THE ROUTES OF GLOBAL NOSTALGIA IN CRISTINA GARCIA'S DREAMING IN CUBAN 97

prompts her to question the relationship between creativity and travel.
Listing numerous famous writers such as Flaubert and Emily Dickinson,
who stayed within the same area for most of their lives, Pilar wonders
"if the farthest distance I have to travel isn't in my own head" (178).
Undecided about whether travel is necessary to achieve inspiration,
Pilar also cites the migrant lives of Ernest Hemingway and Gaugin to
assert, "I become convinced that you have to live in the world to say
anything meaningful about it" (179). Pilar's examination of the evasive
connection between migration and cultural production undermines the
truth-value given to migrancy within travel-movement discourse. The
inability to delineate the relationship between travel and art causes
Pilar to question her own identity, defining herself in terms of incom-
pleteness: "I'm still waiting for my life to begin" (179).
 Pilar, unable to fulfill her role as recorder, nevertheless formulates
her space of belonging:

 I wake up feeling different, like something inside of me is changing,
 something chemical and irreversible. There's a magic here working
 its way through my veins...I'm afraid to lose all this, to lose Abuela
 Celia again. But sooner or later I'd have to return to New York. I know
 now it's where I belong-not instead of here, but more than here. (236)

 The mysterious changes at work within Pilar not only cause her to
recognize her in-between identity but also the obstacles in the way of
her recording task: "Until I returned to Cuba, I never realized how many
blues exist" (233). The multiplicity of blues mirrors that of the various
and often contradicting memories related to Pilar by her family. A
newfound awareness of the competing histories and memories com-
plicates Pilar's attempt to formulate an alternate family history that
has the coherence of the family tree diagram opening the novel. Pilar's
reaction to the mob scene at the Peruvian embassy, the beginning of
the Mariel boatlift, puts her at odds with her grandmother's wishes:
"Nothing can record this, I think. Not words, not paintings, not photo-
graphs" (241). What is it then about Cuba that remains unrecordable?
Is Cuba's inability to be transcribed into words or art related to Pilar's
final rejection and exile from the island?
 It is precisely the narrative of Cuba's public history that continually
prevents Pilar from having direct access to the family memory, such
that the relationship between the Revolution, time and history drives
Pilar's nostalgia for and rejection of Cuba. The narrative associates
Cuba, as object of Pilar's nostalgia, with isolation: "Cuba is a peculiar