��by Mercè Rodoreda, translated from the Catalan by Maruxa Relaño and Martha Tennent

I’ve always enjoyed knowing what happens to people. It’s not because I’m garrulous but because I like people, and I was fond of the owners of this house. But all of this happened so long ago that I can no longer recall many of the details. I’m old, and sometimes I get mixed up.

There was no need to go to the Excelsior to see films the summers they came with their friends. There was this one fellow who liked to paint the sea, Feliu Roca he was called. His work had been shown in exhibitions in Paris, and I believe he’s known in Barcelona and made a pile of money with his swathes of blue. He had painted the sea in all of its incarnations: calm, wild, big waves, small waves. Green, the color of fear. Grey, the color of clouds. Seascapes. He said he did seascapes, and his friends encouraged him to dapple the canvas because that’s what Americans like. They made fun of him and would say too many painters had painted the sea already; and then the young man, a good-looking fellow with ash blond hair and sleepy blue eyes . . . He stuttered sometimes. Such as when the colors didn’t come out the way he wanted them. I’m referring to the paint mixture. And he would say to me: it’s more difficult to paint this beast of blue than to tend flowers. And I would answer: you’re right, yes you are. Flowers grow all by themselves. Maybe that’s why there’s so little merit in being a gardener. I said it just to make him happy, and he said that when he finished painting the sea in every possible state of seaness, he would paint me, sitting in the sun. I didn’t believe him. No. Every summer, when he came up, I was glad to see him again and I think he was glad to see me too. Six summers . . . all told, six summers and one terrible winter.

One of his female friends—there were two of them and they always came—was named Eulàlia. The other was Maragda. This Maragda was a seamstress and had been Senyoreta Rosamaria’s boss when Rosamaria had worked for her as a young girl; that’s how they became friends. When they returned from their morning swim, I always tried to busy myself with the nearby flowerbeds, the one that’s full of marigolds in particular, so I could hear them talking. Such gaiety and youth, so much money . . . so much of everything . . . and two wrecked lives. I once saw a bird that let itself die. It must have been a desperate bird, desperate like Eugeni.

*

The first time I met the masters, the Senyorets, was in early spring, shortly after they were married. I knew the gentleman from before. I had seen him twice, once when he visited the estate with the intention of buying it, the other when he came to oversee the progress of the renovations. That second time he told me he would like me to stay, it suited him fine to keep me on as the gardener. They were to honeymoon abroad and were only stopping here for a short visit. Lots of strolls and time spent on the belvedere gazing at the ebb and flow of the waves, at the sky and all the movement within it, standing close to one another, sometimes holding each other. If ever I approached them during the day, I always coughed to make my presence known; it’s no sin for a married couple to embrace, and yet I thought they wouldn’t want to be seen. Quima, the cook, was already there that year. And after that they hired her every summer because the cook they had in Barcelona went home to her family. Quima made me tell her everything they did in the garden, and she told me everything that happened around the house. She got a lot of it from one of the maids, Miranda, a Brazilian girl. This Miranda wore a black dress, so formfitting on her snake-thin body that she would have been better off not wearing anything at all. And an apron of lace no larger than your hand. She thought she was something special. But there wasn’t much for Quima to report because nothing much happened. Sometimes Senyoret Francesc would slip an olive into Senyoreta Rosamaria’s mouth and she would take it with her little teeth. Apparently he was crazy about her. Quima said that when Miranda was telling her this, she, Miranda that is, who was the color of licorice, went pale. With envy, Quima said. These girls from Brazil are like that, it seems. One day they went out for a ride in the car and Quima took me upstairs. I was afraid they would come back and catch us. She said: “Wait till you see the jewelry she has! Senyoret Francesc is one of the wealthiest men in Barcelona!” And she showed me lots of baubles, all diamonds she said, and a necklace with a teardrop pendant dangling in the middle. Rich folks, they were, really rich. And trusting. Through the slats in the blinds we looked out at the garden. The grounds that came with the villa, and the adjacent lands, were fields of grass and weeds back then, teeming with lizards.

They left, saying they would be back in June with some friends. They handed me the keys and left me in charge of the house, which I was to air out from time to time. I was very pleased when I received the letter announcing their return. And just as they had instructed, I hired Quima for the summer, and her face flushed with delight because Senyoret Francesc mentioned in his letter that he especially liked her oven-baked sole. Miranda arrived with her huge suitcases two or three days before the rest of the family, and never opened her mouth. I headed outside to my plants. She, to the dust indoors. They came by sea. Three days later we heard a horn and I caught sight of the boat right away, coming in slowly, and when it was close enough they lowered the outboard. They stayed on the beach because they were already in their ; they swam, and one of the friends began to on the water like a little figurine. They had brought an instructor to teach them, the skiing part I mean, and Senyoreta Rosamaria, just for laughs, asked me if I would like to learn myself, but I said . She asked if any of the flowers was ill, and I said I was glad to report they were all in fine health. They took on a new maid, Mariona, a village girl I knew by sight, very young, small and smooth as a pebble.

