a great deal of time within the virtual reality created by Antagona. S/he has participated in the introduction, repetition, multiplication, and trans-formation of many images in the text. The echoes and connectivities are in high gear now because, while the complication of structures in the text initially may appear to be hermetic, they gradually become clear and give ample food for thought to the reader who has begun to pick up on the interplay of symbol and structure and the process created through their interactions. Step by step, building on a series of repeated structures and images, the text has gained in complexity, in the same way that, through the aeons, the universe, comprised of basic elements, structures, and forces, has evolved from the simple to the complex. In his interpretation of Velzquez Esopo the old man talks about a god who has lost his former powers, a god who is no longer alone, omnipresent and omnipotent, because a new cycle of creation, based on the one he began, is in motion. Now the god is just an old man who has nothing (!) left but his wisdom. Through this analogy the reader understands that this god exists in each and every one of us due to the fact that we are at once the simplest and the most complex of creations (II 569). When the old man shouts at his guests, Cread Creadores (II 592), he is returning to the maxims at the shrine of Apollo: Know Thyself, and Everything in Balance. Each individual is a world unto him or herself, and has the capacity to create: ()a imagen y semejanza vuestra esos nuevos mundos no descubiertos que llevis dentro, esos nuevos Parasos, esos nuevos Infiernos (II 592). This does not separate the individual from all that is around him/her, rather it is the integration of the self into the cosmos and vice versa. The final paragraph of Chapter XI echoes this theme: Como si en lugar de diciembre fuese junio, luz y oscuridad mantenan su presencia simultnea, sol de medianoche en la lnea del horizonte, y por debajo de esa lnea, el paisaje sombro en un efecto similar al de la noche americana o al de una pelcula en color proyectada de sbito en blanco y negro. A levante, nubes retorcidas, traspasadas aqu y all de claridad lunar, se configuraban en una colosal masa de msculos, en un iracundo y gesticulante atleta que planeaba sobre los relieves ensombrecidos de la montaa. Un espectculo que era toda una invitacin de olvidarse de la fiesta, de los invitados y del mensaje a ellos dirigido, con slo tomar la grabadora, oprimir un botn y borrar el contenido de estas cintas desde la primera palabra hasta la ltima. (II 595) A new strength, at once physical and spiritual, grows within the old man rendering his words unnecessary to the only person to whom they were really useful: himself. He is rejuvenated and he sees his power, like a colossus, rise above the horizon, beckoning to him. This scene echoes one which occurs in Chapter IX of Recuento, when Ral is in jail and a sudden storm, a tormenta providencial erupts. The description of that storm is elliptical and intense. Its thunder and lightning trigger memory responses in him that make time seem to go backward to his youth in Vallfosca, and finally a dynamic image appears of the clouds in the sky: ()revueltos tal un amasijo de msculos y esfuerzos en titnico combate, hercleas arremetidas, centauros enzarazados alejndose entre centelleos y atronaciones, dejando tras de s tensiones rotas, espacios aligerados, claridades renovadas, hasta que a poniente se abriera un crter de blancuras solares, glorias celestes desvelando, segn escampaba, un panorama de magnitud creciente, cmulos encastillados, templos en formacin, catedrales en marcha con sus torres violentas y sus naves afiladas y sus criptas labernticas como ciudades en ruinas, formas violceas que se decoraban y terminan por esfumarse cuando la sierra Collcerola no es ms que un tenebroso recorte negro contra el poniente apagado. (I 506) That cosmic fight ultimately gives way to a dissipation of tensions and new understandings. Rals specific memories and experiences are transformed into symbols that reverberate throughout the pages of Teora, via the same process and with the same results as the memories and experiences of humans through the ages. In the final chapter, the old man looks upon a dark and tranquil garden. He now sees what those he leaves behind cannot, in spite of whatever legacy he may have wished to give to them. The new year is coming, the white horse and saving troops reminiscent of the beginning of Recuento make a reappearance. Margarita, the sister of Magda/Matilde, who is characterized in terms representing the archetype of the