Reviewed by: El lector de Julio Verne by Almudena Grandes Linda L. Elman Grandes, Almudena. El lector de Julio Verne. Barcelona: Tusquets, 2012. Pp. 417. ISBN 978-84-8383-388-9. In the afterword to her latest novel El lector de Julio Verne, Spanish author Almudena Grandes confesses to a sentimental obsession with the Civil War and post-war dictatorship (412). When family friend Cristino Pérez Meléndez related his personal story of growing up the son of a Civil Guard in the repressive years from 1947 through 1949, he instantly inspired the core narrative for the second tome in Grandes’s ambitious six-volume series: “Episodios de una guerra interminable.” The writer’s inaugural novel from the series, Inés y la alegría, takes place circa 1944 in the Pyrenees, in the Valley of Arán and in Toulouse, France (a major destination for Republican exiles). El lector de Julio Verne, however, is set in the Sierra Sur near Jaén, Andalusia. In the first novel, Inés’s story alternates with that of her lover and eventual husband, Galán, a Republican resistance fighter. Whereas assiduously researched and historically based passages divert the flow of the fictional narrative in the first novel, the historical background is much more adroitly woven into the fictional fabric of Grandes’s second book, told from the perspective of a nine-year-old boy named Nino. Considering the importance Grandes and fellow authors of her generation give to the recuperation of memories lost by their parents as a result of Franco’s iron-handed indoctrination, it follows that a significant structural element in El lector de Julio Verne are the boyhood recollections that inform the narrator’s point of view. As the author once said: “Mis personajes se reconstruyen, se construyen a sí mismos a través de los materiales de su propia memoria, están indagando constantemente en su memoria.” The recalled truths of the boy’s life are intertwined with fragments of the legend of Tomás Villén Roldán, aka “Cencerro,” a heroic “Rojo” outlaw of the Jaén countryside, and the author’s fabrications regarding the character of Pepe el Portugués. The independent bachelor Pepe becomes the narrator’s role model, because Nino has rejected his father’s vocation of Civil Guard as “un destino de mierda, un sueldo de mierda, una vida de mierda” (60). In effect, Nino’s resentment of what the Civil Guards signify in his town embodies the macrohistory of Republican (maquis) resistance to the Fascist dictatorship and its rural henchmen. Throughout her narrative, Grandes evokes empathy for the boy, his family and a cast of characters from Fuensanta de Martos with colorful nicknames (i.e., Fingenegocios, Comerrelojes, and Mediamujer), whose daily lives are profoundly impacted by post-war political partisanship, frequent harassment and stark economic conditions. Readers vicariously experience some of the harsh realities of rural repression against the guerrilleros and their sympathizers, such as the imposition and enforcement of the “Ley de Fuga” (the shooting of alleged escapees in the back) or the punitive consequences for the locals when the legendary bandit “Cencerro” appeared, but eluded capture. Often the victims of the Civil Guards’ intimidation are wives whose husbands have escaped to the hills. Through the experiences of female characters, Grandes informs readers about institutionalized gender discrimination after the war. For instance, Doña Elena was a teacher, but the regime no longer permitted her to teach; the Rubios had their long hair cut severely short (rapadas) to shame them for conspiring with the guerrillas; and for their livelihood, some women had to conspire in the black market sale of eggs (recova). Women were intimidated to release information if their spouses were alive, and denied widows’ pensions if their deceased husbands were known resistance fighters. Other women on the winning side of the conflict found their lives tightly circumscribed within the home, like Nino’s mother Mercedes whose husband disparages her freely dispensed opinions. Antonino’s tone and attitude reflects the patriarchal tenor of the regime’s treatment of women. Disillusioned by the cowardice and cruelty of the Civil Guards, Nino looks for literary heroes in the novels of...
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Mar 1, 2023
Novia Pagone 
Open Access