The Concept of Postmemorial Experience in “The Art of Flying” by Antonio Altarriba

Almost immediately after its publication in 2009, The Art of Flying became a significant landmark in the history of the graphic novel in Spain. The emotional resonance of Spain’s historical events during the 20th century, the touching synthesis of collective memories and the complex yet intriguing figure of the protagonist immerse the readers in a sensual adventure of enduring memory. The novel is awarded several prizes, including the 2010 National Comic Prize, and has multiple translated copies in five other languages. One of the reasons for the novel’s success lies in its exploration of postmemorial experience through which the narrator tells the story of his father, Antonio Altarriba Senior. Postmemory refers to the relationship that the “generation after” bears to the personal, collective, and cultural trauma of those who came before, experiences that they “remember” only by means of the stories, images, and behaviours among which they grew up. For example, children in post-Soviet countries often experience postmemory, feeling the impact of the Soviet regime’s traumas through the stories and experiences of their parents and grandparents, despite not having lived through it themselves. This phenomenon underscores the depth of the collective memory and its lasting influence across generations. The portrayal of the protagonist’s solitary flight through life and the narrator’s traumatic experience of losing a parent indisputably justify the novel’s acclaim. Another reason for its popularity is Spain’s ongoing exploration of its past. The Spanish Civil War and World War II left profound scars on society, continuing to fuel public interest until present days. These historical events shaped destinies, transformed lives, and left deep wounds on survivors. Illustrated under the pseudonym Kim, the novel vividly captures this era of chaos, madness and sorrow in a perfectly fitting realistic, sometimes even grotesque manner. Therefore, The Art of Flying stands as a groundbreaking recollection of memories based on a personal postmemorial experiences, depicting the life of ordinary Spaniards during the 20th century. This essay will focus on the narrator’s postmemorial approach and examine the postwar experience of the protagonist.

Altarriba’s novel begins with a prologue where the 90-years-old Antonio Senior attempts a suicide. His son, who continues the biographical essence of the novel to create a peculiar testament of his father’s life, shares:

It took my father ninety years to fall from the fifth floor.

This statement hints the overall reason behind the protagonist’s suicide – Antonio’s whole life was mainly composed of tragic events, whose weight became unbearable through the years. The whole book consists of four sections, which indicate the protagonist’s progress towards the ground and remind to the reader the inevitable ending of Antonio’s journey.

The first chapter, called The Wooden Car, focuses on the protagonist’s dark and traumatic childhood, which he spends in a small village. Due to the recent settlement of villagers at the location, the soil is still uncultivated, leading to everyone starts surrounding their lands with walls. The protagonist includes this seemingly insignificant detail for a deeper reason:

So I grew up with my perspective blocked by the walls of others’ ambitions…/ Or maybe it’s better to say misery.

However, Antonio and the other kids start using the walls for fun and games, which leads to the following comment:

I grew up enough to climb over the barriers…/ …To outwit some…/ To jump over others…/ But I never grew enough to overcome them entirely.

These quotes sum up Antonio’s life – he is hindered by insurmountable obstacles, but his urge for freedom helps him adapt and overcome them.

In the second chapter, Durruti’s Espadrilles, Antonio is forced to fight for the fascist army, but he climbs over the walls of the military base to join the Republicans. When travelling with Spanish refugees and trapped in a labor camp, he escapes. When arrested by German soldiers and taken to a base that distributes people to concentration camps, he escapes again. Antonio’s iron will helps him accomplishes his aims, even in the last section of the novel – The Mole’s Den, where he lives as a depressed old man in an infirmary. The nurses constantly watch over him, but his sharp mind and analytical skills help him get to the right floor at the right time to attempt a suicide. The constant cycle of safety and danger, happiness and sorrow, stagnation and action create a convincing representation not only of the 20th century suffering Spanish soldier, but of every person who had to live during these unsettled times.

Aurora Mocrillo’s historical research Memory and Cultural History of the Spanish Civil War: Realms of Oblivion claims that:

[…] the war violently disrupted the ‘natural’ order of things and the dictatorship exploited through terror its role as arbiter of order after the victory of 1939.

The postwar experience is depicted in Altarriba’s novel, as well. In the third chapter – Bitter Biscuits, Antonio has to suppress his anarchist ideals in order to survive under Franco’s regime. Due to the historical context of the novel, the concept of social reconciliation in The Art of Flying points only in one direction – accepting the fascist regime. After World War II, the dictatorship of Francisco Franco still existed, leading to the belief that:

[…] only the ‘Reds’ [Republicans] were killers and only the ‘Blues’ [fascists] were victims.

