On Nocilla and the Urbanization of Consciousness: Multiplicity
and Interdisciplinarity in Agustn Fernndez Mallos Fragmented
Trilogy Benjamin Fraser Hispania, Volume 95, Number 1, March 2012, pp. 1-13 (Article) Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press For additional information about this article Access provided by your local institution (5 Nov 2013 04:14 GMT) http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hpn/summary/v095/95.1.fraser.html Hispania 95.1 (2012): 113 AATSP Copyright 2012 On !"#$%%& and the Urbanization of Consciousness: Multiplicity and Interdisciplinarity in Agustn Fernndez Mallo`s Fragmented Trilogy Benjamin Fraser The College of Charleston, USA Abstract: This essay reappropriates the segmentary Iorm oI the three works oI Agustin Fernandez Mallo`s Nocilla project (Nocilla Dream |2006|; Nocilla Experience |2008|; Nocilla Lab |2009|) en route to an urban reading oI its Iragmentary structure. The project`s interdisciplinary push, overwhelming incorpora- tion oI both scientifc and literary/cultural reIerences, and method oI collage evoke the shiIting fow and complex nature oI contemporary urban liIe. The ubiquity oI reIerences to urban communities within the text oI Nocilla itselI suggests connections to work by such fgures as Georg Simmel, Walter Benjamin, Louis Wirth, David Harvey, Raymond Williams, Guy Debord, Henri LeIebvre, and Jane Jacobs. Moreover, the present essay`s extratextual reIerences, driIting method, and punctuated structure constitute a ftting scholarly tribute to the interdisciplinary approach that Fernandez Mallo has labeled 'postpoetic. Keywords: Agustin Fernandez Mallo, cities/ciudades, Nocilla project/proyecto Nocilla, science and literature/ciencia y literatura, urbanized consciousness/consciencia urbanizada 1 C omprising the novels Nocilla Dream (ND, 2006), Nocilla Experience (NE, 2008), and Nocilla Lab (NL, 2009), Agustin Fernandez Mallo`s Nocilla trilogy suggests numerous interpretive approaches. Nevertheless, going beyond its author`s postpoetic declarations (section 5, below)his status as a degree-holding licenciado en Ciencias Fisicas (sec. 9), the surge in 'zapping literature (a word evoking rapid channel changes), the persistent trope oI postmodernism (sec. 10), and so onperhaps the most totalizing and thus compelling reading oI the trilogy is one grounded in the urbanization oI consciousness. Make no mistake, the chaotic, cacophonous, and Iragmented structure oI the Nocilla trilogy seems to be sorely in need oI some sense oI unity: the novels are vertebrated not by traditional chapter titles or divisions but by a series oI incrementally increasing positive integers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5., such as those similarly employed in this essay) that only occasionally reIerence the same previously introduced cast oI characters. The eIIect achieved is one oI narrative collage interpolating brieI enigmatic narratives, poetic images, and philosophical theorizations, along with direct quotations reappropriated Irom works oI other notable fgures across both artistic and scientifc felds. These numerous semiautonomous subsections (which reach a total oI over one hundred in each oI the frst two volumes) necessarily contribute to the trilogy`s Iragmented character while at the same time linking up with a seemingly endless stream oI extratextual literary, musical, flmic, and TV reIerences (sec. 6). As this essay will argue, despite (or better yet, precisely because oI) its diIfcult Iormat and disparate content, the trilogy`s representation oI a chaotic modernity squares with accounts oI the urban experience by theorists Irom Georg Simmel and David Harvey to Henri LeIebvre and Jane Jacobs. Upon frst glance, what makes this urban-centered approach to the trilogy so compelling is Fernandez Mallo`s own inclusion oI key reIerences to cities and urban communities throughout Nocilla. More importantly, however, 2 ($)*&+$& 95 March 2012 these myriad instances (and occasionally their curious absence; see sec. 2) accompany an interdisciplinary method, Iragmented structure, and multiple narrative threads, which together evoke the multivocality and multiplicity that characterize liIe in today`s urban environments. In the thirteen numbered sections comprising this essay, I oIIer an additional tribute to the Nocilla trilogy by reappropriating its somewhat eccentric Iorm, interdisciplinary push, and method oI collage (Ior the sake oI readability, however, the present essay`s transitions are decidedly less abrupt that those that appear in the Nocilla trilogy). The intent oI embracing such an alternative organization Ior this essay is to give the reader a better sense oI the brev- ity and topical variation that characterize Fernandez Mallo`s numbered narrative Iragments and, through that structural appropriation, to evoke the same sense oI the shiIting, chaotic, and multiplicitous ground oI the modern urbanized consciousness that the Nocilla trilogy so careIully articulates. While the subsections oI this essay may seem to move quickly Irom the relation oI one oI Nocilla`s themes to another (Irom cities, to music, to art, to science/literature, and back to urban communities and capitalism), it is important to appreciate that this essay purposely driIts Irom one topic to the next (just as does Nocilla) as an evocation oI a mental state attributed to the urbanization oI consciousness and discussed below (sec. 3). Ultimately, the trilogy is a selI-consciously stylized product oI the urbanization oI consciousness not solely because oI its Iocus on urban environments, but moreover because oI the way in which even the most disparate disciplines acquire their Iorce and meaning within an urbanized context, whether that context is explicitas it certainly is in Nocillaor merely implicit. This essay makes the case that Nocilla is a decidedly urban product, not because it IaithIully represents the textures oI urban liIe, but more Iundamentally because oI its articulation oI an urbanized and driIting consciousness (Simmel 14952; also Benjamin). 