At night, from the mulberry and linden tree promenade, I would often find myself looking up at the masters’ bedroom window. I have always enjoyed walking in the garden at night, to feel it breathe. And when I grew tired I would amble back to my little house, reveling in the peaceful existence of all that was green and filled with color in the light of day. Gradually I became aware that someone else was often in the garden at that late hour. I concealed myself and stood watch, and I saw it was Miranda. I was annoyed because she held a branch in her hand and was beating my plants with it as she walked. One night I came out of the shadows and gave her a piece of my mind.

“Miranda?” Quima said one day. “I don’t like her. People who are awake during sleeping hours shouldn’t be trusted. What Miranda is really after . . . but clearly Senyoret has eyes for only one thing. I don’t think Senyoreta Rosamaria has any cause for concern.”

“Some men are attracted to people from faraway places, so they can dream of exotic trees and colorful feathers,” I said. “It suits them better.” Quima said I was off my rocker and threatened never to speak to me again. I wasn’t so crazy after all. Miranda played the innocent and went about laying her snares.

For a long time I knew very little about Senyoreta Eulàlia, the one who knew how to skate across the sea. Pale of skin and dark of hair, there was a reserved air about her. She was nothing like our Senyoreta, who radiated something that was like fair weather. For a while I suspected Feliu, the painter, was sweet on Eulàlia. But he was caught up in his painting. One day I teased him about it, and he said he wasn’t attracted to ladies who put on airs, and the task of entertaining them should fall to someone else, and rather than a bouquet of roses he much preferred a bunch of . . . he pointed to some flowers. “Foxglove,” I said. “A simple flower.” And he said: “If I’m not careful, there are ladies who would devour me alive, and the painter would be finished before ever getting started.”

I don’t know if he was right, and he probably didn’t either, but we both laughed. Now and again Quima would ask me what Miranda did at night.

“Nothing. She wanders about. As long as she doesn’t harm my plants she can do as she pleases.”

One moon-filled night she went for a swim. I wouldn’t have recognized her if it hadn’t been for the moon. She sprinted into the water as if entering a sea of ink. And when she emerged she gleamed like an olive. She stretched out on the sand and she lay there for so long I thought she had fallen asleep. And swoosh, swoosh, swoosh went the water, here I come and there I go. I mimicked the frog’s call and Miranda didn’t move. Still as death. I finally tired of singing and went home to bed. And just as I was falling asleep: croak, croak, croak beneath my window. I could have strangled her. I pretended to be asleep and I have resented her ever since.

My first response is: Thank god I finally realized how easy it is to change the color on these charts! I was getting so sick of blue. And besides, this is a nice Open Letter orange, which . . . hey, look at that! We’re number one!

I could be wrong, but I think this is one of��two��languages that we have published more translations from than anyone else. The other? Bulgarian. For sure. (We’re close on Iceland, but AmazonCrossing did ten titles one year and is crushing us.)

BUT.

This chart is totally flawed.

I figured it out about five minutes before I started writing this post, and although I’m usually up for doing a couple hours of extra research to make sure all my numbers are accurate before posting them, I just don’t have it in me tonight to deal with this bullshit.

Let me explain via the “funny/rant” section of these weekly posts:

Have you heard of Barcelona Books?

Yeah, so, I kind of remember them from a long time ago. January 2013 to be exact. Back when Obama was starting his second term and the world wasn’t a��complete��garbage fire.

What is Barcelona Books? GOOD QUESTION. It’s a “publisher” of ebooks that are distributed through . So far, so good. I mean, of all the ebook only publisher/distributor/media 2.0 companies out there, Open Road has to be the most (only?) successful one.

But how many of you have heard of Barcelona Books?

Given how the Open Road website is set up (BE SWEET CHAD, NOT SALTY, DON’T SHIT ON THEIR WEB DESIGN THIS SITE IS NOT ANY BETTER), I can’t link to a Barcelona Books page, but I can share a screen cap:

There are 22 titles total listed on this page, and given the name of the press—not to mention it’s location (Barcelona)—I assume these are are in translation . . . from Catalan. Although that could be totally wrong. Barcelona has a very healthy population of amazing authors who write in��Spanish. So, who knows? Let’s see what’s behind��:

Carlos Ruiz Zafon blurb aside, I’m intrigued! But who translated this? I’ll just click on that Amazon link . . .

GOD DAMN IT. (Also,��a dog?��Dogs of Amazon?��What hell am I living in?)

OK, back to square one.

Let’s check out the second book listed here,��.

Again, cool cool. I’m reading/listening to Pynchon’s��Against the Day, so I’m way into books about electricity. (Which is a joke for all four Pynchonites who read this blog. It’s like when I tell Rochesterians that my��Crying of Lot 49��tattoo is about “the mail.”) But is this translated?

