2. Dear Reader, Are You Lost?

Required reading: 

Previous story, “A Writer is Born.” (It is the only way to understand the references made here.)

Part 2 (or Epilogue 2):

Dear Reader, are you lost?

My Journal: Day 1

Did you notice yet that this is merely an exercise in stream of consciousness. It might well be useful in helping you the rest of this book-to-be. This is not arrogance on my part; the truth be told, even I am beginning to feel the entanglement of the threads that are attached to the voices that are poking their heads up in random fashion.

There are several points of view in these stories, including free indirect discourse, which can appear in third person speech but the narrator gets excited about the narrative and shifts closely to the character inside it. 

What am I looking for, as I realize I’m trying to be the guide here? I ask, because I’m starting to feel lost. This is upsetting. Maybe I’ll have a clearer idea tomorrow.

Day 2

Whether fictional or real, Dr. Rivers has brought an invaluable journal, written by the great Rosalía de Castro over a century and a half ago, to the eyes of more than a few persons. Those might belong to friend or foe. Perhaps what I seek is determined by the role I’m playing: as editor, curator, director of curriculum, archivist, novelist (as unlikely as that might seem yet still an option), or translator. Which of these? I didn’t seek any of these roles. I have my own life, but then reality intruded.

I still can’t figure out how Lavinia Rivers’ research notes got in my house. Not by my hand! And were they left here deliberately, or misplaces, maybe? I’m uneasy, because Lavinia’s never been in my house. Nevertheless, they were mixed in with a stack of my own papers, in my study.

Day 3

I have read through the notes and articles belonging to Lavinia. They refer to Rosalía’s journal as if it were kept in the same heavy paper portfolio so popular in Europe. Yet I don’t see it. Where is it? It’s too valuable to be lost! What if she comes back for her notes and finds the journal’s gone. Yes, it’s hard to find something that’s gone, because if you find it, then it’s no longer gone.

I’m wittering because I don’t know what to do. I need to find that journal, or those journals. Lavinia’s research notes are a sort of journal too, aren’t they?

Day 4

You haven’t asked yet how I know Lavinia made the discovery. 

Or how I know her, what our relationship is. Or will be, if she thinks I’m responsible for Rosalía’s journal going missing. I need to look some more around the house.

Day 5

Now that I have Rosalía’s journal as well as Dr. Rivers’ research notes, I realize that I am looking for the difference between fact and fiction. It is my fundamental consideration. Did Lavinia interpret Rosalía the writer accurately or did she invent things? What was she actually looking for? What is she trying to find out?

I might not attain my goal, but I can’t not try.

Day 6

Fact vs. Fiction. Polyphony of voices is confusing. 

First we have Rosalía, and in first person, writing in her journal, because without that, there is no research. (NB: The journal has not been transcribed yet, but I plan to snap some photos in case someone comes to claim it.)

Second is Lavinia, who discovered the journal. She can tell Rosalía’s story in both first and third person. It’ll be first person if she reads or quotes from the entries directly. 

In a sense, Lavinia’s ‘I’ fuses with Rosalía’s. However, if Dr. Rivers retells the content in the entries, as in a conference paper or an article in a journal (different type), she might gloss Rosalia’s words in order to describe them rather than - she writes today that… 

Sometimes I bore myself with AcademeSpeak.

Day 7

Third, there is myself. I feel so tangled up now. As I tell the story of Lavinia Rivers who has been reading Rosalía’s journal and is doing research on it, I’m recreating, lengthening, adding to both Rosalía’s words and those of Lavinia. In essence, I’m writing what some call biofiction. I don’t DO biofiction. 

No, this is not fiction. Remember, there actually is a journal in Rosalía’s handwriting and all I’m doing most of the times is just quoting her. I don’t make things up.

Since I have been obliged to do some translating from Galician or Spanish for English-only speakers, you must trust me on this. Ethical translation is important. 

Going to think about this.