good mother with respect to Matildes devour-ing mother image (together they form the polar aspects of the anima archetype), brings a picnic, and the old man feels an integration of nature with his spirit, body, and mind, idntico a s mismo a travs de los siglos y los milenios (II 598). His death is a rejuvenation, at once the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. In this respect, each individual is a world unto him or herselfa world that is born and dies with him/her and which, as a result, has its own unique perspectives on life and reality. Nevertheless, s/he is a vital, creative part of the greater process of all life and nature. Each end is a new beginning, a reintegration, a transformation. Each death releases an energy that insures the continuation of life. Aesops fables give moral lessons for life that are as valid now as they were in the time of the ancient Greeks. There are some things which remain constant no matter how much others change. While they often speak to the need for the individual to behave in such a way as to integrate himself into society, they also function on the other levels alluded to by the old man in his narration. From Aesop we can learn that wisdom, a sense of humor, a little irony, a critical eye, and the ability to use all our faculties to observe ourselves as others see us go a long way toward helping the individual know him/herself and understand the world around him/her. Goytisolos text and his use of Velzquez paintings reiterate that message.  PAGE 132 The Emblematic Paintings The Emblematic Paintings  PAGE 133 notes  E.H. Gombrich, Moment and Movement in Art, Journal of the Warburg and Courtland Institutes 27 (1963): 297, cited in Fraser, 402. Zenos paradoxes were directed against the Pythagorean supposition that the Universe is somehow composed of spatial units and in favor of the Parmidean denial of the reality of time, plurality and motion (Flew 351, 244). Another of Zenos paradoxes of interest in Antagona is the that of Achilles and the tortoise which stated that, if the tortoise has a head-start in a race, Achilles can never catch up to it: For when Achilles reaches where the tortoise starts, then the tortoise will have moved on. When Achilles gets there, then the tortoise will have gotten a little further. And so on, indefinitely (Flew 351). Nuria gives Ral a tortoise named Achilles in Recuento that dies in a fire, and Matilde Moret is obsessed with the possible meanings of the Achilles myth to her own situation in La clera. In Recuento, the paradox speaks to Rals inability to move beyond the problems which are always a step ahead of him. In La clera, the focus is on Matildes peculiar interpretation of the myth that stresses the theme of betrayal.  Fraser defines an Umwelt as the specific universe of a perceiver. It is determined by the convergence of all possible stimuli or signals which can be received in any given environment with all possible responses to those stimuli. By extrapolating from this anthropological concept, Fraser arrives at the conclusion that creatures of different psychological organization (favoring different senses) might perceive reality differently due to the emphasis of some sensory data (including the sense of time) over another: A description of the world by a living organism, whether expressed through language or through any other integrated behavior, might then be best conceived of as a dynamic model created by the knower and the known together. External reality then will not appear as an immense store of well-defined information from which an individual may select some, resembling the student of language who selects words from a dictionary. Instead, it will comprise acts of creation whose uniformity for each species is guaranteed by the psychobiological uniformity of members of that species. Thus, the world as perceived becomes an ontological statement and an epistemological demonstration(). In the view held here final reality is relative to the perceiver (Fraser 7576).  For an example, see the description of the history of Barcelona in Recuento (I 215222). Rals presence in a museum inspires what begins as a reference to the archeological exhibits and evolves into an extensive satirical commentary on the social and political history of the city. Another such reference, this time tied to the authors state of mind, can be found in the description of the town of Rosas in Los verdes (I 722).  In her book, Velzquez, Enriqueta Harris notes that this title for the painting, used in the XVIII century when it entered the royal collection, was subsequently changed to the Fable of Arachne, in modern times (159). Here, Goytisolos preference will be respected.  