Status
Available
Genres
Collection
Publication
Rochester : Open Letter, 2009
Description
Lushly surreal, Rodoreda's masterpiece is a mythological depiction of a city ruled by rituals, almost like Franco's Spain. Death In Spring tells the story of the bizarre and destructive customs of a nameless town - burying the dead in trees after filling their mouths with cement to prevent their soul from escaping, or sending a man to swim in the river that courses underneath the town - through the eyes of a fourteen-year-old boy who must come to terms with the rhyme and reason of this ritual violence, and with his wild, child-like and teenaged stepmother.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Nulla
Merce Rodoreda's Death in Spring appears to be a metaphor for effects of war on the lives and sensibilities of the people of Spain. She creates an altered reality through which one can touch the evils of men and societies; a reality that will help one to survive... or not.
The narrative takes the
"Look at all the men in the village whose desire has
been killed; they have eyes like horses that don't know
when they're living and when they're slaughtered. They
are the ones who stand in front of the others when they
come to gaze at me. They're like me."
The imagery created by the narrative recalls Picasso's painting of Guernica, an abattoir of pain, suffering and silent screams... and a Kafkaesque lack of explanation for the horror. But Rodoreda's poetic style somehow redeems and cushions the tale. There is beauty in the telling of it. And that is the skill of this writer.
It is a difficult book, highly individual. It is a beautiful book. Much is lost in translation... not because of any lack of skill of the translator, but because of a lack of knowledge by the reader. Unless one is Catalan, the metaphors are only dimly understood, underscoring the gulfs that exist between cultures and their myths. And yet, the poetry of expression creates a bond, a standard for a comprehension of otherness.
It is a book that needs to be read twice.
The narrative takes the
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form of a complex and disturbing chronicle of a young boy's short life in a ghastly, violent, ritualistic village somewhere, presumably, in Catalonia. Written in the first person, the story chronicles his relationships to his family, his community, his world... and his inevitable journey to destruction. With brutal directness, one by one, Rodoreda extinguishes all the expectations of love, compassion, altrusim, or nurture that might be everyday in a 'normal' world. All of that falls victim to the ideology of the land; an ideology that is incomprehensible and lethal."Look at all the men in the village whose desire has
been killed; they have eyes like horses that don't know
when they're living and when they're slaughtered. They
are the ones who stand in front of the others when they
come to gaze at me. They're like me."
The imagery created by the narrative recalls Picasso's painting of Guernica, an abattoir of pain, suffering and silent screams... and a Kafkaesque lack of explanation for the horror. But Rodoreda's poetic style somehow redeems and cushions the tale. There is beauty in the telling of it. And that is the skill of this writer.
It is a difficult book, highly individual. It is a beautiful book. Much is lost in translation... not because of any lack of skill of the translator, but because of a lack of knowledge by the reader. Unless one is Catalan, the metaphors are only dimly understood, underscoring the gulfs that exist between cultures and their myths. And yet, the poetry of expression creates a bond, a standard for a comprehension of otherness.
It is a book that needs to be read twice.
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LibraryThing member Airycat
This is a hard book for me to review. I enjoyed reading it, but it is all a little strange. I guess it could be considered an alternate reality -- one that is close to our reality. I have no doubt that Rodoreda was saying something larger than the story, but, unfortunately, without clues, I have
The story follows the life of a boy from age 14 to about 20. They live in a little town over a river. They have some strange customs regarding death and the river and other things. The story starts out rather sweetly, though you can sense that minor chord of oddness or even something macabre. At the end, it is happiness that is only vaguely sensed. It reminds me of dystopian science fiction. Since the boy is the narrator, this sense is a reflection of what he is feeling, how he sees things, and the negativity toward the end is understandable, considering all he has gone through. It was hard for me to see to what degree his view was distorted, though, or even if it is distorted. The world he lived in was already so odd to me.
Rodoreda's style reminds me of fairy tales -- the kind that haven't been sweetened or Disneyized. The language is lyrical and poetic and the story becomes quite dark. I suspect that it may actually be the same kind of story. I believe that many fairy tales were written as commentary to their times.
It is definitely something I want to reread. I liked it enough to want to understand it better than I do and I'm hunting for some kind of reading guide for it.