Thank GOD there are no more dogs! BUT. BUT BUT BUT. If Open Road Media’s number one claim to fame is that they��excel��at creating metadata for ebooks (trust me, this is their bread and their butter), then why no translator? Again, not trying to be salty, but c’mon. It’s 2019 and you’re��Barcelona Books. Sure, Penguin doesn’t want you to know that Leila Slimani’s latest potboiler is translated (SCANDAL!) but who gives a shit in this instance? Again, you’re from BARCELONA. Own it.

Wait a second. My friend Sandra Pareja, one of like three agents who I actually like (yes, I’m including��you��in that count) translated this?

Two notes: 1) unless you know a bit about Catalan, you might not know that this was originally translated from Catalan. And 2) why not “Translation��copyright (c) 2012 by Sandra Pareja.”

This is all weird. And frustrating.

Those twenty-two books on the Open Road website? Neither of the ones currently in the Translation Database are included. But this list of twenty-two titles includes three (plus a box set) of books by Noah Gordon, which, to the best of my research, have��not��been translated. This is a nightmare of research for another day. For now, let’s admit that the chart above is��flawed, and that it’s at least��likely��that Barcelona Books has brought more books to market than any other publisher . . . but��have��they? If no one hears of an ebook (An American in Barcelona is “#1,240,531 Paid in Kindle Store,” which, even by my standards, sucks) has it really been published?

That’s actually a good topic for another weekly post . . . What differentiates “printing a book” (like vanity publishing) and “publishing a book.” There’s a story that I’ll likely never tell about how Open Letter almost��didn’t��come into existence until I argued this differentiation vociferously late one snowy Sunday night to someone much my senior who, in a way, held my future in his hands.

It’s one of the troublesome contradictions of the Translation Database: We want to collect��all the data, and yet, that includes books that are “made available,” but hardly published. And yet, it’s sometimes hard to discern what’s “simply printed” and what is “ignored by the powers that be.”

And where do ebook-only publishers figure into this continuum in 2019? I’ve never heard of a��single��one��of these books, and I’m willing to bet that #BooksellerTwitter hasn’t either. And I “follow” people who read the��most��obscure titles. Who aren’t swayed by the Big Five and would be deeply into the niche publisher specializing in things like this.

In other words—and yes, this is my professional attempt at a segue—was Miquel Bauça’s The Siege in the Room��published and ignored, or printed with no intention of garnering attention?

*

��by Miquel Bauçà, translated from the Catalan by Martha Tennent (Dalkey Archive Press)

I know, I know, I’ve been writing��a lot��about Dalkey Archive. Maybe it’s a mid-life crisis (what would’ve happened had I never left and Open Letter never came into existence?) or maybe it’s because I’m trying to find really great books from around the world to read—irrespective of “hipness” (aka Twitter references) or how recently they were published—and Dalkey is rather loaded in that regard. They have some titles that might raise eyebrows, but if you drill down to the core, John O’Brien’s taste is really interesting. There are so many books that blow away the most cynical of readers that no other publishing house in America would consider.

Such as Bauçà.

I remember learning about him on my first trip to Barcelona (first of two, although if I could live in Catalunya at some point . . . I would be in my own personal heaven), mostly because he had died “sometime around Christmas Day 2004,” a date that’s inexact for reasons that Martha Tennent explains in her introduction:

The iconic status that Bauçà came to hold among certain Catalan literati would perhaps have caused him to sneer, for above all he wished to be an anonymous, invisible writer. The relative obscurity of his work went hand in hand with his self-imposed ostracism (in a letter written in 1995 he referred to himself as “an apartment hermit”) in the tradition of literary exiles such as J.D. Salinger or Thomas Pynchon.

As morbid as it might be, I’m intrigued by this. We live in a world in which people are��desperate��to tell you about what they ate for lunch, or thought about while taking a shit, so someone who just doesn’t want to deal with the circus of being a public being? It’s stupidly refreshing.

*

I had two schemes in mind for this post when I started: To look at Dalkey’s “Catalan Literature Series” and the Open Letter one (past, present, and future) to see the similarities (emphasis on classic text and humorous ones), what succeeded and didn’t, and plug the new Quim Monzó collection (which BLEW ME AWAY, and which I think is one of the best story collections of 2019, hands down), or, alternatively, to look a bit deeper at��The Siege in the Room��and play the old game of “If you like X, You’ll Like Bauçà.”

Like usual, I’m going to shy away from promoting our own books right now—but seriously, in a single year, we have��Camellia Street��and��Garden by the Sea��by Mercè Rodoreda and the new book by Quim Monzó (still debating the title), which is untouchable in terms of sheer quality—and spend some more time with the Bauçà.