2 In approaching the trilogy through an urban lens, it is essential to recognize that the notion oI place is highly important to Nocilla, even iI its very structure prohibits a close engagement with any given location. Because the trilogy is constituted by a multiplicity oI narrations, loca- tions, characters, and topics, it is diIfcult at best to determine where the novels 'take place. Nonetheless, a relatively sizable portion oI the early narrative action centers on the stretch oI US Highway 50 that links the cities oI Carson City and Ely (Nevada), a Iact that roots the trilogy in the tradition oI a Spanish cultural production strangely Iascinated by the lonesome, crowded desert oI the North American West. 1 Yet, the trilogy`s initial desert settingwhich is bolstered by occasional intercalated reIerences to the real desert oI Albacete (ND 91, 105; NL 33) and deserts in general (ND 108)also serves to highlight the conspicuous absence oI its logical counterpart, the city. As the Iorerunners oI the still-Iorming discipline oI Cultural Studies understood it, the city could in no way be defned without recourse to rural and un- urbanized areas. Raymond Williams, Ior example, in his seminal text The Countrv and the Citv wrote that 'the contrast oI the country and city is one oI the major Iorms in which we become conscious oI a central part oI our experience and oI the crises oI our society (289). The Nocilla project certainly presents us with a Iorm challenging enough to permit a conscious assessment oI modernity, commenting even directly on contemporary crises in capitalism (sec. 12), but it also uses the desert as a way oI evoking the logical consequence oI the continual and even accelerating process oI urbanization and its accompanying population density. At the dawn oI the twenty-frst century, approximately halI oI the globe`s population now lives in citiesand as urban sociologists already realized some seventy years ago (Louis Wirth, quoted below in sec. 3), this increased urbanization has come to infuence modern social liIe even among rural populations and can now be said to constitute the base oI the modern experience, urban or not. Appropriately enough, however, the large urban centers oI the contemporary world food the pages oI Fernandez Mallo`s project (e.g., not only Carson City and Ely, but also Madrid 3 Fraser / Urbanization of Consciousness |ND 115|, Paris |ND 124|, Chicago |ND 3940|, Copenhagen |ND 93|, Pripat, Chernobyl |NL 13|, Las Vegas |NL 3839|, New York |NL 58|, Peking |ND 155|, Bangkok |NL 66|, and others). The idea oI creating an urban literature is nothing newFernandez Mallo`s trilogy must necessarily be contextualized within a tradition oI Spanish urban literature that began over one hundred years ago. Noted 'Generation oI 98 author Pio Baroja`s novel Aventuras, inventos v mixtihcaciones de Silvestre Paradox (1901), Ior example, was in many ways a direct comment on the wave oI urbanization that Madrid had undergone Irom the mid-1800s to the dawn oI the twentieth century. E. Inman Fox writes in his introduction to the novel`s 1989 edition that '|p|ara comprender mas claramente el cuadro que nos regala Baroja, conviene saber |que| |e|n lo que va desde mediados del XIX hasta 1900, la poblacion de la capital aumenta de una manera asombrosa: de 298.426 habitantes en 1860 a 539.835 en 1900 (21). Nevertheless, while Baroja and nineteenth-century writers such as Benito Perez Galdos (18431920) and even Mariano Jose de Larra (180937) sought to give a more or less detailed understanding oI the specifc dimensions oI city-liIe in urbanizing Spain, 2 Fernandez Mallo`s novel is relatively uninterested in the textures oI city liIe. Even though Nocilla spends much time dealing with events taking place in specifc urban centers, it is more interested in the mental conditions that the metropolis encourages and induces in the city-dweller. Accordingly, its Iocus driIts Irom one topic to the next seemingly at whim, juxtaposing the most disparate places and ideas and justiIying its very interdisciplinarity character. Although there may be less attention placed on matters oI poverty and industrialization in Fernandez Mallo`s literary production than there may have been in the work oI Baroja, Galdos, and even Larra (or in the Anglophone works noted in Blanche Housman GelIant`s classic study oI The American Citv Novel ), Nocilla is no less exemplary oI urban literature. That is, in articulating a vision oI urbanization that goes beyond the physical conditions oI cities and toward the mental conditions the metropolis creates, Fernandez Mallo`s text reIuses to reiIy urbanization as a thing or an object and instead recognizes it as a complex process. As discussed below, this perspective is itselI one strongly rooted in the tradition oI twentieth-century urban thought. 3 The true measure oI the relevance oI the urban approach to Nocilla thus lies not in the text`s mere incorporation oI cities but in its more Iundamental articulation oI an urbanized and driIting consciousness. Fernandez Mallo`s willingness throughout the trilogy to fow to and IroIrom the desert to urbanized areas and back again, Irom one place to another, Irom the city to the beach and fnally even an oII-shore rigsquares with an understanding oI 'urbanization as a process whose eIIects naturally extend each year Iarther and Iarther away Irom the sites oI actual cities themselves. As early as 1938, in his essay 'Urbanism as a Way oI LiIe, the urban critic Louis Wirth oI the Chicago School oI Urban Sociology argued Ior seeing even the most remote areas oI the globe Irom an urban perspective: The degree to which the contemporary world may be said to be 'urban is not Iully or accurately measured by the proportion oI the total population living in cities. The infuences which cities exert upon the social liIe oI man are greater than the ratio oI the urban population would indicate, Ior the city is not only in ever larger degrees the dwelling-place and the workshop oI modern man, but it is the initiating and controlling center oI economic, political, and cultural liIe that has drawn the most remote parts oI the world into its orbit and woven diverse areas, peoples, and activities into a cosmos. (2) From this perspective, the city exerts an infuence on Nocilla not only in terms oI Fernandez Mallo`s routine reIerences to large modern urban centers across the globe (above), but also in the sense that the trilogy`s very structure testifes to the eIIects that urbanization has had on contemporary thought in a more general sense. From this perspective it is not necessarily the 4 ($)*&+$& 95 March 2012 mere reIerencing oI cities that makes the work an urban product, but rather its emphasis on such qualities as multivocality, multiplicity, Iragmentation, alienation, and chaosall hallmarks oI what goes by the name oI urbanized consciousness. 