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been unable to grasp what that is. The back cover says it could be a metaphor to Franco's Spain. I suspect that someone with more knowledge of Spanish history, particularly in the last century, would be more aware of what Rodoreda is saying, if that is the case.The story follows the life of a boy from age 14 to about 20. They live in a little town over a river. They have some strange customs regarding death and the river and other things. The story starts out rather sweetly, though you can sense that minor chord of oddness or even something macabre. At the end, it is happiness that is only vaguely sensed. It reminds me of dystopian science fiction. Since the boy is the narrator, this sense is a reflection of what he is feeling, how he sees things, and the negativity toward the end is understandable, considering all he has gone through. It was hard for me to see to what degree his view was distorted, though, or even if it is distorted. The world he lived in was already so odd to me.
Rodoreda's style reminds me of fairy tales -- the kind that haven't been sweetened or Disneyized. The language is lyrical and poetic and the story becomes quite dark. I suspect that it may actually be the same kind of story. I believe that many fairy tales were written as commentary to their times.
It is definitely something I want to reread. I liked it enough to want to understand it better than I do and I'm hunting for some kind of reading guide for it.
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LibraryThing member fleurdiabolique
Every time I put down this book, it was with a puzzled, but not entirely displeased, frown. I felt confused and often frustrated, but nevertheless something about this novel captivated me.
For me, there are many frustrations: the monosyllabic and repetitive language,* the lack of explanation of so
At the same time, many of these frustrations also became the pleasures of the book. The language becomes almost hypnotic after a time, and there are certainly some lovely images.* And on my second time through, the lack of plot and the odd, un-human, unmotivated quality of the characters was somewhat overshadowed by the patterns and repetitions I began to be able to perceive. I was able to begin to see some sort of progression, even if there wasn't really a solid plot. The uncertainties and lack of explanation, in most places, also became less troubling and more a beautiful mystery.
This is most definitely a book to read twice or more. The first time through, it's too hard to avoid looking for a plot or characters similar to what one expects in most fiction, and to be aggravated at Rodorega's evasions and vagueness. On subsequent reads, it's easier to relax into the flow of the book, to pay more attention to the images and patterns and to understand that these are much more important than the characters or plot.
I remain deeply conflicted about this book. It simultaneously has so much going for it and so much that just drives me crazy with irritation. I suspect I might come to love it if I were to reread it another two or three times. That is unlikely to come to pass, however.
* I usually hesitate to critique the language of a translated book, because one never knows if its failings are the fault of the original author or the translator. However, with this book, I just couldn't help it. I don't know if Tennent accurately captured an irritating aspect of Rodoreda's style or if Tennent's style just doesn't suit my taste, but whichever it was, it got on my nerves for most of the book.
For me, there are many frustrations: the monosyllabic and repetitive language,* the lack of explanation of so
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many things, the various threads of the story or the world that are introduced but never really developed. We only sporadically get the narrator's emotions, and the fact that we sometimes see them but most often don't is maddening -- I want to never see them or to always have that window into his feelings, not have this inconsistent teasing. Then, too, I had no sense of various characters' motivations for some very striking and puzzling actions. I don't tend to like characters that seem so cardboard and inexplicable. At the same time, many of these frustrations also became the pleasures of the book. The language becomes almost hypnotic after a time, and there are certainly some lovely images.* And on my second time through, the lack of plot and the odd, un-human, unmotivated quality of the characters was somewhat overshadowed by the patterns and repetitions I began to be able to perceive. I was able to begin to see some sort of progression, even if there wasn't really a solid plot. The uncertainties and lack of explanation, in most places, also became less troubling and more a beautiful mystery.
This is most definitely a book to read twice or more. The first time through, it's too hard to avoid looking for a plot or characters similar to what one expects in most fiction, and to be aggravated at Rodorega's evasions and vagueness. On subsequent reads, it's easier to relax into the flow of the book, to pay more attention to the images and patterns and to understand that these are much more important than the characters or plot.
I remain deeply conflicted about this book. It simultaneously has so much going for it and so much that just drives me crazy with irritation. I suspect I might come to love it if I were to reread it another two or three times. That is unlikely to come to pass, however.
* I usually hesitate to critique the language of a translated book, because one never knows if its failings are the fault of the original author or the translator. However, with this book, I just couldn't help it. I don't know if Tennent accurately captured an irritating aspect of Rodoreda's style or if Tennent's style just doesn't suit my taste, but whichever it was, it got on my nerves for most of the book.
