Simetrías del terrorismo en Ardor Guerrero (1995) y Plenilunio (1997), de Antonio Muñoz Molina

Abstract

ETA terrorism has not been given a central treatment within the Spanish narrative (with a few exceptions at the beginning of the twenty-first century). In the novels Ardor guerrero y Plenilunio by Antonio Muñoz Molina, it is integrated as a secondary element by correlation with other major elements. Thus, meaning becomes relevant and turns into a subject for indirect moral reflection. By analyzing the narrative perspective, space, characters, and narrative sequences, this article draws attention to the fact that terrorism is not directly criticized but attributed judgments that are explicitly given to its comparative terms. By equating with fascist violence, in the first case, and by common violence, in the second, these novels present a critical image of ETA which appears as a retrograde force against democracy and as an agent of terror. The narrative contributes, even it could not be expressed fearlessly, to the end of terrorism though its own resources.