4 It is certainly de rigueur Ior urban theorists to point out that the twentieth-century urban- ization oI the world`s populationas highlighted by David Harvey in a now classic text, The Urban Experiencehas taken shape along with the twin processes he terms the urbanization oI capital and the urbanization oI consciousness. This dialectical premisein one shape or anotherhas been articulated by numerous theorists as an extension oI Marx`s original social, economic, and necessarily philosophical critique oI capital (Marx is also reIerenced occasionally in Nocilla). SelI-proclaimed Marxist thinker Henri LeIebvre (Elden 809; Fraser, 'Toward 341)a signifcant infuence on Harvey (Harvey, Justice 219)has powerIully extended Marx`s critique oI alienation (Critique 249) and related it to the spatial development and individual experience oI the city (Right 167), Ior example, as has Marshall Berman in his All That Is Solid Melts into Air (a title that reIerences Marx`s Communist Manifesto). One oI the most well-known Iormulations oI this cacophonous urban alienation remains that oI Walter Benjaminand undoubtedly so, as his ambitious work The Arcades Profect, written during the 1920s and 1930s, Iocuses on the fgure oI the aneur, driIting along Parisian boulevards. Yet, as Marxist urban critic Andy Merrifeld points out (5053), even Benjamin was heavily infuenced by his predecessor Georg Simmel`s earlier and still classic 1903 essay titled, 'The Metropolis and Mental LiIe. Simmel couches his description oI urbanized consciousness in terms oI the 'the intensihca- tion of nervous stimulation which results Irom the swiIt and uninterrupted change oI outer and inner stimuli (149; emphasis original), Iurther commenting that: Lasting impressions, impressions which diIIer only slightly Irom one another, impressions which take a regular and habitual course and show regular and habitual contrastsall these use up, so to speak, less consciousness than does the rapid crowding oI changing images, the sharp discontinuity in the grasp oI a single glance, and the unexpectedness oI onrushing impressions. These are the psychological conditions which the metropolis creates. (149) Simmel`s point is that, Ior the city-dweller, the 'deeply Ielt and emotional relationships (149) oI rural or small town liIe are eIIectively obsolete. A consequence oI the modern urban experience is thus the urbanite`s 'blase attitude or 'state oI indiIIerence (Simmel 151, 153), which allows him/her to stay afoat in the rapid current oI urban liIe. Simmel`s image oI the modern urban pedestrian who is at odds with the chaotic environment oI the city is a perIect point oI entry into the Nocilla project`s cacophonous and constantly shiIting prose. The reader accustomed to the rhythm oI more traditionally structured narrative (comprised by lengthy chapters or extended sections) is challenged by the Iragmented Iormat and rapidly changing topics oI the Nocilla trilogy, necessarily conIronting his or her own expectations by asking, 'What am I expecting Irom this text? As with Simmel`s description oI the urbanization oI consciousness, here even more savvy readers will necessarily have to adopt a diIIerent set oI expectationsiI not a 'state oI indiIIerencein order to cope with the 'rapid crowding oI changing images (maniIested in Nocilla`s narrative segments, reappropriated quotations, and so on) that comprise Fernandez Mallo`s destablized, multivocal, and multiplicitous text. It is as iI Nocilla were conscious oI the dual nature oI the image oI the city: 'As an image, the city is too large and complex to be thought oI as only a literary trope. It has a double reIerence, to the artiIact in the outside world and to the spectrum oI reIractions it calls into being in the minds oI the author and reader (Pike ix). Without ignoring the city`s built environment, the trilogy`s 5 Fraser / Urbanization of Consciousness author directs himselI more energetically to its image and its eIIects, a situation that perhaps calls Ior the unique perspective oI a poet. 5 In order to Iully appreciate the connection between the Nocilla project`s disparate prose Iragments and the topic oI urbanized consciousness, it is crucial to refect upon Fernandez Mallo`s own assessment oI his creative agenda. The Galician-born author (A Corua, 1967)a Irequent contributor to El Pais as well as his own blog titled 'El hombre que salio de la tarta (blogs.alIaguara.com/Iernandezmallo)coined the term 'poesia postpoetica in 2000, subse- quently becoming one oI the fgureheads Ior a new group oI literary mavericks in Spain. Iker Seisdedos writes in El Pais that '|t|he Nocilla generation boasts the likes oI Jorge Carrion, Vicente Luis Mora, Eloy Fernandez Porta and Juan Francisco Ferre, pointing out that the motivation to use the term 'Nocillathe Spanish version oI the Nutella chocolate-hazelnut spreadin truth, came Irom a song by rock band Siniestro Total. Fernandez Mallo situates his trilogy as yet another postpoetic salvo, writing in the backmatter oI Nocilla Experience that 'Provecto Nocilla responde al intento de trasladar ciertos aspectos de la poesia postpoetica, que en su dia teorice, al ambito de la narrativa (NE 205). The trilogy is indeed a transposition oI Fernandez Mallo`s creative poetic impulse to the realm oI narrative, but one that nonetheless has an explicitly urbanized 'poetic methodol- ogy. Critic Jesse Barker points to two essays in particular where the Galician writer defnes his postpoetic agenda ('Poesia postpoetica in Quimera |2006| and 'Poesia postpoetica in Lateral |2004|) and recognizes the interdisciplinary and urban-infuenced poetic perspective oI Fernandez Mallo`s work. In a prelude to his published interview with Fernandez Mallo, Barker suggests that the author |p|ropone una apertura a otros modos de pensar, como las ciencias, la cocina, la publicidad, las artes visuales, entre otras, para inIundir nueva vida a la literatura. Compara este procedimiento con la practica situacionista de la 'deriva: vagar por la ciudad como una Iorma de investigacion espacial y conceptual. Asi, los situacionistas elaboraban 'psicogeograIias de los aspectos de las zonas urbanas que escapaban al control del planeamiento racionalista. La diIerencia es que ahora la post-poetica propone un paso no por la ciudad, sino por las distintas zonas de conocimiento y expresion que conIorman la cultura actual. (Barker 342) Signifcantly, the Nocilla project itselI explicitly reIers to the Situationists and the 'Theory oI DriIt by which Guy Debord and others implicitly rejected the over-codiIed city environment produced by the bouregois science oI urban planning. In Nocilla Dream, the narrator notes that 'Justo en la Iranja limitroIe del sur de Paris donde Guy Debord y sus correligionarios Situacionistas en 1960 ponian en practica su Teoria de la Deriva, ahora hay un gran numero de casetas de obra habitadas y dispersas en aparente azar. (124; continued on 13435, 137). Debord`s 'Theory oI the Derive, originally published in 1958 in Internationale Situationiste, advocated 'a technique oI transient passage through varied ambiances (50) as part oI a series oI 'psychogeographical articulations oI a modern city (53). In general terms, these articulations constituted an attempt to uproot the static understanding oI the city and to emphasize a dialecti- cal relationship between mind and matter on the way to making revolutionary action possible. Both Debord`s 'Theory oI DriIt and Nocilla`s textual meandering recall Walter Benjamin`s eclectic analysis oI the Parisian arcades, which was already an accounting (a la Simmel ) oI the psychological shiIts accompanying urban modernity. Debord`s psychogeographical approach to the city recalls Benjamin`s emphasis on '|a| diIIerent topography, not architectonic, but anthropocentric in conception (86). Moreover, Benjamin writes oI the aneur that 'his way oI liIe still conceals behind a mitigating nimbus the coming desolation oI the big-city 6 ($)*&+$& 95 March 2012 dweller. . . . He seeks reIuge in the crowd. . . . The crowd is the veil through which the Iamiliar city beckons to the fneur as phantasmagoria (10). Nocilla presents itselI Ior consumption to the contemporary reader in the Iashion oI the varied spectacles oIIered by the arcadeseach discrete narrative segment Iunctions as an isolated commodity, all contained in a work that evokes at once the chaos oI urban liIe in general (Simmel) and also the hustle-and-bustle oI the crowded marketplace (Benjamin). And thus, in light oI this critical tradition, Fernandez Mallo succeeds in IaithIully representing not the architectonic city nor the built urban environment, but the modern urban experience itselI and its human signifcance. 