When Antonio returns to Spain his only option for job is provided by his cousin’s husband, Doroteo Acin, who serves Franco’s party. Doroteo warns him:

Here all that revolution and anarchy stuff is over and done with…/ And you don’t want anyone finding out about your past… There’s a lot of people rotting away in prison for less than what you’ve done…

Doroteo and his friends force Antonio to attend banquets where they constantly sing anti-anarchist songs and curse fallen Republican soldiers.

Characters like Lucio and Ramon represent social reconciliation. Lucio, who once initiated young Antonio into anarchism, has transformed into a defender of Francoism, claiming that no country can prosper in an environment of revolution and chaos, and Spain needs order and peace. Ramon, who worked in the secret post office of the Republicans during the Civil War, had also switched political sides, denying any involvement in the war when greeted by Antonio. The protagonist expresses his thoughts on this revulsion:

It wasn’t just betrayal, it was ideological suicide… To face the present, you had to obliterate the past… To die in order to stay alive…

The quote relates to a significant opposition as a postwar cultural phenomenon – the politics of forgetting in a contradiction with the remembrance of the survivors. Altarriba’s novel portrays this opposition Kim’s abstract illustrations, supporting the surrealistic tone of Antonio’s nightmares.

When the protagonist returns to Spain, he faces all results from the wars which do not appeal to his principles. His confusion grows into panic while he walks around the streets of Zaragoza and sees memorials of fascist soldiers and monuments of praised fascist figures such as Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera – the founder of Spain’s fascist phalange. Antonio’s panic transforms into a horrific nightmare in which a huge eagle (a fascist symbols) gouges his eyes out. The last illustration depicts the blind protagonist, who is thankful for not seeing, while in the background thousands of dead soldiers fly up to the sky. The weight of the “ideological suicide”, as Antonio Senior calls it, crushes his spirit, and until the end of the novel, he shares his past as a Republican soldier only with his wife.

As explained in the first paragraph, the prologue of the novel introduces the protagonist Antonio Senior and the narrator - Antonio’s son. Just on the first page, the narrator explains metaphorically how he manages to know all the protagonist’s actions:

I am descended from my father, I am his prolongation, and even when I wasn’t yet born, I already partook of everything that happened to him… As his genetic potential…

The narrator’s decision to metaphorically incarnate into his father derives from his need to understand better the reason behind the old man’s suicide. But it is also because Antonio’s son is a subject of postmemorial recollection. The following quote by Alison Ribeiro’s research, Embodying Memory in Contemporary Spain, defines the position of the narrator as a figure with a postmemorial experience:

the (possibly unwilling) second-generation inheritor of silenced or repressed traumas who carries the memories of others

Antonio’s son continues his narration from first-person until the beginning of the first section. Afterwards he dives deeply into his postmemory. The process of his “incarnation” can be traced from the first three panels at the beginning of the chapter:

My father – now myself (…)/ My grandfather, who is now my father (…)/ I – now we will leave it as I – (…),

after which the narrator’s focal point is completely replaced by Antonio Senior’s perspective. This continues throughout the whole novel even in scenes where the protagonist meets his son. In the third section, when Antonio’s son is born, the protagonist thoughts express the same genetic bond that the narrator depicts in the prologue:

I can only explain it as the connection between two bodies with the same blood… I felt myself inside him and that from then on, I would be with him…”

Alison Ribeiro reveals that:

[…] reality is a wound, and the emotional and imaginative engagement that the rememberer feels with the past in attempting to overcome this [false traumatic experience]

By completely accepting his father’s perspective, the narrator both perpetuates Antonio Senior’s name and tries to heal his own traumas from past events during which he was not yet born.

In conclusion, despite its tragic tone, The Art of Flying portrays a protagonist who despite being a mere speck in the vortex of unfortunate events, adapts and “fly despite all obstacles” (Altarrida 103). Antonio Senior lives as a soldier beyond the war, battling post-traumatic experience, forming a family and grappling with lost friends. The novel’s seamless blend of narrative and authorial voices creates a compelling biography rooted in a postmemorial experience, offering a poignant portrayal not only of Antonio’s life but also of countless of Spaniards enduring the war. Despite Antonio’s burdens, the novel teaches that even in the darkest of times, one can find solace and even transcendence through dark humor, sex, driving cars, rebellion and friendship. 

Works cited

Primary source:

Altarriba, Antnio and Kim. The Art of Flying. Jonathan Cape, 2015.

Secondary source: 

Mocrillo, Aurora. Memory and Cultural History of Spanish Civil War: Realms of Oblivion. BRILL, 2013.

Ribeiro, de Mnezes, Alison. Embodying Memory in Contemporary Spain. Palgrave Macmillan US, 2014.