{"id":299356,"date":"2014-09-10T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-10T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2014\/09\/10\/eduardo-mendoza-and-barcelona-mysteries-a-month-of-a-thousand-forests\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T15:12:33","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T15:12:33","slug":"eduardo-mendoza-and-barcelona-mysteries-a-month-of-a-thousand-forests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2014\/09\/10\/eduardo-mendoza-and-barcelona-mysteries-a-month-of-a-thousand-forests\/","title":{"rendered":"Eduardo Mendoza and Barcelona Mysteries [A Month of a Thousand Forests]"},"content":{"rendered":"

The second author up today in the Month of a Thousand Forests series<\/a> is Eduardo Mendoza. Rather than quote from his interview, I’m just running part of the bio that Valerie Miles wrote for him along with a bit from<\/em> The Truth about the Savolta Case.<\/p>\n

As with all the other posts in this series, if you order<\/em> A Thousand Forests in One Acorn<\/a> from the Open Letter site and use the code FORESTS<\/span>, you’ll get it for only $15.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

Eduardo Mendoz (Spain, 1943)<\/b><\/center> <\/p>\n

Mendoza has acknowledged that the cult of literature within his family influenced him in his vocation as a writer. He was going to call his first novel Los soldados de Catalu\u00f1a<\/em>, a title that would have had trouble eluding the Francoist censor, so he decided to call it La verdad sobre el caso Savolta<\/em>, a title that was more in keeping with the central storyline, the mysterious atmosphere where the plot unfolds, and better, in any case, at concealing the novel\u2019s political undertone.<\/p>\n

Published in 1975, a short time before Franco\u2019s death, La verdad sobre el caso de Savolta<\/em>, was a breath of fresh air in the dubious Spanish fiction of the time; in it, Mendoza presents an innovative structure, open to various narrative discourses, functioning like parts of a puzzle that, all together, end up resembling Barcelona at the beginning of the twentieth century, a city that found itself in the middle of tension and the struggles of unions and revolutionaries.<\/p>\n

In his next novel, El misterio de la cripta embrujada<\/em> (1979), he started down another literary path, the detective saga, through which he sought, via an exceedingly peculiar character (a nameless detective locked in an insane asylum), to parody the noir novel and the gothic genre and, at the same time, to offer his vision of Barcelona at that moment. In 1982, this first title was followed by El laberinto de las aceitunas<\/em>; and the trilogy culminated in 2001, with La aventura del tocador de se\u00f1oras.<\/em> [. . .]<\/p>\n

Humor, one of the secret weapons of Mendoza\u2019s oeuvre, almost a genre all its own, also characterized other essential titles of his like La isla inaudita<\/em> (1989), which tells of a Catalan executive\u2019s trip to Venice in search of love; Sin noticias de Gurb<\/em> (1990), which presents the delirious and personal diary of an extraterrestrial who arrives in a city that is preparing to receive the Olympic torch; or El a\u00f1o del diluvio<\/em>, in 1992. In 2006 he published Mauricio o las elecciones primarias<\/em>, a novel whose plot unfolds in the years leading up to the Transition, also set in Barcelona, and in 2008 El asombroso viaje de Pomponio Flato<\/em>, a satire that explores the confines of the Roman Empire. The writer\u2019s most recent novel, El enredo de la bolsa y la vida<\/em> (2012), where he revives his famous nameless detective, has already garnered enormous popular success.<\/p>\n

*<\/center><\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

From The Truth about the Savolta Case<\/em><\/center>
\n
[A Novel]<\/center><\/p>\n

\u201cInspector V\u00e1zquez, you must hear me out. Just listen to what I have to tell you and you won\u2019t be sorry. A crime is always a crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inspector V\u00e1zquez threw the papers he was reading down on the desk and focused a fulminating stare on his ragged confidant, who was rubbing his hands together and balancing first on one foot, then on the other in a desperate attempt to be noticed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho the hell let this bird into my office?\u201d bellowed the inspector, addressing the peeling paint on his ceiling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no one here, so I took the liberty . . . ,\u201d explained his confidant, advancing toward the desk covered with newspapers and photographs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI swear by Christ\u2019s blood, by the eternal salvation of my . . . !\u201d V\u00e1zquez started to say, but he stopped when he realized he was using the same religious terminology as his annoying visitor. \u201cWhy can\u2019t you leave me in peace? Get out!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cInspector, I\u2019ve been trying to speak with you for five days now.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were only two days left of the seven the conspirators allotted Nemesio, and he hadn\u2019t found a single clue related to Pajarito de Soto\u2019s death. The Savolta murder had cut him off, and the police were concentrating on solving that crime to the exclusion of all others. Also, his efforts to find the conspirators and warn them of the fact that Inspector V\u00e1zquez was looking for them in connection with the Savolta affair had been met by an absolute rejection from every one of the sources he\u2019d approached during those five unlucky days.<\/p>\n