6 Read in light oI his conscious application oI the Situationist 'Theory oI DriIt and the implicit resonance with Benjamin`s unfnished Arcades Profect, feeting reIerences to music (and to Anglophone indie music in particular) constitute one oI the threads oI continuity holding the driIting consciousness expressed through Agustin Fernandez Mallo`s postpoetic-prose Irag- ments together. In this way, the Nocilla generation`s fgurehead maintains a Spanish tradition oI extranational cultural reIerences that points implicitly to the post-Franco impact oI bands like the Sex Pistols and the Ramones, the countercultural musical Iorms associated with La Movida, and the stylized punk literature and flm oI the turn oI the century. 3 The trilogy`s volumes abound with reIerences to musicians both obscure and popular, including but not limited to: Daniel Johnston (ND 13), Steve Albini (NE 95), Radiohead (ND 50; NE 119), PJ Harvey (NE 128), The Wedding Present (NE 139), Beck (NE 154), Belle & Sebastian (NL 39, appearing also on the original cover oI ND), and so on. Similarly, cultural reIerences are not purely musical but reIer also to visual media: among many others, flms and television programs including Bertolucci`s El ultimo tango en Paris (ND 14849), La Matan:a de la Sierra Mecanica de Texas (ND 195), Apocalvpse Now (NE 17, 31, 59), Bladerunner (NL 15), and Michael Landon`s appearances in Autopista al Cielo (ND 148) and La casa de la pradera (ND 148). And, oI course, the volumes evoke the presence oI literary fgures and critics including Marguerite Duras (ND 13), Allen Ginsberg (NL 78), Octavio Paz (NL 54), The No-Syndicate (NE 125), Juan Benet (ND 105), Paul Auster (NL 4651), Susan Sontag (ND 149), Italo Calvino (ND 37; NL 18), Georges Perec (NL 65), and Julio Cortazar (NL 81). Nonetheless, the one literary fgure whose shadow hovers over the entire project is none other than Jorge Luis Borges (frst mentioned in ND 48), an inclusion pointing implicitly to one oI the trilogy`s primary aimsthat oI reconciling the universal and the particular. Borges`s story 'El Alepha literary reIerence that is curiously absent Irom Fernandez Mallo`s voluminous three volume text until well into the frst section oI the third volume Nocilla Lab (59)Iamously told oI a single point that was connected with all other points in the universe, a singularity Irom which all other points in the universe could be seen iI not reached. One could say that the Nocilla project is itselI a cultural product born oI this singularity. Appropriating Louis Wirth`s refections on the scope and scale oI the city`s infuence, one might say that the project ambitiously attempts to 'draw the most remote cultural products and ideas into its orbit (2); alternately, and making use oI a Ielicitous description present in the trilogy`s text itselI, one might say that Nocilla is indeed that 'polo magnetico que comenzo a atraer hacia si a otros objetos para dotarlos de vida (NL 20). In any case, the trilogy`s obsessive and almost overwhelming barrage oI reIerences (which might be considered another oI its postmodern aspects; sec. 10) is geared to induce in the reader an eIIect quite similar to the 'intensifcation oI nervous stimulation that Simmel once Iamously attributed to the metropolis. 7 Fraser / Urbanization of Consciousness 7 The inclusion oI so many reIerences in such a confned and Iragmented prose-space permits (and perhaps requires) the reader to take a more active role, thus seeking out curious connections between so many seemingly disparate segments. As in the flmic Kuleshov eIIectwhere it was shown in the early twentieth century that the meaning oI cinematic images came not Irom their content (a given Iacial expression, Ior example) but Irom the wonders oI the technique oI montagehere the reader must fll in the gaps present in such a discontinuous narrative Ior him/herselI, ultimately coming to discern hidden connections between one given idea or passage and another. Taking a moment to highlight two oI these curiously entwined ideas, in particular, allows a glimpse oI not merely the author`s impressive range oI reIerences but also his more consistent employment oI a key themethe dimensions oI the creative process itselI. First, the reader encounters intermittent reIerences to Henry J. Darger, surely one oI the most interesting iI obscure Chicago artists oI the twentieth century. Darger`s story, as Nocilla explains it most concisely and completely in Nocilla Experience (12627), was that upon his death, his apartment was Iound to contain a 15,000-page manuscript and more than 300 watercolors depicting the epic story oI the Vivian Girls. Darger`s textual and visual narrative portrays seven young princesses with male genitalia oI the fctional kingdom oI Abbiennia who fght valiently against adults who enslave and torture children with all the explicit violence oI Goya`s uncomIortable series oI images Los desastres de la guerra. 