The Confines saga. A translator hero in Liliana Bodoc's writing

Abstract

In La saga de Los Confines Liliana Bodoc produces a type of writing which is “displaced” with regard to European and Nordic imaginaries typically visited in the epic fantasy genre. Interpreting and notatorial rhetoric mechanisms are mimetized in La saga... which have left their traces in the oraliture collected in agrapic communities, and have been later on transcribed and adjusted to the generic memory of European scribes. It is during the phase of text interpretation that signaling occurs, and the compositional procedures of the psychodynamics of orality can be traced down at this stage. Following, the phase of writing takes place, and a written version is generated. Literaturization comes next, so that the text fits in the typical formal requirements of the genre. When these three phases are over, absolutizing of oral material into the written form is achieved. In La saga… absolutizing writing is attributed to the figure of a “translator” of a narration produced after Nakín de los Búhos’ own narration. This contribution aims to: i) basically describe the configuration of a “translator hero”, as well as the concept of “absolutizing writing”; ii) understand these fictional operations as forms of “modeling” in the convergence of Semiotics of Culture and recently developed Biosemiotics; iii) elaborate on a “biotic” order of culture which involves a standard dealing in textual gadgets and facts of culture. Finally, the notions of emergence and instantiation enrich the view on Bodoc’s poetics, and their use confirms the tension between the inconmmensurability of theories and systemism, which underlies the relation of Semiotics of Culture and Biosemiotics.