The Nuances of Pain in the Uruguayan Narrative of the New Century. Separation and Death as Intimate Losses: November, by Daniel Mella

Abstract

Within the framework of the generic and thematic variety that characterizes fictional prose in the Río de la Plata area of the beginning of the new century, our study focuses on the analysis of a novel of introspective traits, November, published in 2000 by the Montevidean writer Daniel Mella. We will first analyze the way in which the writer manages to keep coherent with the macrothemes of his previous narrative and write a novel based on the pain of the human being, moving away from the traumas of the dictatorship described in the so-called «novels of Postmemory». Far from the aggressiveness and physical brutality of its previous production (such as Derretimiento), a novel like Noviembre proposes a reflection – without offering answers – on the various expressions of intimate pain that arises from affective traumas and that, as a result, causes the loss of the meaning of reality.Regarding the theory that we will use as support for our research, we propose a link between some canonical studies (like those of Sigmund Feud dedicated to the analysis of the functioning of the human psyche in relation to the impossibility of handling extreme pain), some psychoanalytic theories of current interest, such as those of Juan David Nasio, and the sociological studies of Hartmut Rosa; finally, we will use some researches on the principles of geopoetics that Gaston Bachelard applies to the dialectic between death and water.Key words: Daniel Mella, contemporary Uruguayan literature, Noviembre, narrative of introspection.