*

Comparison #1: Guðbergur Bergsson’s��Tómas Jónsson, Best-Seller

Do you like cranky old, possibly misogynistic men?

Maybe the world hasn’t always been sad. When we say our words are dragged down by inertia, we mean that what we learn as a pup stays with us. The same applies to other things. Girls, for example, use the phone but don’t know its precise function. (“Carrer Marsala”)

It’s hard to pull a quote for this comparison, but the atmosphere of the two books is very much in line. The Bauçà narrator is besieged by the world, much like Tómas Jónsson. Everything’s worse than it used to be—especially for him.

Comparison #2: Samuel Beckett

This is suggested in Martha Tennent’s introduction, and although Bauçà isn’t as radically stark, it’s definitely apt.

I remember that I came to the building in search of a sedative—if not a remedy—for the malady that had befallen me so cruelly some time before. My disquiet was so great that no one could comprehend the depths of the despondency I suffered. No ray of light fell across the shadowy abss. I had not yet hung up my had when I heard the sound of rapid panting from the multitude of wretches striding about on the landing upstairs, showing each other, anxious to drag me into the filth of their own despair. (“The Old Man”)

There are definitely more Beckettian passages than that one, but I decided��not to mark up this library book as I read it. But on the whole, the sort of “writer writing their existence” vibe runs throughout. Although by contrast, where Beckett blends absurd humor with existential despair, Bauçà is more someone who complains, less philosophical and obsessed with the concept of writing, and more just annoyed at life.

Comparison #3: Thomas Bernhard

There’s nothing quite as directly anti-Catalonia in Bauçà as there is anti-Austrian in Bernhard, but there is a bit of that disgusted riffing that a lot of readers (myself included) really like about Bernhard.

What’s the warden up to in her pajamas and bathrobe? Has she again fallen into her intermittent, intemperate whisperings? She gets drunk and goes out early in the morning to expose herself to the anger of those tubby boys who, instead of going to school, romp through the pine needles. If you stop to think about it, what else could she do? Associate herself with a portrait painter, ready to wash his shirts if necessary? That business wouldn’t last long.

She’s removed the fuses now.

That last line is very Tómas Jónsson . . .

In Conclusion

I couldn’t find more than of��The Siege in the Room, which, when I started reading this collection bugged me to no end. This book is right down the middle of the plate for��so many��people I follow who love to Tweet about interesting books.

And then, I found this. And this? It’s exactly where this post should end. A NONSENSE YOUTUBE VIDEO WITH TWO TOTAL VIEWS! This is promotional gold . . . or something.

This week’s music is by The National.

As always, feel free to send any and all comments or questions to: threepercentpodcast@gmail.com. Also, if there are articles you’d like us to read and analyze (or just make fun of), send those along as well.

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When a novel states a fact that ties into another fact and another and another, as the chain goes on the events begin to seem more and more extraordinary, and the characters take on a chiaroscuro effect without grays, and the melodrama builds, most people reading the novel will think it’s a bunch of lies, and that such things are impossible in real life. And the truth is exactly the opposite: if you just write down the characters and the “permutations” you can find in a city like ours – right here in Barcelona . . . Believe me, there’s no need to wait for a dark, sensational crime, the kind that scare concierges stiff when they read about them in the newspapers. These splashy, absurd crimes and criminals are not at all important, you see. But, if you could look within high society gentlemen and ladies who appear to live perfectly gray and proper lives, whom no one would ever suspect of anything, who appear incapable of a violent gesture or of any slightly spectacular and interesting act . . . If you could follow in their hideous footsteps, you would have more plots than you could ever know what to do with.

The irony of this quote is that the speaker is one of these “high-society gentlemen” who happens to be partially responsible for a shocking event involving an acquaintance. While this gentleman has been involved in some sketchy business in the past, people would never suspect that he would have anything to do with the events that transpired that very night. Even though he may not have legally done anything wrong, his actions earlier in the novel began a chain of events resulting in the death of this acquaintance.

In Private Life, Sagarra follows the footsteps of the speaker and his associates, and he certainly does find more plots that one could ever know what to do with. In fact, after spending most of the first half of the book focusing on the Lloberola family, Sagarra introduces a bevy of characters just as questionable as the speaker before returning to them. Instead of interrupting the main storyline, though, Sagarra actually manages to weave the different plot strands into a rich tapestry equivalent to the one that the family’s patriarch, Don Tomàs de Lloberola, was forced to sell.

Don Tomàs is not the only one with money problems, though: His oldest son, Frederic, is always trying to get himself out of financial trouble. An acquaintance of Frederic’s, Antoni Mates, also known as the Baron Falset, is willing to give him a loan to help him pay some debts, but only if he can get a co-signer. Frederic tries to get his father to help, but Don Tomàs refuses. As if things weren’t bad enough for Frederic, he and his wife are on the brink of a divorce, and his children don’t care too much for him either. Instead of trying to improve matters, however, he just prefers to ignore them until things come to a head.

