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Anales galdosianos [Publicaciones periódicas]. Año XII, 1977
sabemos más que los metafísicos » (XLVIII, 298, 300). When at the end he says: « He dado mi
fruto y estoy de más » (L, 307), he is signaling not only the realization of his own fictionality, but
Irene's and Manolo's and his acceptance of their autonomous status.
Why does Máximo lose control over Manolo and Irene? In accordance with life's patterns, although
they owe their existence to the thinker-teacher-writer-artist Máximo, they, not he, determine their
actions as they embrace the society in which they dwell. In the light of fiction, once created, they too
become texts that others read and recreate. Their ultimate identity depends on these readers' recreation
of them. Art is as relative to the beholder as reality is, and since the creator's perspective is no more
than the perspective of yet another beholder, the creation's flight from its creator's particular perception
of it is built into the creative act. Perhaps it lies in the nature of art that the artist, unable to sense the
texture of his creations and powerless to track their future, simply programs their autonomy.
Máximo Manso's eruption into the novel, his death, and his education/idealization of Manuel Peña
and Irene are the three principal phases of Galdós' structuring of the theme of fictionality in El amigo
Manso . To complete the picture, one must mention that the book brims over with direct and oblique
references to the literary art. On the one hand, the frequent touches which signal that a writer is writing
expand the work's self-referential dimension as art, fiction, and novel. On the other hand, specific
literary styles and practices come under mischievous scrutiny.
From the beginning Galdós pokes fun at the artistic process, but with the double irony that informs
the whole novel. That is to say, the ironic tone that subverts the object presented in this light is itself
subverted by the measure of seriousness with which it must be read. Consequently, when Manso
writes: « soy un ejemplar nuevo de estas falsificaciones del hombre que desde que el mundo es
mundo andan por ahí vendidas en tabla por aquellos que yo llamo holgazanes, faltando a todo deber
filial, y que el bondadoso vulgo denomina artistas, poetas o cosa así » (I, 1-2), derision and exaltation
are indistinguishable. If he is disrespectful of his progenitor, he does not disown him, for he declares
himself openly as an artist (XIV, 84); and playful as the self-revelation is, it is nonetheless a revelation.
The mysteries of the nature of fiction are outlined in Chapter XL, aptly entitled « Mentira, mentira
» 141 -to wit, fiction. It begins with the sentence, « Dígolo porque ahora trae mi narración unas cosas
tan estupendas que no las va a creer nadie » (XL, 247), and goes on to establish the following series
of paradoxical facts: 1) this is a narration, my narration (fiction); 2) fiction is unbelievable; 3) fiction
is truth attractively garbed; 4) truth is unbelievable; 5) I, the creator, am confused by my creation.
141 Galdós' quaint use of chapter titles in this novel is a game that requires separate attention.
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