Josep Pla’s heart attack

I do not think that Restif de la Bretonne was to blame for the myocardial infarction, or heart attack, suffered by the great Catalan prose writer in mid-August 1972. “So, I did a myocardial infarction,” begins the tale. He does not say “had” but “did”, as we doctors normally describe it, in the sense that our patients do not suffer illnesses but rather cause them. It was the early hours, at the end of a normal day, after having had dinner with some friends. Already in bed, he was reading something by the French writer. I do not know which book it was. Restif de la Bretonne was the child of wealthy farmers, like Pla, and had an obsession with writing that led him to publish everything from pornographic novels to stories about the French Revolution, as well as a sort of autobiography in which he paints an idyllic picture of rural in life in the 18th century. Terribly hypocritical and very dishonest, Pla calls him, nevertheless I like to imagine Pla with one of the later works in his hands, enjoying what he himself knew so well.

“I felt a streak of pain in the upper part of my chest, especially above my heart, at the back of my torso I felt a parallel streak that was just as painful as the first. At the beginning, this pain was not so strong, but rather vague and diminishing... with the appearance, above the sternum, of a more oppressive type of pain, triangular in shape: an inverted triangle with its base at my Adam’s apple and the vertex positioned over the front of my thorax.” The pain extended to his arms and he felt an “unquestionable shortness of breath”. He began sweating intensely, without relief, as he felt a sensation of “growing panic”, although he does not mention the sense of imminent death that many sufferers describe.

His doctors in Palafrugell came to see him the next day, arriving at a conclusive diagnosis: “He has done a myocardial infarction. The injury is in the posterior part of the víscus.” His friend, doctor Alsina i Bofill, admitted him to a clinic in Barcelona: “After three or four days of discipline the progress was notable. My heart had rested and the work of disintoxication was very visible.” He has words of high praise for the nurse who attended to him: “she seems to me a type of female angel; someone with good advice, extremely agreeable.” What he found harder to shake off was the initial feelings of panic: “Perhaps the worst thing about a heart attack is the animal fear it produces. Anything that happens to the heart can mean death.”

On being discharged, he was given the usual recommendations of the time: “a single coffee a day, a little wine during meal times, a few drops of whisky. This alcohol now has great prestige. Smoking, don’t even talk about it... Never to get cold, to walk for a while on level ground.”

“For a few weeks my heart attack was an obsession. So was the indispensable and compulsory rest.” However, time went by, and his commitment to this advice became more difficult. Especially not smoking. Tobacco was something he considered indispensable for his slow writing and reflection: “What will now become of my literature without pauses?” Later on he starts to miss coffee, which gives him “a vivacity and curiosity for things that is extremely quick and comprehensive.” And, even more so, alcohol: “Alcohol is also important for writing,” and in the latter days, whisky alone, “authentic Scotch, which has done me no harm.” And apart from lamenting these restrictions on his habits, Pla also elaborates on the domestic philosophy that is so characteristic of him: “The heart has nothing to do with banks or establishments of credit.” A minimal amount of wealth is required “but do not let yourself be carried away by this monstrosity. If you do, your worries will grow and your life will be miserable.” And with his usual misogyny, he also recommends “having no dealings, either physical or mental, with any woman... I refer especially to people in the retour d’âge, which is the most dangerous time of life.” The heart requires asceticism.

Josep Pla, always heedful of the doctors, who is said to have been tempted to study medicine, who dedicated writing to Josep Trueta and Francesc Duran i Reynals, makes a relative case of their prescriptions: “Out of every cigarette I made two.” Drink a little they recommended him “but calmly. It is what I did.” He died nine years later at home in Pla de Llofriu, of cerebral thrombosis.

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