Meanwhile, Don Tomàs’s younger son, Guillem, is involved in some shady business with the Baron, his wife, and a seamstress who brings them together. When Guillem learns that the Baron can help Frederic with his financial problems, he interferes despite that fact he “certainly didn’t have any feelings for his brother” and “kept his distance from him, just as he kept his distance from his parents.” After a while, though, Guillem takes things too far. Eventually, his interference in Frederic’s affair leads to consequences that are both tragic and ironic.

But as mentioned before, Private Life isn’t just a story about the Lloberolas and their problems and schemes: It’s about a society dealing with the changes that come during the end of the Restoration and the beginning of the Second Spanish Republic. Toward the end of the book’s first half, the older Lloberolas find themselves even more estranged from the city’s aristocracy and begin to recede into the novel’s background. In their place, socialite Hortènsia Portell puts together an “eclectic crew,” a crew that worships Josephine Baker over the Virgin of Montserrat and includes one of the dictator’s generals. Later, characters with minor roles start to become more prominent; these include Conxa Pujol, the Baron’s widow who ends up in a kind of power struggle with Guillem, and Níobe Casas, the gypsy dancer who is a “powerful magnet for devotees of communism and transcendental nonsense.” Also, as Frederic’s children, Maria Luïsa and Ferran, become adults, they connect with some of their father’s old associates, including Rosa Trènor, Frederic’s on-again, off-again lover; and Robert “Bobby” Xuclà, his former friend whom he had a falling out with. As a result, Rosa and Bobby find themselves tangled in the lives of the next generation of Lloberolas.

As intriguing as the lives of these characters and their connections to each other are, though, what really makes Private Life a compelling read are Sagarra’s vivid details of this crumbling society and his keen observations about it. Sure, they’re not always pretty, especially since many of characters have a tendency to neglect not only their dilapidating properties, but their physical appearances and moral upbringings. Then again, any novelist who begins with scene where a man wakes up to the sight of a stuffed dog isn’t going to marvel about how beautiful life can be. Still, thanks to Mary Ann Newman and her sparkling translation, Sagarra’s masterpiece is finally available in English.

Here’s the beginning of Chris’s review:

Last year, NYRB Classics introduced English-language readers to Catalan writer Josep Pla with Peter Bush’s translation of The Gray Notebook. In that book, Pla wrote about life in Spain during an influenza outbreak soon after World War I, when he was a young law student and aspiring writer. Readers got to meet many of the colorful characters who inhabited both the town of Palafrugell (where he was from) and the city of Barcelona (where he went to school). While Pla socialized with many of them, he preferred to spend time alone, especially along the Rambla in Barcelona. Even though Pla could be both ironic and pessimistic, he would write about humdrum moments in his life in such amazing detail that the reader couldn’t help but want to follow him along his journey.

Now, fans of that book can continue the journey with Life Embitters, the second of Pla’s works to be translated into English. Like the first book, Life was translated by Peter Bush, who has not only captured the spirit of Pla but has maintained a consistent quality over more than 1,200 pages. Life contains many of the hallmarks mentioned above, but it has some noticeable differences, too.

For the rest of the review, go here.

Now, fans of that book can continue the journey with Life Embitters, the second of Pla’s works to be translated into English. Like the first book, Life was translated by Peter Bush, who has not only captured the spirit of Pla but has maintained a consistent quality over more than 1,200 pages. Life contains many of the hallmarks mentioned above, but it has some noticeable differences, too.

For starters, Life Embitters consists of self-contained stories (most of which take place after the events in Notebook) rather than chronologically arranged anecdotes. Although Pla revised much of the material that made up The Gray Notebook decades after he had first composed it, he kept the diary-like format of his original writings. For example, one day Pla would write about a day at the beach, and the next he would give an opinion about another Catalan writer’s work. As a result, while it’s still highly recommended, Notebook can at times be an overwhelming read.

Life Embitters doesn’t feel as overwhelming because this time the writing is more focused. For example, in the first story, “The Central Tavern,” Pla writes about an event that took place in the title location that involved the owner, Sra Vincetita (Pla refers to many of his characters formally), whom he describes as “a vivacious, middle-aged woman with rather glazed, artificially rejuvenated features.” And even though her monologues are “endless” and “nonsensical,” she probably could have given Pla plenty to write about. Instead, though, he concentrates on Sra Vincetita’s relationship with the dubious Sr Vinardell.