4 Nocilla Experience`s persistent reIerencing oI Dargerprompted, in part, by the character Marc`s listening to a song by indie musician SuIjan Stevens titled 'The Vivian Girls are Visited in the Night by Saint Dargarius and his Squadron oI Benevolent Butterfies (NE 33)perhaps serves to highlight the seemingly inexplicable and ungraspable nature oI artistic creativity. In addition, however, this portrayal oI an archetypal fgure oI the solitary artist (in the characters oI both Darger and Marc), evokes the tension between solitude and interconnection that is so important to the Nocilla project as a whole. Second, however, in his characteristic interdisciplinary (and here scientifc) style, Fernandez signifcantly has Marc envision Darger as 'el Iermion absoluto, el solitario por antonomasia (NE 109, also 57), using the term Ior an elementary particle ('Iermion) named aIter the Italian Physicist Enrico Fermi (190154) (one that according to the Dictionary oI the Real Academia Espaola is 'similar to the proton and neutron). Remembering Jesse Barker`s description above (sec. 5), the incursion oI such scientifc vocabulary into the realm oI art accurately real- izes one oI the aims oI Fernandez Mallo`s postpoetic and interdisciplinary project. But Nocilla seeks to accomplish more than merely to 'inIundir nueva vida a la literatura (Barker 342); in addition, the project seeks to connect the very idea oI literary creation back to the extratextual, extraliterary notion oI creation present in scientifc accounts oI the universe itselI. This other pole oI creation serves as the basis Ior numerous scientifc digressions included in the text oI Nocilla, such as the Iollowing: 8 Desde 1965 se sabe que el Universo se halla en expansion, ahora se ha descubierto que ademas se esta acelerando, como si a grandes distancias existiera una antigravedad que, en vez de atraerlas, repeliera a las masas. Nadie sabe a que se debe, por lo que esa antigravedad ha sido bautizada con el nombre de Energia Oscura. Lanzar una piedra al aire y que nunca regrese. Un anciano que cuanto mas anciano menos arrugas tuviera. La logica del nauIrago y el mensaje en la botella, que se lanza para que no vuelva. Ademas, estan los cuerpos que crecen indefnidamente, las parabolicas, las azoteas. (NE 120) 8 ($)*&+$& 95 March 2012 9 Such digressions are, in Iact, part and parcel oI the method oI an author who holds a degree in Ciencias Fisicas and who, like other notable Spanish authors beIore him sees scientifc production and literary production as being intimately connected. 5 Fernandez Mallo routinely turns to matters oI physics by way oI intercalating lengthy quotations by Richard P. Feynman (ND 54) and Martin Cooper (ND 136), Ior example, but also by weaving in passing reIerences to Newton`s 'Principio de Inercia (NE 96, 111), Galileo`s 'Principio de Relatividad (NL 10203), Einstein`s 'Teoria Especial de la Relatividad (NE 90), 'Heisenberg (NL 60), 'agujeros negros (NL 45), and so onat times posing provocative philosophical-scientifc questions Ior consideration (i.e., 'Nadie sabe por que poseemos masa, ni siquiera los Iisicos teoricos, NL 4445). The entire Nocilla project even begins with a quotation taken Irom B. Jack Copeland and Diane ProudIoot`s essay 'Un Alan Turing desconocido (ND 15). From a perspective Ioregrounding scientifc content, it seems that the trilogy`s numerous Iragmented and isolated subsections Iunction as the narrative equivalents oI subatomic particles, perhaps those 'casuali- dades que, como las particulas y la entropia, tejen vida (NL 33). The narration is constantly on the look-out Ior Iundamental laws that might govern day-to-day experience: general laws (NL 1516), universal laws (NL 21), an 'antisymmetrical law (NL 32), and another assurance that smoking will necessarily maintain the body`s proper water content (NL 97). Page 102 oI Nocilla Dream even includes a list oI Iormulas Ior common constants oI physics. Notwithstanding this, Fernandez Mallo is concerned not merely with the history oI established science, but also with more marginal scientifc works (transhumanism, NE 116) and pseudoscientifc/occult events ('Las caras de Belmez, NE 98; demonic possession portrayed in El exorcista, NE 12324), even expressing mystical awe at the quotidian science oI aIIecting the gas bubbles in mineral water (NE 73). Nocilla intimates that, all things considered, science can only be one part oI a larger puzzle to fnd meaning in 'lugares donde no hay equilibrio (NL 15). Moreover, the meaning oI the trilogy itselI can in no way be reduced to a mere scientifc allegory given that there are also countless reIerences to literary matters and ultimately, as we will see, the scientifc and the literary aspects oI the novel are complementary parts oI a much more complex wholea whole that Fernandez Mallo ultimately comes to equate with the city itselI. 10 The literary Iorm oI the trilogy works together with the scientifc content to Ioreground a tension between unity and entropy (in Iact, the author`s 'postpoetic method might equally suggest the reverse: that the novels` scientifc 'particle-Iorm works equally with the literary content). Just as the work seems to be recovering the structure oI a more traditional novel (in NL, where Ior the frst time we see three major section divisions |Part I, 1178; Part II, 79144; Part III, 14580|), this Iorm begins to rapidly unravel. This unraveling is highlighted through the progressive erosion oI the section titles themselves ('Parte I: Motor Automatico de Busqueda, 'Parte II: Motor Automatico, and then fnally only 'Parte III: Motor |Fragmentos encontrados|). AIter Nocilla Lab`s initial (and uncharacteristic) sixty-plus pages oI uninter- rupted narration, the incremental positive integers appear once again only to cede terrain in the second part to eight Iull color photographic images oI television screens (NL 13033), and ultimately, in the third and fnal part, to devolve (or morph?) into a graphic novel (NL 16978). More so than the preceding two volumes (and masterIully in its frst part), Nocilla Lab is guided by continual excursions into previous content. The section starts and fnishes with the story oI a man who returns to Chernobyl and is unable to locate his house (NL 15, 78)but, even within the narration, previous reIerences (to a Gibson Les Paul guitar, to the island oI Cerdea, to Coca-Cola, and to the magazine Mundo Obrero, Ior example) continually rise to the surIace 9 Fraser / Urbanization of Consciousness oI the work`s sheets oI narrative matter (perhaps evoking the ambiguity between the two views oI reality suggested by twentieth-century physics; reality as wave and reality as particle). The third volume likewise sees a marked increase in the selI-reIerentiality oI the text, including even the titles oI its previous volumes (ND in NL 31; NE in NL 65; and both in NL 66). Implicitly appropriating an early event in Paul Auster`s New York Trilogv, the narrator (named Agustin Fernandez Mallo) soon meets a man claiming to also have the name Agustin Fernandez Mallo (NL 18822). 