From Handke to Pron: intergenerational traumas and narrative breakdowns

Abstract

El espíritu de mis padres sigue subiendo en la lluvia, a novel published by Patricio Pron in 2011, is closely related to Peter Handke's Desgracia indeseada [1972]. In both cases, the narrators try to reconstruct their parents' lives and thus progress in the discovery of their own identity. We propose to read both works in a comparative way, paying attention to the rupture they operate in the narrative logic of language and to the projections they make from family history to national history. The two aspects of the analysis are complementary: the result is a fragmentary presentation of the territory from which the authors write and at the same time a reflection on the traumatic in writing.