Pla prefaced the story by saying that his doctor had recommended a stay in Cerinyola, the town where the Central Tavern is located, because of its dry climate and its quietness. However, even if his doctor hadn’t suggested it, he would have eventually ended up there anyway, since it becomes apparent that Pla likes to travel. While in The Gray Notebook, he wrote that he was “fated to be a wanderer,” in Life Embitters, he truly proves it, as he rambles through different parts of Europe, including France, Italy, England, Portugal, and Germany. Once again, Pla gives some dazzling—and occasionally surprising—observations; for example, here is what he wrote during a train ride to Portugal:

The lower reaches of the Tagus are astonishing. It is a broad, fatherly river with a gentle flow. The land is moist and flat. River barges glide by on the horizon hoisting square sails tinged with nicotine or orange juice hues. The appearance of these vessels amid the fields makes you wonder: “Where are we? Are we in Holland? Are we in the Po valley, with Venice as its grand finale?” No. It’s not Holland. Holland is even greener, softer, and spongier. It’s a watery, feathery pillow. There is a similarity with Venice. I think the European landscape most resembling what we know generically as Venetian is the lower stretch of the Tagus.

Of course, a book titled Life Embitters isn’t going to be simply a travelogue or collection of amusing stories. As mentioned above, he was a pessimist, and there are plenty of moments where he shows the dark side of human nature. For example, during his stay in Portugal, he writes about a man who became addicted to gambling after his doctor recommended it as a way to forget about the pain in his tooth. Later, while in Nice, Pla writes again about gambling and the effects casinos have on people: “Anyone standing in front of a gaming table automatically ages ten years.” And gambling isn’t his only target: While visiting a zoo in England with a friend, he observes a penguin eating an innocent sparrow and considers it a lesson in justice. In addition, some of the tales, especially the ones that make up “The Berlin Circle” toward the end of the book, show just how bitter life can be.

Yet, despite this tendency, Pla tries to understand the people he encounters or reads about on a much deeper level. For example, in the story “A Death in Barcelona,” Pla witnessed most of the events in the story, but not the final scene between two men walking down the Rambla after leaving a boarding house. Even though he may have added the dialogue decades after the event took place, he gives the story an appropriate conclusion. Besides filling in gaps in his own stories, Pla also dedicates entire chapters to the “jottings” from his friend Albert Santaniol, who has had some pretty interesting adventures of his own. Pla most likely modified these, but once again, he probably did it to better capture the spirit of his friend. Finally, he retells an old Scottish tale about St. Mungo, the founder and patron saint of Glasgow, with the same kind of irony found in his other stories.

That said, if you’ve read The Gray Notebook and enjoyed it, then you’ll definitely want to read Life Embitters. If you haven’t read either, it may be worth your time to read both books. It sounds like a lot, but like all great works of literature that make considerable demands on a reader, these works demonstrate that Pla is not just writing about life—he’s trying to make sense of it as well.

Proust resolves the childish oversimplification of the realism of his time by bringing to the foreground, with unique insight and a fabulous means of expression, a reality that is infinitely richer in sensuous and spiritual elements. It is very likely that great writers are significant in that they function as a kind of crossroads – in their ability to overcome contradictions that human petty-mindedness had transformed into rigid structures. I think it is evident that Proust banished from his literary horizons petty, low-ceilinged, reductive realism. On the one hand, he is much more realist than the writers in this vein and, at the same time, succeeds in sublimating reality by getting much closer to its essence, by re-creating it in its essential entirety, in its immense, wondrous complexity.

Pla shows what he has learned from Proust in The Gray Notebook, the first of his works to be translated into English. (Archipelago Books will be releasing another one of his books in the fall.) In fact, The Gray Notebook can be seen as Pla’s version of In Search of Lost Time, although, interestingly enough, Proust had only published two of the seven books at the time Pla had originally written this. Even though Proust’s name has come up a lot lately (thanks to writers like Haruki Murakami and Karl Ove Knausgaard), comparing him with Pla seems appropriate.

Even though Pla initially wrote these journal entries when he was in his early twenties, he returned to them decades later, so, like Proust, he was looking back upon his youth during a time when it had been so far away from him. Pla’s writing also shares some other similarities with Proust, such as his eye for detail, but the Catalan is no imitator: Where Proust favored long, digressive sentences about the French aristocrats that populated his world, Pla offers fragments of the less fortunate town and city folk that surrounded him. Throughout these fragments, Pla’s humor and wit shine, even during the darkest moments.

In fact, Pla started The Gray Notebook during one of those dark moments in time. In 1918, as World War I was ending, a deadly influenza pandemic was spreading throughout the world. (According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about one-third of the world’s population was infected, and an estimated 50 million died from this flu.) As a result, the university Pla was attending in Barcelona closed for a time, so he had to return to his parents’ home in Palafrugell along the eastern coast of Spain. Even though he was studying law, Pla wanted to be a writer and, on his twenty-first birthday, he started composing his notebook entries.

