Romanticising the fight against Franco

Thriller

I do not often agree with the Daily Mail, the Lon­don rag that sup­ported Hitler in the 1930s and that has changed ap­proach lit­tle, but its re­viewer’s quote (on this page under the book’s de­tails) is spot on. Au­tumn in Cat­alo­nia is in­tense and deeply felt. Jane Macken­zie cre­ates a re­bel­lious, at­trac­tive hero­ine in Carla and a mov­ing story.

When Carla sep­a­rates from her par­ents, she is forced to turn to the rest of her fam­ily. Her grand­mother Maria of­fers her full sup­port, though she is now home­less, money­less... and preg­nant. Most of the fam­ily, like Maria, have kept their Re­pub­li­can val­ues de­spite hav­ing lived through 25 years of fas­cism.

Carla had not known or hardly known many of her fam­ily, for they came from a small vil­lage and were di­vided and scat­tered by the Civil War. Her mother hasn’t talked to the rest of the fam­ily since she be­trayed them in 1939 by mar­ry­ing into the regime. Carla dis­cov­ers that one of her great-un­cles was a promi­nent Re­pub­li­can jour­nal­ist in 1930s Barcelona, forced into exile by the Civil War de­feat.

The novel is some­thing of a thriller, as Carla fights and ma­noeu­vres for Luc’s free­dom and tries to un­der­stand how her mother could have mar­ried a fas­cist like Sergi at the end of the war. Slowly she un­cov­ers the mys­tery of Joana’s mar­riage.

Macken­zie struc­tures her novel very well. Though mainly nar­rated through Carla, she switches at times to other char­ac­ters’ points of view and in­serts a num­ber of flash-backs to the 1930s, which ex­plain the dis­as­ters that di­vided Carla’s fam­ily.

Rose-tinted spec­ta­cles

In this se­ries re­view­ing nov­els set in Cat­alo­nia by Eng­lish-lan­guage writ­ers, sev­eral books tackle the ef­fects of the Civil War on Cata­lan so­ci­ety. Au­tumn in Cat­alo­nia is dif­fer­ent from the var­ied oth­ers, in that it is a ro­man­tic novel. In Span­ish this is a nov­ela rosa, a pink novel, in which the world is seen through rose-tinted spec­ta­cles. There is noth­ing wrong with look­ing op­ti­misti­cally at the world. The prob­lem, though, is that many a ro­man­tic novel fal­si­fies re­al­ity and this is one of those that does.

In this fairy-tale, Sergi the bad­die is brought low, the lovers are re­united after tear-jerk­ing vi­cis­si­tudes, a fam­ily torn apart by fas­cism is re-united. Mar­tin, a long-lost, in­cred­i­bly kind and able cousin, ap­pears from French exile as a deus ex machina to re­solve con­flict and bring every­one to­gether.

In sev­eral ways the novel is not un­real: there is no play­ing down of the vi­o­lence of the Franco dic­ta­tor­ship and its fierce anti-Cata­lanism. For ex­am­ple, there is a bru­tal scene when the fas­cists first oc­cupy the fam­ily’s vil­lage in 1939. Macken­zie leaves her read­ers in no doubt about the regime’s as­sault on Cata­lan lan­guage and cul­ture.

It is in the char­ac­ters that un­re­al­ity is seen. They are all re­mark­ably kindly and noble (ex­cept for Sergi and his thugs). Only Carla’s great-uncle Vic­tor, dri­ven off his land and work­ing in a fac­tory, is psy­cho­log­i­cally af­fected by fas­cism. In re­al­ity, the vic­tory of fas­cism led to gen­er­a­tions of si­lence, it twisted peo­ple’s be­hav­iour, de­stroyed peo­ple’s dig­nity. This is why the move­ments to dig into the truth about the war are move­ments not of vic­tims’ chil­dren but of grand­chil­dren, who have grown up with post-Franco con­fi­dence.

What is miss­ing from Jane Macken­zie’s book is the feel for un­justly ru­ined lives and all-en­velop­ing fear. Its char­ac­ters are too un­dam­aged. Even their fear is clean-cut, not ab­ject. It brought to mind an­other novel set in 1964 Cat­alo­nia, Juan Goyti­solo’s Señas de iden­ti­dad (trans­lated to Eng­lish as Marks of Iden­tity), in which the regime has not just won, but has crushed lives and per­verted Cata­lan so­ci­ety. Un­like Goyti­solo’s char­ac­ters, Macken­zie’s are un­crushed and un­per­verted.

Cat­alo­nia is not an evoked re­al­ity but a dreamed back­drop for her novel. Girona (in this se­ries, many for­eign writ­ers have been in­spired by the beau­ties of the city) is well de­scribed, with the con­trast drawn out be­tween the poverty of the work­ing-class and the free­doms of the chil­dren of the rulers. Even among these rich kids in the new cafe­te­rias, Macken­zie in­sists on the ter­ri­ble, sub­servient role of women. There is a fine fem­i­nist streak in her. The women are the pro­tag­o­nists and movers in this novel. Mod­ern ro­man­tic nov­els no longer fea­ture wil­lowy girls (de­spite the cover) who melt at the ap­proach of a prince, but strong women rebels like Carla.

Much to enjoy in a mov­ing, well-struc­tured novel. Just don’t ex­pect to find out the truth about lives under the dic­ta­tor­ship.