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Anales galdosianos [Publicaciones periódicas]. Año XII, 1977
Manuel, Máximo writes a paragraph of resounding reproaches in the best declamatory style, but he
then represents that outburst as hypothetical and opts for simplicity, thereby slapping at the practices
of others. When Manso's taste lapses or when he takes liberties with his own standards, then the text's
self-consciousness turns his self-consciousness into self-parody, as in the following jocular displays:
« Doña Javiera era... (me molesta el sonsonete, pero no lo puedo evitar) viuda » (IV, 21); « Esto le
dije; estuve elocuente, y un sí es no es sutil o caballeresco » (XXXIV, 209); « Usando una figura de
género místico y muy bella, aunque algo gastada por el uso de tantas manos de poetas y teólogos, diré
que algún ángel había descendido a mí y consoládome durante mi sueño » (XXXIX, 244-45). 143
If El amigo Manso is an examination and revelation of its generic self, it is natural that its parodic
component should also be directed against the novel and the novel's medium, language. Throughout
the work Galdós satirizes the commonplaces and the spent formulas of novel writing. The surprising
shape he gave to El amigo Manso -not his most deeply human novel but certainly his most brilliant
tour de force- is his cry for originality and for renovation of the genre 144 . In its focus on its own raw
material, this novel already demonstrates its literariness, and in its relentless attack on the rhetorical
tradition, it subjects the word to destruction through the word. It annihilates the signifier that has
suffered the loss of its signified (a social commentary via language) and thereby subverts the sign
143 The use of dreams as a narrative device also finds its open justification in this novel. At one point
Manso recounts a nightmare he had and concludes by ridiculing the stale device of the surprise-ending
tale: « Concluiré esta febril jornada diciendo con la candidez de los autores de cuentos, después que
se han despachado a su gusto narrando los más locos desatinos: / Entonces desperté. Todo había sido
un sueño » (XXV, 151). But he reverses the satirical thrust when he sees in the dream he had an
indecipherable logic that connects it to his wakeful state of the evening before. With further thought,
Manso succeeds in relating the dream to events in reality and endowing it with an equal measure of
truth. The result is, on the one hand, a justification on Galdós' part for the inclusion of dreams in
his novels and, on the other, a moment's insight into his deep understanding of the function of the
dream in the human psyche. Most significantly, the act of dreaming is posited as yet another creative
process, a fictive construct built on reality.
144 Nimetz (p. 61) understands that Galdós has used Manso's narration to cast barbs at stagnant
artistic modes and to suggest that art requires constant reinvigoration. Had he stood farther back from
Manso's words, Nimetz would have seen that all of El amigo Manso is in itself a rejection of antiquated
artistic patterns.
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