After briefly mentioning his ancestors and some of his earliest memories, Pla starts to describe small-town life, which is filled with many colorful characters, including Roldós, the bohemian pianist at the local cinema, and Josep Bofill de Carreres (also known as Gori), the town magistrate. Gori has some pretty interesting opinions about everything, including justice, marriage, and the war. One night, in the café where Pla and his other friends get together, Gori talks about what he believes was the biggest effect of the war. “It introduced short underpants,” he says to Pla. “After centuries of wearing long underparts mankind today can finally breathe.” Gori also criticizes Pla for his love of realism and believes literature should be an escape from reality.

However, as seen in the quote mentioned earlier, the young Pla has plenty to say on that subject, too. Besides Proust, Pla also appreciates Catalan writers such as Josep Carner, who was also known as the “Prince of the Catalan Poets.” “Catalan literature today has a very attractive quality: It is a literature completely devoid of mannerism. Mannerism palls immediately. Its style is so difficult, so hard, so stiff, and so rigidly written and hedged with obstacles, that everybody writes as best he can . . . and make of it what you will!” He also defines realism as the “new rule” in literature because of the passion that inspires it.

Pla demonstrates this passion for realism even during the most humdrum moments. For example, his description of relaxing on a boat near the El Canadell beach is so vivid and realistic that a reader cannot help but be drawn into the scene.

At two o’clock, the toast-colored shadow is a foot wide and the sand the sun has just deserted is still warm. But as it gets later in the afternoon, the shadow spreads and the sand cools. . . . The light is a hazy, effervescent, dazzling white. It melds with the air, white walls, and pinkish sands to create misty vapors that glide, twist, and turn. The pale, bluish void of the sky seems to shimmer with light. The herd of foaming white horses gallops monotonously over the azure of the sea. Everything happens so quickly and spontaneously and in the red-hot frenzy the shade is so cooling that a drowsy stupor spreads through your body releasing and relaxing your entrails.

Not everything about Pla’s life is idyllic, though; this is particularly evident in the second half of the book, which covers most of 1919. By January of that year, Pla was able to return to Barcelona, although he was less than enthusiastic about getting his law degree (and returning to that city, which he describes as being “like one endless cemetery”). In fact, the entries for Barcelona present a sharp contrast to the ones for Palafrugell.

One of the reasons for this contrast is Pla finds himself surrounded by chaos at times. Even though the war is over, a general strike leads to the military occupying the city (Pla ends up doing some part-time service). He also witnesses unruly students wreaking havoc in a mineralogy and botany class. Meanwhile, Pla’s family becomes a source for other worries: His brother catches the still-lingering flu, and his father’s financial situation, which was never great to begin with, worsens.

Furthermore, Pla sometimes isolates himself from others. He calls himself a “chatterbox” but admits that he has “no talent for friendship”; after rudely interrupting a poet who is proposing a festival, he wins “another enemy.” Even when he is around friends, he leaves them to go out for strolls. “It seems I am fated to be a wanderer,” he writes. In fact, walking around Barcelona is something Pla likes to do a lot. At one point, he skips classes for four days so he could take strolls along the Rambla, one of his favorite streets in the city.

Still, Pla doesn’t spend this section of the book dwelling on the negative or living a life of solitude. For instance, Dr. Joaquim Borralleras (or Quim, as Pla calls him) eventually becomes a significant part of his social circle. (This circle also included Eugeni d’Ors and Francesc Pujols, who would both become famous in their own right.) While Quim criticizes Pla’s initial attempts at writing, he ultimately helps Pla fulfil his dream of being a writer by encouraging him to be a journalist. Pla apparently took Quim’s advice very seriously: He worked as a journalist until the 1970s, when he started preparing his complete works. (Incidentally, Quim was also the one who recommended that Pla read Proust.)

Pla’s remark that Proust composed “a reality that is infinitely richer in sensuous and spiritual elements” arguably applies to this work as well. Some readers may initially find it too rich: The multitude of characters, anecdotes, and opinions can seem overwhelming at times. However, Pla’s search through lost time is definitely one worth accompanying him on, especially as he grows as a writer and a man. Peter Bush’s translation is equally appealing, as he brilliantly retains the idiosyncrasies of these characters for English readers. (Having Pla call d’Ors “Frenchified” was a nice touch.) Overall, while Pla originally questioned the value of his notebook within its own pages, the reader who becomes enchanted by it will not only be thankful that it was preserved but will look forward to reading more from him in the near future.

This is another 600+ page book that screams to be read—Pla’s tome describes life and observations in Barcelona, entries written by his twenty-year-old self in the early 1900s. And while Pla did rework and tweak his notebook over the almost fifty years he held on to it before publishing it, this promises to be a pretty candid view of what life was like in Spain then (including during the Spanish Flu, no less), and with a youthful critique and sense of certain sense of humor. And not to be overly book-reader-cocky about essay-autobiographies, but if NYRB published it, it’s obviously going to be a good read.