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LibraryThing member checkerdandy
I have trouble reviewing this book, mainly because it was not originally in English, and I feel that I'm missing out on something. I was confused by this book, and I'm not sure that the mystery of the town was sufficiently explained. It left me kind of non-plussed.
LibraryThing member roguefire
Considered a short story, but I think it could have standed to be shorter. I was really excited to get this in the mail, but even after the first few pages I got bored. I feel like things got seriously lost in the translation. It states that it's like 'The Lottery', not really sure if I get that
The cover is amazing though. Stunning and goes well with the book.
If anything this has made me want to read it in its original language.
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fully, but fine.The cover is amazing though. Stunning and goes well with the book.
If anything this has made me want to read it in its original language.
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LibraryThing member Jax450
I was of two minds about this book because it was difficult for me to understand where the author was trying to go with it. I don't know if this is because the book has deficiencies or if I am just not in tune with this type of literature.
The positives: the flow of the book is gorgeous and the
The negatives: there weren't enough moments when it all came together for me. I wanted to like this book because it was so well written but I couldn't because I wasn't getting the cohesive whole. The trip wasn't unejoyable but I had no idea of where I visited or where I ended up with this story. And I felt like the author was really trying to say something important to her. So this was a bit frustrating.
For someone who likes a lot of deep symbolism and very fine writing, this book is definitely for you.
The positives: the flow of the book is gorgeous and the
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translation is superb. I don't feel like I lost anything by reading this work in English versus the original Catalan. When I was with the author (mostly during the period when the main character loses his daughter) I really got it and it all came together wonderfully.The negatives: there weren't enough moments when it all came together for me. I wanted to like this book because it was so well written but I couldn't because I wasn't getting the cohesive whole. The trip wasn't unejoyable but I had no idea of where I visited or where I ended up with this story. And I felt like the author was really trying to say something important to her. So this was a bit frustrating.
For someone who likes a lot of deep symbolism and very fine writing, this book is definitely for you.
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LibraryThing member gmicksmith
The work is a bleak meditation on death in a small village. The title might more aptly be titled simply, "Death." Rodoreda describes the odd and destructive behavior of death through the eyes of a growing fourteen-year old coming of age boy. It is thematically similar to Shirley Jackson's The
The author, Mercè Rodoreda (1908–1983), is widely regarded as the most important Catalan writer of the twentieth century. Death in Spring, her final novel and perhaps her masterpiece, is available for the first time in English with the publication of this short story stretched out to short novel length. The work is for specialists alone and has little appeal to those interested in well-written literature for an educated audience. I would suspect that the work is promoted more to advance a political agenda than it is on behalf of the quality of the writing. It is a difficult read not worth the effort for most educated readers.
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Lottery and it is as bleak as Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain and the Sweet Land Stories by E.L. Doctorow. There are fragments throughout but flowery prose abounds. Stories of bees prevail as well and it reminded me of The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd which I also did not enjoy.The author, Mercè Rodoreda (1908–1983), is widely regarded as the most important Catalan writer of the twentieth century. Death in Spring, her final novel and perhaps her masterpiece, is available for the first time in English with the publication of this short story stretched out to short novel length. The work is for specialists alone and has little appeal to those interested in well-written literature for an educated audience. I would suspect that the work is promoted more to advance a political agenda than it is on behalf of the quality of the writing. It is a difficult read not worth the effort for most educated readers.
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LibraryThing member RobFow
It took a bit to get to this book, the premise seemed to require some time to read. I found that it was a great book, though I do not know if I fully understand all that was going on, very similar to the visual complexity that PAN's Labrynth required. Interesting that both have Franco's Spain
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involved. I will read this book again in a couple of months again, to get a better understanding of this book. I would encourage others to give this book a try. Show Less
LibraryThing member brianfergusonwpg
A formidable read I picked here, “Death in Spring” is something different and great. I knew nothing about the author until after I’d finished this book. Apparently she is top representative of Catalonia, which is a province of Spain with its own culture, dialect-language, mannerisms and
I’ve read many books which are structurally different from the conventions of literature, including experimental and post-modernist, but I’ve never read one quite like this. The author creates a very formless and apparently random transformative scape which is never far from violence and chaos, but somehow retains the feel of an environmental portrait with a narrative plot. I believe this may fit a definition of a neo-symbolism (if there is such a thing). The Symbolists of turn of the nineteenth-twentieth century (Baudelaire, Malarmé, Verlaine) were the originators of the expression “art for art’s sake” in which symbols were not strictly representative, but existed unto themselves and were encouraged to point which way they may, preferablyin a way aesthetically pleasing. Rodoreda’s Symbolism originates from her lifelong feeling and experience, but is not merely a happenstance channeling through random stream-of-consciousness. The author retains an incredibly masterful control or literary technique and subverts parts-of-speech, narrative flow and tonal technique upon themselves creating imagery and plot direction which follows that akin to the surrealism and magic realism of many of her contemporaries. This never becomes contrived-seeming though. It may resemble wordplay and be readable in much the same way, but the main backbone of the book is a real lifeforce of both negative and positive.
