"Horizonte del liberalismo" by María Zambrano

María Zambrano (1904-1991) was a Spanish female philosopher and essayist. Juan Fernando Ortega Muñoz has written a very complete biography about her. “Horizonte del liberalismo” (The Horizons of Liberalism) was her first published book (1930). It is a philosophical essay about the essence of politics, and the problems with liberalism. It uses an easy oratory that helps us to understand her most complicated thoughts.

This essay focuses on two main basic concepts: politics and liberalism. She thinks that politics is a desire to accept change and requires of the society. There are two kinds of politics: the conservative and the revolutionary. The first one betrays the very nature of politics because it goes against the change. Those who support a conservative party do so for laziness and selfishness.  When she talks about liberalism it is to improve it. She considers that liberalism has many paradoxes, but these paradoxes help us to think harder and improve it. She proposes a social liberalism that stay away from any liberal economy.

During the second half of the twentieth century, there was a debate in the Spanish intellectual community about liberalism. This book is one example of many. Ortega y Gasset, the most famous Spanish philosopher at the time, also wrote about this topic. This discussion about liberalism was also taking place in other countries of Europe. Just to give an example, the German Carl Schmitt wrote “The crisis of parliamentary democracy” (1923). 

“Muerte de animales” by Juan Pedro Castañedas

“Muerte de animales”, published in 1982, is one of Juan Pedro Castañedas’ books. This Canarian/Spanish author always surprises the reader. There is some experimentation that is refreshing to the eye, although it is masked in a very direct and easy way of writing that makes the experience very pleasant for the reader. Two big characteristics in this realist book are the importance of the landscape and the interaction between the characters, which is characterized by a silence that the reader can feel.

As in Castañedas’ book “La despedida”, this book presents a love triangle. Sebastián and Dionisio fall in love with Elvira, a young woman who enjoyed the physical presence of both men. From a point of view of the gender studies, it is interesting observing a woman full of life that is incapable to speak her mind. Because of this, Sebastián and Dionisio took control of her life, deciding that she would be Sebastián’s woman under the condition that they could not get married. Their life together turned to be very difficult because of the lack of children, the hard work and Sebastián’s depression. Elvira tried to help him out, but there was nothing she could do. Dinosio reappeared in their life, and both, him and Elvira, kept having feelings for each other. Finally, Sebastián got himself killed in a revenge plot related to a family will, and Dioniso tried to help Elvira to go through such a traumatic experience. It is after the second half of the book that Elvira started to speak out, although she still kept a passive attitude toward men. Reading books like “El Obelisco” (Emilio González Déniz) or “D’esquerra a dreta” (Manuel de Pedrolo) it is possible to observe how women are perceived during the Spanish Transition. Women were sexually active, and took strong roles, in many cases stronger than men’s.

“La Despedida” by Juan Pedro Castañeda

“La Despedida” is a short book written by Juan Pedro Castañeda, a Canarian author born in the island of El Hierro (Canary Islands) in 1945. This book is not considered a novel because of its extension, roughly 100 pages (111 in the 1977 edition). It has an omniscient narrator that talks in third person and changes the way it express itself depending on the person it’s talking about.

Each of the four chapters tell the same story but from the perspective of each character. Little by little, having access to all character’s personal experiences, the reader gets the whole picture. After reading the first chapter, one can easily feel lost in the plot, but slowly it starts making sense.

Most of the story occurred in the island of Tenerife. It is a love triangle between Juan, Mary and Fernando. To make a long story short, Fernando is an “indiano” from Venezuela. “Indianos” are islanders that went to America, usually to Venezuela or Cuba, to make money. Fernando left her girlfriend Mary behind, and later she started a relationship with his best friend, Juan. But when Fernando came back to Tenerife for a short period of time, Mary left Juan and got engaged to Fernando. Because he had to go back to Venezuela, it was a proxy weeding. After the ceremony Mary took a boat and went to America, but the marriage did not last and she came back to the Canary Islands. Meanwhile, Juan tried to get over Mary, but he died before she returned.

What I really like about this book, besides the literary technic, is the historical background. The plot takes place in the years after the Spanish Civil War, and it shows a poor country where people struggle to survive. The book was written in 1975, and published in 1977, and I wonder if this direct criticism could have been made if Franco was still alive. 

El Obelisco by Emilio González Déniz

“El Obelisco”, which won the prestigious “Pérez Galdós” Prize in 1983, is a novel written by Emilio Gonález Déniz, a Canarian author born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in 1951. This book exemplified the experience of the Canarian people born in the 50’s, making emphasis on their dreams, desires, frustrations and traumas. It is a perfect book to picture the last years of the Franquism and the Spanish Transition to democracy from a different perspective. There are other realities to consider that cannot be ignored, like the experience of Ceuta, Melilla, or the Balearic and Canary islands.

“El Obelisco” tries to show some cases of different and personal experiences, making clear that these are just some small pieces of a very large puzzle. Although it has a third-person narration, there is not an omniscient-narrator. An urban monument, an obelisk that was built in the 50’s, is the witness that reveals the plot. The Obelisk talks in first person in few occasions, usually at the beginning of each chapter.

The main plot takes place in 1981, but the memories of each character take us to different times in the past. In a nutshell, it is the story of a group of friends, and how they met and interacted with each other through their lives. The climax happens in the very end of the story, in which the most charismatic male character (Sico) tried to kill himself in front of all his friends, but was not able to pull the trigger. Then, the youngest of this group of friends, the only one that was born in the sixties and is free of traumas, took the gun from Sico’s hand and shot him.

This book is a reflection of a time and a generation, which provides a better understanding of the end of Franquism and the transition to democracy.