Day 8

I think Lavinia not only can go back and forth with the points of view known as first and third person, she can move easily from one to the other. She is also trained to analyze women’s writing (Gender Studies was one of her positions at her university before she left it), plus she can enhance our understanding of what we’ve read through scholarly analysis, telling which point of view expresses what ideas and the motives behind each one. This might be something she has studied and must have liked doing, except that it wouldn’t be as much fun as other things she’s learned to like doing in Santiago.

I know, because I’m familiar with scholarly writing and do write a little myself, but it’s not anything I’d dare show anyone. Also, I’ve learned that there is more to life than seeing one’s name in print.

I need to stop this. It’s making me anxious.

Day 8

Some questions I have are: 

Is Lavinia real or is she a character? Because Rosalia de Castro (1837-1885) was a real person, not a character invented by a writer; she was real, that we all know, and many of us have read her work. Let me think again about what I know about her while I try to distinguish what Rosalia wrote and what Lavinia thinks she wrote.

Rosalía was born in Conxo on the edge of Santiago de Compostela. Her father was a priest. She knew him. She moved to Santiago with her mother around 1850, when she was about thirteen.

She was a reader. She wanted to go to Madrid to be in theater. She met and married writer/archivist Manuel Murguía in that city. 

Why did Lavinia hide the journal in my house? That’s what I suspect after thinking a lot about it. Or was it really someone else? 

Rosalía was displeased by remarks about her parentage. Society was so critical back then. S why did she write A mi madre? They are poems to her mother. I bet she sat and fumed about getting back at the mean mouthed people in the city; who did they think they were? At least she read and, although living simply, they weren’t as badly off as many were. She had been able to study, and had books to read available through public libraries, the Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País, or through wealthy women who like to loan out books to people. She didn’t care what they said; she was above it all. At least that’s what I think.

I want to find the reason why Rosalía wrote Lieders as was included at the beginning of “A Star is Born.” What influences were possible? So little information is available.

Critics used to like to call her a writer from the provinces and a woman without as solid an education as a man would normally have; her gender and cultural identity defined her. It took critics a century to figure that out, and most of the ones who did were women. 

Imagine that. A whole century during which everybody loved her painful version of emigration, poverty, submission. A santiña, little saint. Poor thing. Probably didn’t know French or English.

Day 9

Reading list of sorts:

Anne Knight of Chelmsford, 1786-1862. Moved to France, participated in the revolution of 1848, attended international peace conference in Paris in 1849. Challenged the banning of women from political clubs and the publication of feminist material. Worked with Anne Kent to form the Sheffield Female Political Association, first British organization to demand the vote for women. 

Amelia Opie -novel: Adeline Mowbray, or, The Mother and Daughter (1804). Many of the heroine's experiences are based on Mary Wollstonecroft (1759-1797), whom she knew. Opie addresses what happens when a woman's ideals conflict with society's beliefs about her sexuality.

Wollstonecraft 1759-1797 - Vindication of the. Rights of Women 1792. Maria, or, The Wrongs of Woman. A Vindication of the Rights of Men. Influence of the French Revolution.

Olympe de Gouges. Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen. Guillotined.

Transatlantic Feminisms in the Age of Revolutions.

Madame Necker, whose daughter was Madame de Staël, author of Corinne 1807. 

Laura Cereta

Moderata Fonte

Hannah More, 1786: The Bas Bleu, or, Conversation. Bluestockings. (Which would be the title of Rosalía’s second feminist manifesto)

Fanny Burney

Day 10

World Anti-Slavery Convention. 1840. London. Female attendees ordered to sit apart. Women understood the concept of slavery quite well.

Was there no contact with the US?

Golden Cables of Sympathy: The Transatlantic Sources of Nineteenth-Century Feminism

Day 11

This is going to be a lot of work. And just to get some idea of why Rosalía de Castro wrote Lieders, such a brief little piece, at age twenty, declaring herself free. 

Free from what?