"Cinco horas con Mario", by Miguel Delibes

Going back to the postwar literature, today I would like to talk about “Cinco horas con Mario” (1966), by Miguel Delibes. This is a very easy book to read, which combines perfectly the main character’s private life with social and political issues. Carmen’s husband, Mario, just died, and after his wake she spent five hours alone beside his corpse. During this time she talked to him non-stop about their life together.

The novel has 29 chapters; an omniscient narrator narrates the first and last one, and Carmen narrates the other 27 chapters in the middle. I agree with Alfonso Rey, who points out in a paper entitled “Forma y sentido de ‘Cinco Horas con Mario’” inserted in “Historia y crítica de la literature española” (1980), that Carmen does not talk in a monologue, but more like in a dialogue. Alfonso Rey’ reasoning for this is that Carmen was talking to a dead-Mario as if he was alive and listening. She is having a discussion with her husband, in which she tries to make several political, social and religious statements that make her a not impartial narrator. 

Through Carmen’s words the reader is able to access the conservative Regimen’s ideology, which makes a huge contrast with her husband’s life. The ideological differences between both of them are significant. Carmen criticized, even despised, her husband’s ideology. Thinking of herself as a victim, Carmen became a selfish person that did not love nor understood Mario.