6 Beginning on page 123, previous pages oI the very novel we are reading are reincorporated into the text as entire paragraphs Irom pages 15, 51, and 78 reappear on pages 12325. Such tactics, which are commonly associated with postmodern aesthetics, accompany literary meditations on the autonomy oI literary creations, such as the Iollowing: que todo se parece a otra cosa es una ley universal, es el principio de la mimesis, de la creacion tal como la entendemos desde que el ser humano ha interpretado y representado el mundo, y si bien esto es asi, tambien es verdad que toda creacion es autonoma y hasta el genero mas presuntamente real, el documental, no es real sino 'realista: emula a la realidad pero es un corta y pega, un producto de montaje, una construccion, de tal manera que podria decirse que 'ninguna creacion es la realidad, sino una representacion, es una fccion, y es ese el merengue que el arte ha estado batiendo durante siglos en solitario hasta que siguieron su ejemplo los telediarios, la politica y la publicidad. (NL 22) Despite the Iact that the narrative later mentions 'el momento en que la sociedad ejecuta el paso de la modernidad a la posmodernidad y caen las ideologias, izquierda/derecha (NL 100)a periodizing thesis position rejected by the more elegant approaches oI David Harvey (The Condition, ch. 3) and Fredric Jameson (The Political 2728) 7 it is Iar less concerned with drawing divisions than making connections and pointing to the cohabitation oI opposites. Its meandering psychogeographic (Situationist) style may also be compared to that oI the work by Gilles Deleuze (with Felix Guattari), which it mentions citing Mil mesetas (NL 34) and to which it pays homage through its push to write 'sin raiz, rizomaticamente (NL 26; see also the prologue to ND by Juan Bonilla titled, simply, Ri:oma). Ultimately, both the scientifc and literary explanations oI the Nocilla trilogy`s hodgepodge oI disparate ideas and events owe much to the very nature oI the (contemporary) city as the complex site oI multiplicity and multivocality. From a contemporary perspective, this evocation oI the city was perhaps most Iamously articulated by Jane Jacobs: 11 Cities happen to be problems in complexity, like the liIe sciences. They present situations in which a halI-dozen or even several dozen quantities are all varying simultaneously and in subtlv interconnected wavs. Cities, again like the liIe sciences, do not exhibit one problem in organized complexity, which iI understood explains all. They can be analyzed into many such problems or segments which, as in the case oI the liIe sciences, are also related with one another. The variables are many, but they are not helter-skelter; they are 'interrelated into an organic whole. (Death and Life 433; emphasis original) 12 Urban critic Jane Jacobs`s now classic Iormulation oI the city as a complex problem might just as well apply to the Nocilla trilogy, which itselI needs to be understood as a problem in organized complexity. In her 'attack on current city planning and rebuilding (Death and Life 3), originally published in 1961, she pointed to the organic qualities oI cities and took previous planning approaches (particularly those oI Ebenezer Howard) to task Ior their reduction oI the 10 ($)*&+$& 95 March 2012 city to a fattened spatial plane. Instead, she argued that the city is alive, flled with a multiplicity oI independent yet interdependent actorsan idea that she channeled into her creation oI the enduring metaphor oI the 'sidewalk ballet (5054), one that has had such a wide eIIect on contemporary urban critics (notably including Barcelona`s Manuel Delgado Ruiz; see Delgado, El animal 19, 38, 74; Sociedades 129, 13536, 245; and Fraser, 'Manuel Delgado`s). Jacobs envisioned the city as a place where, provided that the totalizing plans oI urban designers had not completely crushed its living rhythms, people took part in a living narrative that was unpredict- able, worth fghting Ior, and decidedly not a mere commodity (Fraser, 'Kind oI Problem 268). The city potentially provided Ior an inclusive notion oI community defned not in opposition to but in Iact precisely through the concept oI diIIerence. Although Agustin Fernandez Mallo does not reIerence Jacobs (or other similarly minded urban critics) in his project, he nonetheless seems to be intimately concerned with both alterna- tive Iorms oI community and also the attraction oIiI not the potential oI the city. In Nocilla Dream, this is apparent not only when he writes oI the impromptu housing thrown up in Paris (ND 124), but also when he devotes a segment to the very real urban commune Christiania in present-day Copenhagen: 'En 1971, un grupo de hippies tomo una base militar abandonada en Copenhague, Dinamarca, y proclamo alli el estado libre de Christiania, una micronacion. Tras mantener un pulso con el gobierno danes, en 1987 Iue fnalmente reconocida como un microestado independiente (93). The mention oI such micronations is in Iact one oI many innumerable recurring topics in the frst volume alone (ND 38; the 'Principado de Sealand, ND 79; 'Isotope Micronation, ND 81; the micronation oI the 'Reino de Ergaland & Vargaland |www.krev.org|, ND 10911; and also 'Micropatologia, the science oI studying micronations, ND 100). Signifcantly, Fernandez Mallo seems dismissive oI the commodifcation oI place, as when he writes derisively oI privatopias, McMansiones, and 'los asentamientos urbanisticos elaborados con cubresuelos, edifcaciones . . . baratas y Iaciles de derruir . . . que se montan para generar ingresos antes de que las promotoras puedan abordar un proyecto mas ventajoso economicamente (ND 174; he also mentions no-lugares in ND 170). Such constructions have been widely equated with capitalist speculation and an increased encroachment oI capitalism`s commodity Iorm into cities, leading ultimately to intercity competition (Harvey, Justice 298) and what critics have called the 'selling oI place (Philo and Kearns 1). Henri LeIebvre`s dictum perhaps says it best: Capitalism survived throughout the twentieth century 'by producing space, by occupying a space (Survival 21; see also Production). Nocilla presciently points to capital- ism`s crossing oI yet another break-boundary in coexisting Iorms oI alienation that separate the individual Irom the use-value oI his or her city environment: 'El nuevo capitalismo, el del siglo 21, no solo oIrece productos de consumo para sentir a traves de ellos un estatus o una ensoacion, eso esta ya superado, lo que hace es crear una autentica realidad paralela que se erige en unica a traves de los medios de comunicacion (ND 159). The trilogy`s ultimate goal is perhaps to eIIect one oI the necessaryiI emphemeral disalienations that, according to LeIebvre, run throughout history as humankind passes Irom one particular alienation to another (Critique 249). II this is indeed possible, Nocilla perhaps takes it upon itselI to propose new Iorms oI community or at least a new way oI relating to one another in an increasingly complex society dominated by new representational Iorms oI media. Throughout, the stress is on communicationnot only through the trilogy`s diIfcult Iorm, but also through its content. This is, aIter all, the eIIect produced through the character Agustin`s ruminations on his Iailed relationship (as privileged in the third volume, Nocilla Lab, where he wonders what keeps a couple together |NL 92|), or, Ior example, in the oIIhand remark that the Mediterranean Sea was in essence the Internet connection oI the ancient world (NL 16). The city is, Ior the narrative voice oI Agustin, 'un cosmos en si mismo (NL 96), the terrain oI the possible: 'Si, puedes vivir en una ciudad sin salir jamas, con la sensacion de que todos los ambitos de la vida se crean, se reproducen y se extinguen en ella. Y si no, no importa, la ciudad se los inventa (NL 96). 