Many readers, no doubt, will not get far with this book. They will find it uniquely disturbing and confusing, but if you are, as am I, a lover of superb writing technique, you might find this book much like something, both brilliant and horrifying, that you can’t bring yourself to look away from. It is engaging in that way. It goes on and on in a taut way and I think that makes it stands as great book unto itself, likely regardless of the greatness of her other works which I have yet to read.
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repressive history, all of which is woven through this book, her last. It is unique in the realm of stream-of-consciousness books. It manages to convey at once the beauty and tumult of life presumably from the vantage point of mortality, thus with all the power of the primordial forces it draws upon. I’m reviewing and assessing this book mainly on its own merits though, not on the merits of her other legendary work. I’ve read many books which are structurally different from the conventions of literature, including experimental and post-modernist, but I’ve never read one quite like this. The author creates a very formless and apparently random transformative scape which is never far from violence and chaos, but somehow retains the feel of an environmental portrait with a narrative plot. I believe this may fit a definition of a neo-symbolism (if there is such a thing). The Symbolists of turn of the nineteenth-twentieth century (Baudelaire, Malarmé, Verlaine) were the originators of the expression “art for art’s sake” in which symbols were not strictly representative, but existed unto themselves and were encouraged to point which way they may, preferablyin a way aesthetically pleasing. Rodoreda’s Symbolism originates from her lifelong feeling and experience, but is not merely a happenstance channeling through random stream-of-consciousness. The author retains an incredibly masterful control or literary technique and subverts parts-of-speech, narrative flow and tonal technique upon themselves creating imagery and plot direction which follows that akin to the surrealism and magic realism of many of her contemporaries. This never becomes contrived-seeming though. It may resemble wordplay and be readable in much the same way, but the main backbone of the book is a real lifeforce of both negative and positive.
Many readers, no doubt, will not get far with this book. They will find it uniquely disturbing and confusing, but if you are, as am I, a lover of superb writing technique, you might find this book much like something, both brilliant and horrifying, that you can’t bring yourself to look away from. It is engaging in that way. It goes on and on in a taut way and I think that makes it stands as great book unto itself, likely regardless of the greatness of her other works which I have yet to read.
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LibraryThing member Ling.Lass
More concentrated than most magical realism. Maybe more like an extended Symbolist poem. While Shirley Jackson is often mentioned as a thematic comparison, it’s closer in tone to the Ghormenghast trilogy, or Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled. If those touchstones sound appealing, then I’d recommend
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this short, intense, bleak and dreamy Catalan novel. Show Less
LibraryThing member hemlokgang
Understanding that this novel is a metaphor for Franco's Spain, I just could not engage. Historically , I do not connect well to fables.
LibraryThing member arubabookwoman
I'm glad I read this short Catalan classic written over 20 years in exile and published after the author's death. It's short, brutal and somewhat surrealistic (or maybe it's more slightly magical realism). It's also poetic and lyrical, as it describes, through the eyes of a young boy who becomes a
3 1/2 stars
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man over the course of the book, life in an isolated small town with unusual and sometimes violent customs and practices. Each spring a young man must swim the river running under the town, which often results in the death or mutilation of the swimmer. Other strange customs include a forest of the dead, where the dead of the town are buried inside trees after first filling their mouths with cement to seal in their souls. Each spring the villagers must paint their houses pink, and pregnant women are blindfolded. A prisoner in a cage near the town neighs like a horse. Overall the book is dark and fable-like, and the writing is original and superb. I can't say I was emotionally moved by the book, but it is one I recommend.3 1/2 stars
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Language
Original language
Catalan
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