\u201cFive days?\u201d said the inspector. \u201cThey\u2019ve seemed like five years to me! Let me give you some advice, buddy. Get out and stay out. The next time I see you snooping around here, I\u2019ll have you locked up. You\u2019ve been warned. Now get out of my sight!\u201d<\/p>\n

Nemesio walked out of the office and down to the ground floor filled with dire foreboding. But he was soon distracted by an unexpected incident. As he reached the bottom stair, Nemesio detected unusual movement: there were shouts, and policemen were running in every direction. Something\u2019s going on. I\u2019d better get out of here now.<\/em> He was trying to do just that, when a uniformed policeman grabbed him by the arm and dragged him to the far corner of the room.<\/p>\n

\u201cOut of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s going on?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re bringing in some dangerous prisoners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nemesio waited, holding his breath. From his corner, he could see the entrance, and, parked in front of it, a paddy wagon. A double file of armed police formed a path from the wagon to the building. They brought the prisoners out of the wagon. Nemesio tried to run, but the policeman still held him by the arm. The silence was only broken by the clinking of chains. The four prisoners entered. The youngest was weeping; Juli\u00e1n had lost his beret,
\nhad a black eye and bloodstains on his sheepskin jacket, held a manacled hand against his ribs, and his legs gave way as he walked; the man with the scar looked serene, although he had deep circles under his eyes. Nemesio thought he\u2019d die.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat did they do?\u201d he whispered in the ear of the policeman guarding him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks like they\u2019re the ones who killed Savolta.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Savolta died at midnight on New Year\u2019s Eve.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShut up!\u201d<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t dare say that he\u2019d been with the prisoners at that precise moment in the photographer\u2019s studio, that Juli\u00e1n had brought him there by force. He was afraid of being implicated in the matter, so he obeyed and kept silent. Uselessly, however, because the man with the scar had seen him. He nudged Juli\u00e1n with his elbow, and when Juli\u00e1n caught sight of Nemesio, he shrieked, in a voice that seemed to boil out of his guts, \u201cYou finally sold us out, you son of a bitch!\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the guards hit him with the butt of his rifle, and Juli\u00e1n fell to the floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake them away!\u201d ordered an individual dressed like a poor man.<\/p>\n

The sad procession passed by Nemesio. Two agents were dragging Juli\u00e1n by his armpits, blood pouring out of him. The man with the scar stopped opposite Nemesio and gave him a freezing scornful smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should have killed you, Nemesio. But I never thought you\u2019d do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was pushed forward. It took Nemesio a few seconds to regain his composure. He tore himself violently away from the policeman holding his arm and ran back up the stairs. In the hall, he ran into Inspector V\u00e1zquez. <\/p>\n

\u201cInspector, it wasn\u2019t those men! I swear. They didn\u2019t kill Savolta.\u201d<\/p>\n

The inspector looked at him as if he were seeing a cockroach walking over his bed.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut . . . you\u2019re still here?\u201d he said, turning bright red.<\/p>\n

\u201cInspector, this time you\u2019ll have to listen to me whether you want to or not. Those men didn\u2019t do it, those men . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGet him out of here!\u201d shouted the inspector, pushing Nemesio aside and striding forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cInspector!\u201d implored Nemesio, while two powerful agents dragged him bodily toward the door. \u201cInspector! I was with them, I was with them when Savolta was killed. Inspector!!\u201d<\/p>\n

(Translated by Alfred Mac Adam)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The second author up today in the Month of a Thousand Forests series is Eduardo Mendoza. Rather than quote from his interview, I’m just running part of the bio that Valerie Miles wrote for him along with a bit from The Truth about the Savolta Case. As with all the other posts in this series, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67486],"tags":[57266,28176,57846,57666,57856],"class_list":["post-299356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-a-thousand-forests-in-one-acorn","tag-alfred-mac-adam","tag-eduardo-mendoza","tag-month-of-a-thousand-forests","tag-the-truth-about-the-savolta-case"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299356"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":337216,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299356\/revisions\/337216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}