Nostalgia and Identity in El amante bilingüe by Juan Marsé

Este trabajo se propone analizar los episodios nostálgicos de la novela El amante bilingüe del escritor barcelonés Juan Marsé. El desdoblamiento esquizofrénico del personaje es simbólico del entorno cultural bilingüe de Cataluña y el tema principal de la novela es la identidad. En su búsqueda identitaria, el personaje principal Joan Marés recuerda su infancia en el duro periodo de posguerra. El retorno nostálgico no es a un paraíso perdido pero de todos modos, a través de la selección con la cual opera la nostalgia como reconstrucción subjetiva del pasado marcada por la imaginación, el protagonista logra reevaluar el pasado doloroso que al principio era negado. Reviviendo dos episodios importantes de la infancia, el narrador desmitifica tanto el sufrimiento de la época franquista como los signos de identidad nacionalistas catalanas. El regreso nostálgico, liberándolo de las secuelas del pasado, conlleva al final una reconciliación personal y la reafirmación de la identidad cultural mezclada de la infancia, inhibida durante mucho tiempo.The objective of this essay is to analyse the nostalgic episodes of the novel El amante bilingüe (The Bilingual Lover) by Barcelonan writer Juan Marsé. The schizophrenic doubling of the character is symbolic for the bilingual cultural environment of Catalonia and the main theme of the novel is identity. In his search for identity, the main character Joan Marés remembers his childhood during the difficult post-war period. His nostalgic return is not one to a lost paradise but nevertheless by the means of the selection with which nostalgia is operating as subjective reconstruction of the past, marked by imagination, the main character manages to re-evaluate his painful past that at first was denied. By recalling two important episodes of his childhood the narrator demystifies both the suffering of the Francoist era and the identity signs of the Catalan nationalists. By liberating him from the sequels of the past, the nostalgic return entails at last a personal reconciliation and the reaffirmation of the mixed cultural identity of his childhood, that was inhibited during a long time.