Hispanófila

Carmen Martín Gaite (1925-2000) is one of Spain's most canonical contemporary authors, and her novel Nubosidad variable (1992) holds a special place in her oevre. Nubosidad variable is surpassed only by her masterpiece El cuarto de atrás (1978) in terms of scholarly attention (MLA Bibliography). It has captivated general readers as well as scholars: a bestseller when it appeared, it has remained in print for a quarter of a century. Nubosidad variable has also been translated into eight languages. The novel's appeal is readily apparent. It is a riveting, exquisitely crafted story of two fascinating Spanish women who reinvent themselves as they write to one another, set in the tumultuous years after Spain's transition to democracy. Critics have explored a number of the novel's techniques and themes, especially those associated with writing (Cruz-Cámara, "escritura;" Guardiola; Pérez-Magallón), feminine cultural symbols (Laffey; Pérez, "Structural") and womens' friendship (Almeida, Ferriol-Montano). As I hope to show, Nubosidad variable has even broader cultural significance. The novel inserts women into post-Transition history using tenets of postmodern, twenty-first century feminism. These precepts also illuminate the intellectual biography of this iconoclastic author.

Nubosidad variable builds on its novelistic predecessors, illustrating Virginia Woolf's maxim that "we think back through our mothers if we are women" (79). Martín Gaite's novel first evinces and then surpasses the "reclaiming of women's stories" that characterized Spanish feminism in the novel from the postwar era through the end of the twentieth century. This trajectory began with censored novels of the 1940s and 1950s that depicted female subjects in stifling traditional environments, with novels such as Carmen Laforet's Nada (1945) and Martín Gaite's Entre visillos (1957). It accelerated after censorship ended in the late 1970s, with novels that showed women participating in both public and private spheres: examples include El cuarto de atrás, esther Tusquets's El mismo mar de todos los veranos [End Page 301] (1978) and rosa montero's Crónica del desamor (1979). By the end of the twentieth century, the focus on women's life experiences became frank and intimate: almudena Grandes's Las edades de Lulú (1989) and Lucía extebarria's Beatriz y los cuerpos celestes (1998) typify these stories of female protagonists in pursuit of their own desires.¹ In the twenty-first century a resurgence of historical engagement, mirroring this preoccupation in the surrounding culture, produced novels such as Dulce Chacón's La voz dormida (2002) and Carme riera's La mitad del alma (2004).

Even as Nubosidad variable encompasses the concerns of its precursors and contemporaries, it offers a wider lens on society than other women's novels of the nineties–a perspective that would not become widespread for more than a decade. Written during the immediate post-Transition years, it chronicles the zeitgeist from a female perspective, illuminating a period that is iconic and contested. Nubosidad variable actualizes Martín Gaite's humanistic view of gender, which advocated personal freedom. The novel reflects the same viewpoint as the two nonfiction books that interrupted its creation, a volume of feminist social criticism and a collection of feminist literary criticism.² a recently recovered interview from the 1970s elucidates Martín Gaite's conception of gender–including a passing reference to performativity long before Judith Butler had introduced the term–and demonstrates that in this area as in others, she was an independent thinker whose beliefs persisted over time. The novel's seemingly disparate structural and thematic elements can now be seen to belong under the rubric of third-wave feminism. These include mutivocality, an emphasis on personal narrative, the rejection of doctrinaire theory, critiques of sociocultural and socioeconomic inequality, and an embrace of diverse modes of gender expression. Through its postmodern form and content, Nubosidad variable enacts present-day feminist tenets, presaging Chimamanda ngozi adichie's invitation (expressed through her celebrated title) to build a more inclusive world through gender equality: We should all be feminists.