11 Fraser / Urbanization of Consciousness By the end oI the trilogy (Nocilla Lab), Fernandez Mallo`s initial Iocus on the desert landscape (Nocilla Dream) has gradually morphed into an emphasis on the beach landscape. Although the frst is an inhospitable natural environment and the second an increasingly depopu- lated 'leisure space, both desert and beach are opposed to the bustling and complex community oI the city. 8 The fnal graphic novel segment oI the trilogy, in Iact, unites the beach and the desert in a single visual narrative that excludes the city, rendering it an implicit intertext. The graphic novel version oI Agustin (drawn by graphic artist Pere Joan) moves Irom the shores oI a beach to a Repsol oil rig where he meets the graphic novel version oI Enrique Vila-Matas (who has appeared previously in the text oI the trilogy). This encounter prompts the intercalated story oI a man living in the solitude oI a box erected in a nameless desert. In the penultimate sequence, the protagonist oI the intercalated story is greeted by someone breaking through the wall oI his desert box, Ireeing him Irom his isolation, saying 'Entre. Le estabamos esperando (NL 177). This fnal image oI reconciliation serves as the ftting conclusion to an ambitious project whose method has been precisely that oI a number oI reconciliations: oI poetry and prose; oI science and literature; oI the city and the desert; oI musical, cultural, and flmic reIerences Irom all over the globe; and oI each narrative Iragment with the next. At the nexus oI each oI these reconciliations there looms the image oI the populated and complex city, the site which makes possible the collision oI so many disparate ideas and diIIerent people. 13 Although this essay has undoubtedly (and necessarilv) leIt out countless subplots, seem- ingly disconnected images and postpoetic nuances contained in the narrative oI the Nocilla project, it has attempted to do justice to the totality oI the trilogy through the perspective oIIered by an urban reading. Just as it is impossible to explain the complexity oI liIe in today`s large urban centers through recourse to a reductive and simplistic plan, it is diIfcult to explain Agustin Fernandez Mallo`s accomplishment without recourse to an interdisciplinary method, such as the one I have employed in the present essay. The Nocilla project above all else points to the importance oI connectivity, a lesson that should be lost neither on today`s urban dwellers nor on contemporary literary critics. Moreover, Fernandez Mallo actualizes, albeit in literary Iorm, the urban tradition oI Benjamin and Simmel beIore him, whereby the chaos oI the city suggests a wider approach to understanding modernityIor 'modern metropolitan liIe, Simmel insists, actually opens up human potentiality, enlarges one`s Irame oI reIerence, lets people breathe and lose their fxed identities (Merrifeld 52). It is on the basis oI these accounts that the success oI the Nocilla trilogy must be judged, not as mere continuation oI the Spanish urban literature oI the previous centuries, but as a project that pushes beyond the fxed structure oI individual narratives and the relative isolation oI cities to more IaithIully represent the driIting character oI urbanized consciousness. Now iI only the planning oI cities were to also Iollow the lead oI Benjamin, Simmel, and Debord, and likewise embrace, as Jane Jacobs once Iamously put it, an 'esthetics oI driIt (Cities 221). NOTES 1 This group includes such works as Ray Loriga`s Tokvo va no nos quiere (1999), Alex de la Iglesia`s flm Perdita Durango (1997), Camilo Jose Cela`s Cristo versus Ari:ona (1988), and even a reIerence to an Arizona-based cryogenic laboratory buried in Alejandro Amenabar`s flm Abre los ofos (1997). 2 Similarly, oI course, Benito Perez Galdos is a sharp-eyed chronicler oI urban liIe in Spain, perhaps most sympathetically in Misericordia (1897). On this subject, see also the inIormative edited volume titled Madrid en Galdos en Madrid (1988). The reader can fnd reIerences to urbanization and Madrid also in the work oI early nineteenth-century critic Mariano Jose de Larra, Ior example, in the essay 'Modos de vivir que no dan de vivir, where he importantly captures the growing presence oI large numbers oI immigrants to the urban center oI Madrid: '|U|na multitude inmensa |. . . cuyo| numero en los pueblos 12 ($)*&+$& 95 March 2012 es crecido, y esta clase de gentes no pudieran sentar sus reales en ninguna otra parte, necesitan el ruido y el movimiento, y viven como el pobre del Evangelio, de las migajas que caen de la mesa del rico (24344). For Iurther reading on Larra and urbanization, see chapter 1 oI Fraser, Henri Lefebvre and the Spanish Urban Experience; on Larra and Galdos, see Baker; and on urbanization and Spanish literature in general, see Baker and Compitello. 3 For example, see Jose Angel Maas`s Mensaka (1995), Ray Loriga`s La pistola de mi hermano (1999), and Daniel Calparsoro`s flm Salto al vacio (1995). 4 In Chicago, in November 2009, a museum recreation oI Darger`s apartment was staged at Intuit: The Center Ior Intuitive and Outsider Art |www.art.org/intuit-show.htm|. Readers may also be interested in Jessica Yu`s documentary on Darger, titled In the Realms of the Real (2004). 5 Two prominent examples are Santiago Ramon y Cajal, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1906 Ior having discovered the neuron and who also penned a number oI short literary works (Cuentos de vacaciones; see also Fraser, 'Madrid, ciudad histologica); and also Juan Benet, a practicing engineer who, along with Juan and Luis Goytisolo and Luis Martin-Santos, also became one oI the most noted (and challenging) authors oI the late post-war period in Spain (see Fraser, 'The Art oI Engineering). 6 Fernandez Mallo`s own persistent reIerencing oI Paul Auster makes this explanation plausible. Hispanists will necessarily see a more appropriate intertext in El Quifote itselI (importantly, an infuence on Auster), which boasts similar selI-reIerential events. 7 Critic George Yudice, in his essay 'Postmodernity and Transnational Capitalism, gives voice to the notion that the signifcance oI 'heterogeneity within the discourse oI postmodernism corresponds to the 'uneven implementation oI modernization and not to some 'postmodern situational sleight oI hand (2). Whereas Yudice is concerned specifcally with Latin America in his essay, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the 'heterogeneity that is maniIest in Nocilla`s topical driIting and its incorporation oI urban centers Irom across the globe points also to the uneven geographical development oI modernity. 