REVIEW ARTICLE 55 repeats itself Cola's writings involve a lot of repetition which eventually leads to exhaustion. Cela's anti-politicism compels him to present historical events as accidents and create mediocre or sub-average characters who are looked down upon by the novelist himself. Labanyi is right when he indicates that San Camilo—1936 is an attempt to reduce history to absurdity and by creating confusion he has blurred the facts. Juan Goytisolo, a novelist known to be of leftist orientation, has been greatly influenced by the historian Americo Castro, who has given a new direction to Spanish historiography, particularly in the area of Moorish history. The obsession with Arab rehabilitation in Goytisolo is very often related to his being a close associate of Americo Castro. The novel under study makes parody central to the unmasking of reality. The parodied elements are the myths representing national character, stoicism, fatalism, etc. and have been criticised by a mock-referendum on the law of succession, various playwrights of the medieval period, etc. Labanyi argues that the historical reality in the novel is excluded and we are forced to see through 'the spectacles of the Nationalist Myth*. Since the reality could not be changed, it could only be mocked at by literary discourse. Labanyi forgets that by providing release through humour the novelist also succeeds in driving home the point regarding the rejection of nationalist morality. Torrente Ballester had varied affiliations, both political and social. He belonged to the Galician region of Spain, and thus was greatly under the regionalist influence. He edited an anarchist paper for some time and was part of the Falange Movement also. These diverse associations created a confused writer. Therefore, he himself had said, 'the novel is a jocular exercise in both mythification and demythification—the expression of my internal contradiction.' It is obvious from the novel that the author is on the one hand disllusioned with the Nationalist ideology which represents absolutism and on the other hand he also criticises regional leaders for their dishonesty and manipulation, though his sympathy still lies with the regional leaders. Due to this bizzare situation created by his varied affiliations he has presented two versions of all the events. Labanyi has compared Ballester's ambiguity with the Levi-Straussian notion of binary opposition—regional/centrist, plurality/absolutism. However, the novel comes out as a good satire of both the categories. Labanyi considers that 'the novel provides a postmodernist critique of the western obsession with origin'. Torrente Ballester has succeeded in exposing the political manipulation which lies beneath myth-making processes. The study has by and large covered a vast range of different aspects: linguistic, literary and sociological, and has exposed the ulterior motives for the mythification of reality by the Nationalist ideology. Labanyi has demonstrated quite objectively the response of writers to