Mist () is a nivola (a variant form of novel first proposed in the text of Mist itself) written by Miguel de Unamuno in 1907 and first published in 1914. It is often hailed as one of the greatest novels written in Spanish, both by popular critics and by academics The title of the book was alternately rendered as Fog in a translation by Elena Barcia published by Northwestern University Press in 2017.

Historical and social context

Spain was significantly politically weakened after the death of Alfonso XII in 1885 and the ascendance of his widow, Maria Christina of Austria, as queen regent. Conservative landowners and liberals alike defended the principles of absolute monarchy, while a substantial number of peasant uprisings in Puerto Rico and Cuba, Spain's last territories in the Americas, gave rise to the "Grito de Baire" and the Cuban War of Independence.

The United States intervened in Cuba, citing the sinking of the USS Maine and its intention to "protect the lives and financial interests of Americans." After Spain's failed attempt to retain its colony through a reform that would have conferred a considerable degree of autonomy in January 1898, in April the United States intervened in the conflict and declared war on Spain. Spain signed the Treaty of Paris, which gave Cuba independence and recognized Puerto Rico as a U.S. possession.

With these changes in intellectual thought, realism and naturalism also lost influence after having been the primary model for novelists until that time. Authors were no longer interested in capturing the characters' surroundings; they preferred to focus on the interiority of the individual in search of his own truth and who tried to understand his reality. This new narrative mode was named "modernism."

Characters

Augusto Pérez: main character.

Víctor Goti: Augusto's best friend.

Miguel de Unamuno: renowned Spanish writer whom Augusto decides to visit when in search of life advice.

Eugenia Domingo Del Arco: piano instructor and acquaintance of Augusto.

Mauricio: Eugenia's lover. He is also a friend for Rosario.

Rosario: young woman who brings the ironed clothes to Augusto's house.

Orfeo: Augusto's dog.

Domingo: Augusto's house steward.

Liduvina: Augusto's housekeeper.

Ermelinda: Eugenia's aunt.

Margarita: Eugenia's uncles' house caretaker.

Aesthetic innovation

Substantial portions of Mist are dedicated to expounding a new style of novel, of which Mist itself is meant to be an exemplar. The original Spanish subtitle of the book is the neologism "nivola," a slight alteration of the standard Spanish word for "novel" (novela). Unamuno coined this term to emphasize his intentional break with what he saw as the dominant novelistic aesthetic of his time. He explicitly rejected novels with an overabundance of descriptive language and psychological analyses of the characters, and instead he emphasized heavy use of dialogue.

Another aspect of the nivola, according to Unamuno, was its "viviparous" rather than "oviparous" nature. Through the words of the character Victor Goti, Unamuno wrote that the viviparous novel was "born alive" all at once without a plan, and took shape as the author wrote it. J.A.G. Ardila contends that Mist was inspired by Kierkegaard's work Diary of a Seducer, a novella in Either/Or.

Sergio Arlandis López takes an interest in the novel's theme of the urge for personal salvation in the face of nonexistence, as within that salvation he perceives an element of existential agony in the search for transcendence. Arlandis López also writes on the problematization between reason and faith, about which he says, "I understand that reason itself contradicts the aspiration to immortality, but it is necessary in that it is doubt [...] that pushes us [...] toward the search for knowledge." According to this analysis, the uncertainty surrounding immortality causes the fear of nonexistence "and a renunciation of the consciousness of being-in-the-world in favor of a harmonic reinsertion into Creation."

One of the primary matters on which several critics agree Information on Unamuno's crisis of faith is available thanks to the near-complete preservation of his correspondence; his letters to Clarín make constant reference to this process.

Some scholars find that Unamuno tended toward agnosticism and others define him as a complete atheist; despite such disagreement, both camps note that Unamuno attached great importance to the ideas of existence and becoming human. Ana Dotras says that Unamuno spent his entire life vacillating on matters of religious thought, and even that he lived with a certain level of existential dread that he wished to project onto his readers so that they might live with the same doubts.

According to Luis García Jambrilla, the predominant form of criticism of Unamuno's works has been "merely thematic and philosophical readings, fundamentally centered on the problem of personality, existence, and individual identity." Less frequent are those that deal with the autofictional structure of Unamuno's writing; the least common type of critical analysis has dealt with narrative techniques such as metafiction.

  • Niebla (1976), Spanish Television telefilm directed by Fernando Méndez-Leite.
  • Las cuatro novias de Augusto Pérez (1976), Spanish film by José Jara.
  • "Mist, a Renaissance "Nivola" by Unamuno". Exploring your mind. 2020-04-16. Retrieved 2022-10-17.

References