“Hermes en la vía pública” by Antonio de Obregón

Antonio de Obregón (1910-1985) was a Spanish writer, and also a film director. He wrote two novels

(“Efectos navales”, and “Hermes en la vía pública”), and a poetry book (“El campo, la ciudad y el cielo”). I learned about this author through a great literary critic, Juan Herrero Senés, who is a Spanish literature professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder. 

The main character of this novel is Hermes, who fell in love with Blanca. They met in a port area, and spent the rest of the day together. But then she disappeared. Later they met again, and he tricked her into having sex. Blanca was married to René B. W. Dupont, a powerful designer/business man known as the King of Fashion. He faked his death and framed Hermes for his murder. Hermes had to run away to Egypt, and create a new identity. Hermes and René crossed paths again, and at the end René sold Blanca to Hermes.

The plot is very fun and engaging, and it has a twisted sense of humor. It reminds me a little of Gómez de la Serna’s book “El caballero del hongo gris”. In both novels humor is a very important part of the style, and also in both cases the main characters know how to work the system, and are professional swindlers. This book was published in the early thirties, when writers tried to avoid homosexual characters. Homosexuality was a taboo. But that is not the case in this book. “Hermes en la vía públuca” is one of the few books from this time that has a gay character, and actually is the smartest one. I am talking about René B. W. Dupont, the only one able to fool Hermes successfully. Though this character is the villain in the story, or at least the most evil of all, it is fascinating that Antonio de Obregón chose to have a gay character.