So add this one to your summer lists! And now, here’s a part of Chris’s review:

Throughout his work The Gray Notebook, Josep Pla mentions many different authors, some of whom have inspired him to pick up a pen. One of them is Marcel Proust. Even though Pla normally prefers nonfiction, he lauds the French novelist as “the greatest realist writer of all time” . . .

Pla shows what he has learned from Proust in The Gray Notebook, the first of his works to be translated into English. (Archipelago Books will be releasing another one of his books in the fall.) In fact, The Gray Notebook can be seen as Pla’s version of In Search of Lost Time, although, interestingly enough, Proust had only published two of the seven books at the time Pla had originally written this. Even though Proust’s name has come up a lot lately (thanks to writers like Haruki Murakami and Karl Ove Knausgaard), comparing him with Pla seems appropriate.

Even though Pla initially wrote these journal entries when he was in his early twenties, he returned to them decades later, so, like Proust, he was looking back upon his youth during a time when it had been so far away from him. Pla’s writing also shares some other similarities with Proust, such as his eye for detail, but the Catalan is no imitator: Where Proust favored long, digressive sentences about the French aristocrats that populated his world, Pla offers fragments of the less fortunate town and city folk that surrounded him. Throughout these fragments, Pla’s humor and wit shine, even during the darkest moments.

For the review in its entirety, go here.

There’s no IMDB listing for this movie, but it was part of the which described it as such:

Dropped forks, high rise plunges, overzealous donators, and a fiercely liberated Virgin Mary are just a few of the subjects covered in director Ventura Pons’ masterfully random, occasionally interlocking collection of fifteen vignettes, delivered at a rapid-fire, pin-wheeling pace. Split into three parts and featuring a gaggle of Spanish stars, the film first delivers a variously blistering and tender take on modern foibles and breaches of etiquette, before moving on to a bawdy reexamination of classic myths and parables, all rendered in a delightfully chintzy silent film fashion. The final section, concerning a screenwriter’s exasperated relationship with his headstrong parents, finishes things off in fine form, with one last caustic sting in the tail. Moving with breathtaking assurance, SIFF favorite Pons (Life on the Edge, Forasters, Drifting) quick draws between savage black comedy and unexpected pathos to deliver an exhilarating and dazzlingly modulated ride. Everyone who sees it will have a different favorite part.

I don’t know exactly how this works, but hopefully someone will pick this up and distribute it across the U.S. . . . and maybe even here in Rochester. I’d love to see how Monzo’s wacky stories and viewpoint is converted to the screen.

Now, you could argue that this isn’t really a revival, but rather an embracing of a distribution system for journalism more in line with our times than the printing of magazines or newspaper or books on current affairs.

Regardless, in our Age of Apps, it seems like this revived interest could expand to short stories as well. Rather than buying a journal with a ton of short stories (many of which you probably won’t like), or reading the New Yorker, single-story delivery systems are kind of perfect. Witness the astounding success of

All of this is a long ramble to introducing an iEverything app that provides a new story every week from around the world. It’s a very pretty app, and perfect for giving you something new to read on a regular basis that is interesting, enjoyable, and substantial (but not overwhelming).

One self-serving reason I’m mentioning this now is because Merce Rodoreda’s “Guinea Fowls” (available in her ) is this week’s featured story.

Translator Martha Tennent provided a very interesting introduction to this story, which you can

As a translator, I search for a concept of style that will help formulate a strategy for rendering the work into English. It is always difficult to translate from Catalan, for we lack in English a sense of the literary and cultural traditions that have produced Catalan literature, something that does not occur, for example, with French. When translating Rodoreda’s last, posthumous novel, Death in Spring—a surrealist novel that depicts a mythical world where ritual violence is part of the village’s daily life—I sought analogies in English that would help the Anglophone reader interpret the text. I found inspiration in Angela Carter’s Gothic tales and in the rich vocabulary and nature images of D.H. Lawrence. I developed a lexicon based on these writers and attempted to insert expressions garnered from these parallel genres in the English literary tradition at strategic points in my translation.

I worked in a similar fashion when translating the collection of short stories by Rodoreda. Her short narratives reflect at times a Virginia Woolf type of stream of consciousness, but more often a dramatic realism, even a laconic minimalism, seen in the styles of Hemingway or Raymond Carver, writers who helped me develop a style for the story “Guinea Fowl,” where the stark realism of a brutal market scene is glimpsed through the eyes of a young boy. The precision of observation and ear for capturing the rhythm of the spoken language that Mercè Rodoreda shows in much of her writing is clearly evident in “Guinea Fowl.”

Click to download the Storyville app and to read Rodoreda’s awesome story . . . .

(One last digression: It’s amazing that last week Rodoreda’s Death in Spring was on NPR, and this week her story is being featured in Storyville. She was an incredible figure and I’m really glad Open Letter has been able to make her work available to a much wider group of readers. And hopefully this sort of “Rodoreda rediscovery” will go on for years and years and years.)