Intertextuality as the core of the creative project in Enrique Vila-Matas' Dietario voluble

Abstract

In Dietario voluble, there is a group of cultural as well as social relations that, together with its writing project, allow a much more complex narrative structure, from which two central points stand out: quotation and the writing process. The following question emerges from the first: Why does Vila-Matas use literary quotation and not other narrative resource? In this article it will be claimed that intertextuality signals the author’s conscience over the historical moment when he is writing. On the other hand, the second works as the text core, since it shows a personal style established in different ways in each writer, depending on the historical, biographical or literary reference points that surround them. In summary, intertextuality in Dietario voluble is evidence of a creative project, as it considers an intellectual field from which a writing style is defined.