Wislocka here cites the following source: G. Guavallius, Velzquez, Las Hilanderas. An Explication of a Picture. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis (1972): 163.  Aires, the first sign of the zodiac, like the number 1, represents the creative principle, the emergence of form from the primordial waters of Pisces. It is the initial spark which will lead from the potential to the actual. It controls the head and the brain, the center of mans physical and spiritual energy (Cirlot 1819).  Libra, the seventh sign of the zodiac, is symbolized by the scales and is the sign of equilibrium on the cosmic and psychic planes. It indicates the need for man to balance inner and outer tendencies in order to achieve spiritual and mental health (Cirlot 186187).  A trine is a favorable aspect created when links between planets and signs in an astrological chart can be aligned in the form of a triangle. The chart is a circular form divided into twelve segments representing the signs of the zodiac. An opposition, on the other hand, is created when strong, conflicting signs are directly opposed on the chart and it indicates difficulties and obstacles in the areas of life influenced by those signs.  For a more complete explanation of the role of the erotic in Antagona, see: Kathleen Vernon, The Masks of Eros: Luis Goytisolos Antagona, Ro Piedras: Universidad de Puerto Rico, Facultad de Humanidades V. 21. I (January 1987): 85116. 10 Mis personajes, de hecho () son bastante planos, planos como podra serlo un objetivo. Con ello evito, tambin, que el lector se desve de lo que es verdaderamente importante. Cuando me descuido y concedo la palabra a otra persona, como ocurri en el caso de Matilde Moret, cobra importancia por si sola. Yo hubiera preferido que fuera un personaje ms plano, pero fue adquiriendo relevancia, se me fue imponiendo (L. Goytisolo in Francisco Valls, Sobre la trayectoria narrativa de Luis Goytisolo: Una conversacin, Nuevas Letras 6 (1987): 90. 11 Ganymede was the boy-lover given to Father Zeus by Hellenic writers anxious to create a divine prototype for their cult of homosexuality. Ganymede was carried to heaven on an eagles back to slake Zeus lust. He became Cupbearer to the Gods, replacing Hebe who was the virgin aspect of Mother Hera. Thus the dispenser of immortality became male instead of female (Walker 337). 12 Pues si existe una persona a la que, como se dice vulgarmente, no hay quien le hinque el diente, esa persona es Ral. Sobre todo ahora que se ha convertido en escritor famoso y, a travs de sus libros, ha tenido la oportunidad de retocar su imagen() (II 173). 13 De ah que cualquier hipottico lector de las presentes lneas pueda concluir a su vez, no menos sagazmente y en virtud del mismo juego de compensaciones, en que mi nombre, Matilde Moret, encubre un varn; cosa por otra parte, acaso ms cierta de lo que a primera vista pueda suponerse (II 254). Given Matildes unreliability, this quote has been seen by many critics to represent a thinly veiled allusion of Goytisolos presence in the novel. 14 As como un bosque no es simplemente un nmero indeterminado de rboles, sino, muy al contrario, una forma de vida autnoma, irreductible a la mera suma de rboles que lo componen, ya que, al pie de esos rboles, enmaraando el suelo, est el sotobosque, en ntima relacin con los troncos, antagnica a la vez que complementaria, y al igual que por encima de este sombreado sotobosque estn las ramas, en lucha unas con otras por la luz, y, por debajo, la lucha silenciosa adems de oscura, las races, como serpientes enfrentadas, enroscndose y desenroscndose en la bsqueda de la humedad que seala el paso vivificante de las aguas subterrneas, as de modo semejante, ni un pueblo es una simple adicin de vecinos, ni una familia una serie de individuos relacionados por diversos grados de parentesco (II 544). 15 The two inscriptions on the shrine were: know thyself and nothing in excess (Guttman, Johnson 20). In one version of the story of his life, Aesop dies at Delphi. 16 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., Britannica Online, Internet, 1997. 17 El Moro is an interesting character in Teora because he exists as a projection of all the parts of el Viejos personality which he does not wish to see, much less understand. In Jungian terms, el Moro would represent the old mans shadow, elements of his personality which he despises in himself and so represses. His ability to incorporate his shadow into his understanding of himself will free him to continue in the individuation process. 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