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Popular Culture Review
same proportions as in Spanish science fiction. For instance, the novel by Ivan
Zaldua, IfSabino Were Alive (Si Sabino viviria, 2005), presents the structure of
a space opera narration, however the planets involved in the conflict each
represent a specific political tendency; we have therefore a planet inhabited by
the descendents of Franco, another populated by those of the Basque separatists,
and so on. The humor is produced by the opposition between the typical
paradigms of a space opera narration—spaceships, distant galaxies, interstellar
travels—and very precise historical and political elements. Here, the science
fiction genre is used as a support to parody radical political positions as the
narration leans toward political satire. We also find a recurrent figure,
supposedly an amusing one, throughout contemporary Spanish science fiction,
that of the “funny guy” (el gracioso), who is often the protagonist and the
narrative voice. His outlook on life is that of a marginal character who
compensates his deficiencies with humorous resignation, and his narrative
function echoes a long Spanish theatrical tradition originated in the Golden
century, as Spanish science fiction authors feel the need to recycle canonical
literary figures in order to assert some type of national identity within a mostly
alien narrative genre.
(2) Self-consciousness: This humorous tendency is intrinsically related
to self-consciousness, which could be seen as a mandatory condition of any
author involved in the process of creating science fiction in Spain. In spite of all
their efforts, Spanish authors can never forget that they are arriving late into a
narrative mode in the creation of which they did not participate and that they are
still in the process of discovering, and this usually leads them to adopt an
ironically self-conscious attitude vis-a-vis the text. It is indeed no easy task to
take oneself seriously when one is only imitating a fundamentally foreign type
of narrative that was elaborated in a radically different type of environment.
Meta-narration and meta-fiction in general—in this case, meta-science fiction—
are hence almost always present in contemporary Spanish science fiction, as if
Spanish authors sought to defuse the somewhat contradictory aspects of their
endeavor by openly exposing their paradoxical situation within their creations.
The merging of meta-fiction, a narrative device traditionally associated with
“high culture”, and of science-fiction, a popular genre by definition, can yield to
interesting results as in the case for instance of Rodolfo Martinez’s The Smile o f
the Cat (La sonrisa del gato, 1995), in which the cynicism displayed by the
main character regarding both his narrative univ erse and the literary genre to
which it belongs provides a note-worthy narrative tension that could be
considered as one of the novel’s most convincing aesthetic achievements.
(3) Subversion: The somewhat cynical quality that characterizes many
protagonists of Spanish science fiction very often relies on the representation of
apparently subversive moves, which create a humorous tension vis-a-vis societal
collective expectations. However, when compared to their American
counterparts, Spanish authors generally appear rather tame in terms of
subversive content due to their cultural frame of reference. Indeed, what may