“El misterio de la cripta embrujada” by Eduardo Mendoza

“El misterio de la cripta embrujada” is a book written by the catalane Eduardo Mendoza in 1979. It is

the time of the Spanish transition to democracy after Franco’s death on 1975. For many Spaniards the nightmare was over, and the intellectual community recovered its voice to speak out. They didn't have to use literary resources anymore to hide their critical point of view about Spain. Finally, after so many years of censorship and repression, they were free to speak their mind without fear.

The plot is presented in first person by an urban pícaro (rogue) in a way that recalls to “El Lazarillo de Tormes”. Having a pícaro telling his own story in first person is not something new in the twentieth century Spanish Literature, “La familia de Pascual Duarte” (1942) by Camilo José Cela is clear an example. But what is fresh about Mendoza's novel is his humor. Although we still find misery and poorness, the criticism is brought through a sense of humor that makes the reader constantly laugh. Somehow, this humor reminds me of some pre-war novels like Gómez de la Serna’s “El caballero del hongo gris”.

“El misterio de la cripta embrujada” has many comments about the historical moment which Spain was going through right after Franco's death. Kalen R. Oswald explains in the article “An Urban Pícaro in Transitional Barcelona: Eduardo Mendoza's El misterio de la cripta embrujada and El laberinto de las aceitunas”, that this book reveals “essential details about the urban experience of Barcelona during the Transition to democracy” (32). María José Giménez Micó brings to our attention in her book “Eduardo Mendoza y las novelas españolas de la transición” that Mendoza’s books open a dialogue with History trying to understand reality. Also, she points out that this author offers a different perspective of Catalonia, caricaturing the construction of nationalist identities.

“De padres a hijos” by Benito Pérez Armas

Many Graduate Spanish Literature programs in the US refer to the literature done in Spain as Peninsular Literature, using a terminology that discriminates non-peninsular territories like the Canary Islands, Balearic Islands, Ceuta and Melilla. The voice of the outskirt should also be listened, and fortunately we have books for that.

“De padres a hijos” is a novel written by Benito Pérez Armas, and published in 1901. This author was born in the island of Lanzarote, the Canary Islands. I have found very few things written about this author, but there is an article entitled “Benito Pérez Armas: Literatura e ideal regionalista”, by Gregorio J. Cabrera Déniz. It is also possible to find information about him in “La enciclopedia de la literatura canaria” edited by Centro de la Cultura Popular Canaria.

The plot, which occurs at the ending of the century, tells the love story of Víctor and Trina, whom represent the descendants of “los guanches”. In the nineteenth century, the term “guanche” was used to identify the population of the Canary Islands before the Spaniards conquered it. After getting married they had a baby girl, Pinillo. The couple’s happiness is destroyed by the intervention of an evil “cacique”, don Dimas, who is the incarnation of the Castilian conqueror. Dimas tried to rape Trina, and by a misunderstanding Victor thought that she cheated on him. After fighting Dimas and thinking that he killed him, Victor runs away to Costa Rica. However, Dimas did not die, and Trina never cheated on Victor. Several years later Victor found out the truth and returns to the island of Tenerife, but her wife had died of a broken heart, and her daughter was living in a hospice. Ironically Trina and Dimas died on the same day.

The romantic aesthetic and regionalism, which remember the pre-Hispanic culture of the Canary Islands, define this novel. In this novel, Benito Pérez Armas talks about a pure Canarian race, that he calls “guanche”, ignoring the cultural mix that conforms the islands. He not only ignores the fact that each island has its own identity, but also that it has been established by prehispanic cultures and external influences coming from Spain, America and Africa. It is a very short book that can be read in one day. 

“El cuarto de atrás” by Carmen Martín Gaite

“El cuarto de atrás”, published in 1978, is a book written by Carmen Martín Gaite. Francisco Franco Bahamonde, the Spanish dictator, was already dead when that happened, and the country was in the transition to the present democracy. Though Franquism was over, its consequences were still presents in the Spanish intellectual community during the transition, and this novel is an example of that.

“El cuarto de atrás” reminds a little to “Reivinidcación del conde don Julián” (1970), because both books, far from realism, go deep into the subconscious. This one is written in first person and uses the present tense to narrate the plot. It tells a story about a woman called Carmen who can be identified as the author. She went to bed and unsuccessfully tried to sleep, and then several unusual things happened. A man in black visited her, and they started a conversation that helped her to remember the most basic things about her past.  When the book gets to an end, it is hard to say if everything that happened was a dream or something real.

Obviously the memory problems are related to a traumatic experience, such the Spanish Civil War and the dictatorship. But this personal experience goes further to become a metaphor of the entire country, which will start to remember, during the transition, a part of the Spanish History that Franco tried to erase. The article entitled “Re-inhabiting private space: Carmen Martín Gaite's El Cuarto de atrás”, by Carmiña Palerm, points out that “the protagonist can be seen as the transmitter of an oral discourse, a discourse that had been confined to the private space of the household up until the death of Franco” (119). In several occasions, the book talks about using the fantasy to scape away from reality, and that is what the main character did when she was a child, imagining two fantastic places in order to ignore reality: Cúnigan y Bergai.

It is a very nice book to understand some psychological aspects of the Spanish Transition, like the struggles to remember the past, and the confusion of a society that is finally free to look back and share their experiences without fear.