8 LeIebvre denounced 'the current transIormation oI the perimeter oI the Mediterranean into a leisure- oriented space Ior industrialized Europe (Production 58, 122; see also, Goytisolo; Fraser, 'A Snapshot). WORKS CITED Amenabar, Alejandro, dir. Abre los ofos. Sogetel, 1997. DVD. Auster, Paul. The New York Trilogv. New York: Penguin, 1990. Print. Baker, Edward. Materiales para escribir Madrid. Literatura v espacio urbano de Moratin a Galdos. Madrid: Siglo Veintiuno, 1991. Print. Baker, Edward, and Malcolm Alan Compitello. 'Prologo. Madrid de Fortunata a la M-40. Un siglo de cultura urbana. Ed. Edward Baker and Malcolm Alan Compitello. Madrid: Alianza, 2003. 1125. Print. Barker, Jesse. 'Entrevista con Agustin Fernandez Mallo: El mundo a traves de cristales, pantallas y libros. Anales de Literatura Espaola Contemporanea 35.1 (2010): 34150. Print. Baroja, Pio. Aventuras, inventos v mixtihcaciones de Silvestre Paradox. 1901. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1989. Print. Benjamin, Walter. The Arcades Profect. Trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin. London: Belknap, 1999. Print. Berman, Marshall. All That Is Solid Melts into Air. The Experience of Modernitv. 1982. New York: Penguin, 1988. Print. Borges, Jorge Luis. 'El Aleph. Obras completas. Vol. 1. Barcelona: Emece, 1996. 61727. Print. Cajal, Santiago Ramon. Cuentos de vacaciones. Narraciones Pseudocientihcas. Prol. Jose M. R. Delgado. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1999. Print. Calparsoro, Daniel. Salto al vacio. Cinemussy, 1995. DVD. Cela, Camilo Jose. Cristo versus Ari:ona. Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1988. Print. Copeland, B. Jack, and Diane ProudIoot. 'Un Alan Turing Desconocido. Edicion espaol de Scientihc American 273 (1999): 1419. Web. 12 June 2010. Debord, Guy. 'Theory oI the Derive. Situationist International Anthologv. Ed. and trans. Ken Knabb. Berkeley: Bureau oI Public Secrets, 1981. 5054. Print. Delgado Ruiz, Manuel. El animal publico. Barcelona: Anagrama, 1999. Print. . Sociedades movedi:as. Pasos hacia una antropologia de las calles. Barcelona: Anagrama, 2007. Print. Elden, Stuart. 'Politics, Philosophy, Geography: Henri LeIebvre in Recent Anglo-American Scholarship. Antipode 33.5 (2001): 80925. Print. 13 Fraser / Urbanization of Consciousness Fernandez Mallo, Agustin. Nocilla Dream. 2006. Prol. Juan Bonilla. Barcelona: Candaya, 2010. Print. . Nocilla Experience. Madrid: AlIaguara, 2008. Print. . Nocilla Lab. Madrid: AlIaguara, 2009. Print. . 'Poesia postpoetica: Hacia un nuevo paradigma. Lateral 120 (2004): 19. Print. . 'Poesia postpoetica. Un diagnostico. Una propuesta. Quimera 273 (2006): 9094. Print. Fox, E. Inman. 'Introduccion. Aventuras, inventos v mixtihcaciones de Silvestre Paradox. By Pio Baroja. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1989. 944. Print. Fraser, Benjamin. 'The Art oI Engineering: The Bridge as Object and Method in Juan Benet`s Fiction. Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 11.2 (2010): 16790. Print. . Henri Lefebvre and the Spanish Urban Experience. Reading the Mobile Citv. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 2011. Print. . 'The Kind oI Problem Cities Pose`: Jane Jacobs at the Intersection oI Pedagogy, Philosophy and Urban Theory. Teaching in Higher Education 14.3 (2009): 26576. Web. 10 May 2010. . 'Madrid, ciudad histologica: La vision cientifca, artistica y urbanizada de Santiago Ramon y Cajal. MS (under review). . 'Manuel Delgado`s Urban Anthropology: From Multidimensional Space to Interdisciplinary Spatial Theory. Ari:ona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 11 (2007): 5775. Web. 10 May 2010. . 'A Snapshot oI Barcelona From Montjuc: Juan Goytisolo`s Seas de identidad, Tourist Land- scapes as Process, and the Photographic Mechanism oI Thought. Spain Is (Still) Different. Ed. Eugenia Afnoguenova and Jaume Marti-Olivella. Lanham, MD: Rowman, 2008. 15184. Print. . 'Toward a Philosophy oI the Urban: Henri LeIebvre`s UncomIortable Application oI Bergson- ism. Environment and Planning D. Societv and Space 26.2 (2008): 33858. Web. 10 May 2010. Galdos, Benito Perez. Misericordia. 1897. Ed. Luciano Garcia Lorenzo. Madrid: Catedra, 1999. Print. GalIant, Blanche Housman. The American Citv Novel. 1954. Norman: U oI Oklahoma P, 1970. Print. Goytisolo, Juan. Seas de identidad. 1966. Madrid: Alianza, 1999. Print. Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernitv. OxIord: Blackwell, 1990. Print. . Justice, Nature and the Geographv of Difference. London: Blackwell, 1996. Print. . The Urban Experience. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1989. Print. Iglesia, Alex de la. Perdita Durango. Sogetel, 1997. DVD. Jacobs, Jane. Cities and the Wealth of Nations. Principles of Economic Life. New York: Random House, 1984. Print. . The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Vintage, 1992. Print. Jameson, Fredric. The Political Unconscious. Narrative as a Sociallv Svmbolic Act. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1986. Print. LeIebvre, Henri. Critique of Evervdav Life. Trans. John Moore. Vol. 1. London: Verso, 1991. Print. . The Production of Space. Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith. OxIord: Blackwell, 1991. Print. . The Right to the Citv. In Writings on Cities. Ed. and trans. E. KoIman and E. Lebas. OxIord: Blackwell, 1996. 63181. Print. . The Survival of Capitalism. London: Allison, 1973. Print. Loriga, Ray. La pistola de mi hermano (Caidos del cielo). Barcelona: Plaza y Janes, 1999. Print. . Tokvo va no nos quiere. Barcelona: Plaza y Janes, 1999. Print. Madrid en Galdos en Madrid. Madrid: Comunidad de Madrid, 1988. Print. Maas, Jose Angel. Mensaka. Barcelona: Destino, 1995. Print. Merrifeld, Andy. Metromarxism. A Marxist Tale of the Citv. New York: Routledge, 2002. Print. Philo, Chris, and Gerry Kearns. 'Culture, History, Capital: A Critical Introduction to the Selling oI Places. Selling Places. The Citv as Cultural Capital Past and Present. Ed. Chris Philo and Gerry Kearns. OxIord: Pergamon, 1993. 132. Print. Pike, Burton. The Image of the Citv in Modern Literature. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1981. Print. Seisdedos, Iker. 'A Tide oI Experience Ior the Generation oI Non-Writers.` El Pais. English ed. with International Herald Tribune. 14 Mar. 2008. Web. 10 July 2010. Simmel, Georg. 'The Metropolis and Mental LiIe. 1903. Readings in Social Theorv. The Classic Tradi- tion to Post-Modernism. 2nd ed. Ed. James Farganis. New York: McGraw Hill, 1996. 14957. Print. Williams, Raymond. The Countrv and the Citv. 1973. New York: OxIord UP, 1975. Print. Wirth, Louis. 'Urbanism as a Way oI LiIe. The American Journal of Sociologv 44.1 (1938): 124. Web. 10 July 2010. Yu, Jessica, dir. In the Realms of the Real. Wellspring, 2004. DVD. Yudice, George. 'Postmodernity and Transnational Capitalism. On Edge. The Crisis of Contemporarv Latin American Culture. Ed. George Yudice, Jean Franco, and Juan Flores. Minneapolis: U oI Min- nesota P, 1992. 128. Print.