Eduardo Mendoza (Barcelona, 1943), the author of ‘The truth about the Savolta case’, He has now written, after many novels in which he has emerged as one of the most brilliant narrators in the Spanish language, a novel whose reading neither he nor anyone else can stop laughing. Is about ‘Three enigmas for the Organization’ (Seix Barral, like all his books), which takes place, like much of his work, in the city where he was born, and includes laughter and rage equally, since it stems from Franco’s regimea dark era from which the singular Organization that serves as the center of the narrative comes, and deals with what remains this city in which it was born.
Both in the book, which he claims to have forgotten when we interviewed him at the Alma Hotel in Barcelona, and in real life, in the conversation, he himself did not stop laughing at the occurrences that animate an almost always hilarious book, but also busy denouncing the cultural and political ups and downs of Catalonia. The very beginning of the novel, which has 407 pages, already states the character that the book must have, until the end, so that the laughter (in the interview as well) results in an extraordinary way of make fun of how sumptuous it is also made of tin.
As soon as he sits down to talk to the journalist, armed with the numerous boxes of Nespresso with which he has just satisfied the next season of a very coffee grower, he declares that He doesn’t know what book he has written. In fact, he asks the journalist what book he has written, and he tells him: “You have written at least three books. One deals with Francoism, another deals with this time and there is one more that deals with daily life in a city, “This is where you live and write.”
“Yes, but look, I’m in a hurry now to face all those things,” confesses Mendoza. “And I have a hard time in the interviews because suddenly I have nothing to say about the book. Actually the book came out on its own. It is a book made by someone else. I had decided not to write more, that there is a moment when it has to stop… There are people who think ‘what a shame that he didn’t stop now, after his last book, instead of starting with this one, which is not only bad but is already like the previous ones’… I thought about all that, and I said to myself: No, I’m not going to write anymore. And the next day, you see, I thought about what I was going to spend the next few days and I started writing stupidly, stupidly. And when I realized I was immersed in the novel. And I don’t know what I got.”
I’m telling you, three books have come out.
In any case, it is as if it were a book made by someone else.
Throughout the entire novel the writing combines satire and joy. And from the beginning you don’t stop making people laugh, and making people laugh. As if it were accompanied by the inspiration of Azcona, Mihura, Berlanga or, for example, Mortadelo and Filemon.
All of those are very present. They were part of my sentimental and literary education and I have never abandoned them. Mihura is a reference, unjustly forgotten. Mortadelo already caught me grown up. I am from the previous generation: Don Pío, the reporter Tribulete, Doña Urraca. You always return to your first love, as the tango says.
It is full of ejaculations that never leave the ground, and also the political ground, that it treads on. Among those ejaculations I mention some. For example, referring to a person mentioned above: “The political situation in Catalonia is going overboard.”
That’s what one of my characters does. I wish I could say the same. It is the attitude that I recommend. I can’t take things so lightly. That’s why I let off steam by writing what I would like to say, do and think.
Barcelona is fully in the book, from the beginning to the end. That Barcelona that he describes is the one of now, but it starts from the one that is already in The Savolta Case. What part of the evolution has left Barcelona without its face?
It is a diagnosis that I dare not make. The Barcelona that I discovered, in which I grew up, is already a thing of the past. Today there is another Barcelona. Better or worse is not a value judgment that a person can make. It all depends on what you are looking for and what you are able to contribute. I know there are new, different people, in new neighborhoods. I prefer to stay at home.
What happened in 2017 is a bad reaction to a problem that has been there for centuries. Misunderstood and mismanaged by all stakeholders
The Organization you allude to was born from Franco’s regime, and until 2022, as stated at the beginning, it will remain there. What remains of Barcelona, what has been broken?
I hope that little remains of Francoism. But something remains, without a doubt. Corruption, I suppose, although I don’t think that is a legacy of Francoism. Rather, Francoism is the legacy of corruption. And the old interests and the old impulses that brought Franco to power and govern for four decades are still there, of course.
Among the events that mark the city is everything that happened around 2016. Has that phenomenon faded? What mark has it left?
Another question that I dare not answer. I know what everyone knows. I am not in contact with the political world. What happened in 2017 is a bad reaction to a problem that has been there for centuries. Misunderstood and mismanaged by all stakeholders. At the time it gave rise to a serious social fracture, a lot of suffering and a lot of wasted energy. I want to believe that time has softened the edges.
There are 407 turbulent pages. Now that it is evident that it is his book, in which there is Francoism, city and time, do you also understand that it is written with a humor that is yours?
The humor is mine, yes. Or I am yours. It is the natural channel of my literary expression. Sometimes I have decided to write in another key and after a little while I have found myself immersed in this atmosphere of humor. I guess that’s my way of seeing things.
Juan Marsé is a companion and a precursor to this way of focusing on characters.
Juan Marsé taught me many things. A way of narrating that was not fashionable in those years, but it was what I liked. Marsé had the same references as me, and as many of my generation: comics, movies from the neighborhood cinema. I remember discussing with him our boundless love for Fu Manchu. He also had a very fine ear for the language of the people. With the way of speaking of the people on the street he could tell the intimate story of those people. I’ve always tried to do that.
This journalist has highlighted some phrases that are hilarious. I hope you corroborate this, or in any case, tell me what level of laughter you give yourself when writing them. “A can of Fernández cockles cannot be missing from a self-respecting wedding in Sudan.” “As I come from a wealthy family, the life of the poor amuses me a lot. How long has the yacht been there?” “You Who do you identify with, with Socrates or with James Bond?”…
I like lapidary and absurd phrases. Comedians are very present in my literary training. The monologue ones, microphone in hand. Gila, Eugenio, Cassen. And the great American comedians that I was lucky enough to see in New York at the time I lived there.
That laughter to which you subject us also arises with present solemnities, such as football, Eurovision, Barça… Are golden pasts breaking down and now everything tends to be made of tin?
Don’t know. I only know that tin is very present. And it is so easy to consume junk food that you have to make a great effort to unearth gold that no one values. I do not want to fall into a pessimistic discourse, but I am afraid that today in education (and I am not referring only to schools and universities) they do not make differences and are guided by the law of minimum effort.
Cities change. Not as we would like. The peel is the peel. But I have gotten a lot out of this city.
There are areas of the book that alternate the laughter that their ability produces with humor with events that are more serious or worrying. Racism, supremacism, and there are also allusions to what the extreme right from which the Organization comes from, to a phrase that is now present again, the one that alludes to the fact that Spain must be cleaned, or that Spain is broken… This national conversation is part of the book. How do you see this time, or temporal?
I don’t like. Shouting, insults and discredit as a political argument give me hives. Not so much that politicians use it, but that they use it because that is what gives them dividends. Because it’s what people want to hear. If that attitude broke in all of us, politicians would have another one.
“Barcelona,” says the head of the Organization’s characters, “momentarily recovers its old image: the provincial, unhealthy, sordid, and petulant city of my youth,” and ends: “Let’s not get carried away by nostalgia. The best is the enemy of the good and complaining about what has no remedy is typical of old people, it is typical of idiots. At what point is Mendoza, this city about which it is better not to be nostalgic?
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Anything but nostalgia. The head of the Organization is a man of clichés and banalities. Me too, but less so. Cities change. Not as we would like. The peel is the peel. But I have gotten a lot out of this city. Now I live more retired. Others will come who will say what this moment is like.