The Garden of Secrets

by Juan Goytisolo, Peter Bush (Translator)

"This work deserves the highest recognition . . . no-one can deny Juan Goytisolo is the main Spanish novelist on active service."—Carlos Fuentes "A beautifully written metaphor for what it means to seek out the truth in a world often dominated by lies . . . this author, now 70 years of age, is one of the most brilliant of living writers."— The Los Angeles Times Twenty-eight storytellers—one for each letter in the Arabic alphabet—meet in a garden to tell the story of a poet, Eusebio, arrested in the early days of the Spanish Civil War. Eusebio, a friend of García Lorca and his circle, had escaped assassination and fled to North Africa. Born in Barcelona, Juan Goytisolo left Spain in hatred of Franco. He now lives in Marrakesh, Morocco.

Genres: Spain, Spanish Literature, Fiction, Short Stories

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Desde la trilogía formada por Señas de identidad, Don Julián y Juan sin tierra, que le situó entre los mejores autores de la literatura española contemporánea, la obra narrativa de Juan Goytisolo (Barcelona, 1931) ha derivado en cada nueva singladura hacia territorios inexplorados que cuestionan siempre el género de la ficción. Esta voluntad de ir a contracorriente ha propiciado la gestación de textos tan singulares como Makbara (1980), Las virtudes del pájaro solitario (1988), La cuarentena (1991), La saga de los Marx (1993), El sitio de los sitios (1995), Las semanas del jardín (1997), Carajicomedia (2000), Telón de boca (2003) o El exiliado de aquí y allá (2008).

No obstante, Juan Goytisolo no destaca sólo como autor de ficción, sino que también cultiva con maestría el género del ensayo, con obras como Contra las sagradas formas (2007) o Genet en el Raval (2009). En 2014 se le ha otorgado el Premio Cervantes de las Letras.

========

Juan Goytisolo Gay was born in Barcelona at 1931. A vocal opponent of Franco, he left Spain for France in 1956.

In Paris, he worked as a consultant for the publisher Gallimard while he was also working on his own oeuvre. There he met his future wife, Monique Langue, and Jean Genet, who influenced his vision of literature. While living in Paris, he started the most experimental side of his books. Mixing poetry with painting and fiction with non-fiction, he explored the possibilities of language, leaving behind the social commentary of his first novels. "Marks of Identity" was the start, but then he turned even more radical with "Count Julian" and "Juan the Landless", where he rejected definitely, because of a lack of identification, his Spanish identity in favor of adopting a "cervantina" nationality.

In the 1970s he visited Marrakech often. In 1981 he bought a house there. In 1996, after the death of his wife, he moved there and adopted Morocco as his main residence.

He is widely considered one of the most important Spanish authors of his time. His brothers, José Agustín Goytisolo and Luis Goytisolo, are also writers. In 2008 he won Spain's Premio Nacional de las Letras and in 2014 the Cervantes Prize.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Goy...

Reviews

[Sawsan · Rating 3 out of 5]

فكرة مختلفة لرواية الكاتب الأسباني خوان جويتيسولو
تقوم على اقتفاء أثر شاعر بعد العثور على دواوين شعر منسوبة إليه
على مدى ثلاثة أسابيع يجتمع مجموعة من القراء في حديقة
مشروعهم المشترك هو تأليف رواية عن شاعر اسباني يساري
حكايات منفصلة ومختلفة تبحث في مسار حياته وفكره ومصيره
وتتفرع القصص أحيانا للحكي عما يتصل به من شخصيات وأحداث
سرد يُذكر بمحنة معارضي فرانكو زمن الحرب الأهلية الأسبانية

خوان جويتيسولو واحد من أهم وأشهر الكُتاب الأسبان
مناهض للديكتاتوريات بكافة أشكالها وخاصة ديكتاتورية فرانكو ونظامه الاستبدادي
ومدافع قوي في العموم عن الحقوق والقضايا الانسانية وحرية التعبير
أقام في منتصف سبعينيات القرن الماضي في مراكش ودُفن في أرضها عام 2017

[Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Translated from the original Spanish into English by Peter Bush.

Let me give Peter Bush a short lesson. "Philippines" is the country's name. Citizens of the country are called "Filipino/s" (male) and "Filipina/s" (female). "Philippine" (without an 's') is an adjective which means "of or relating to the Philippines." So you say "Philippine constitution" to refer to the constitution of the country. "Filipino" can also be used as an adjective with the same meaning as "Philippine" like when you say "Filipino delicacy" to refer to something edible from the Philippines (this is where, I think, he was led into error). But when you refer to a male citizen of the country you use "Filipino" (as a noun) and not "Philippine" which is never a noun but always an adjective.

I counted. Peter Bush misused "Philippine" exactly twelve times. I cite here a few:

a. "...He...wallowed in his favorite films, sprawled on a sofa, holding hands with his Philippine....";

b. "...while the anxious, nimble Philippine saw to the decor, issued sing-song instructions...";

c. "... the Philippine projected his favourite films on the screen..."; and

d. "...I watched the Philippine as he opened the garage door..."


In all these twelve instances it should have been "Filipino" not "Philippine."


But five stars nevertheless, even assuming other translation errors. The plot is obviously make-believe, whimsical, and never intended to carry the work. Several story-tellers with their remembrances, theories, second-hand tales, rumors and anything they had to say about the common focal point, a man named Eusebio, of the Spanish Civil War, a character of diffused mystery. But it is not about the plot. It is about the language. Assuming Peter Bush had mangled it even, say, by 30% my God what remained was still a thing of beauty. The only 5-star book I have read without a single dog-ear and that was because if I had gone into dog-earing each and every page where a phrase or a sentence had startled me, or made me take deep breaths, or made me return to in again and again, I would have gone practically dog-earing all the pages of this slim volume of 153 pages.

[Leonard Klossner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another series of corridors cast in Goytisolo's narrative labyrinth through which the serpent here winds through the hedge maze of visions and dreams, fables false and fabricated - Ariadne's thread fumbled - and myths all deposed toward the singular aim of recounting the life of Eusebio. Who is Eusebio? He is at once a sage, destitute and surviving off nothing but alms and words of prophets, and an ascetic; a homosexual and a poet; an exile and a political dissident - all of these things at once, and, perhaps most likely, none of these at all.

The book is premised on the assemblage of a literary society composed for the sole purpose of narrating Eusebio's life through the tales, anecdotes, writings, and research heard and retold and conducted by the writers, all twenty-eight of them - one for each letter of the Arabic alphabet. The society gathers to meet across three weeks, exchanging their stories, each of which follows a different narrative style, and, once the narrative project has come to its conclusion, the society considers a name for the fabricated single author of the novel, deciding on the name Juan Goytisolo. I know I mentioned Calvino and his If on a Winter's Night in an earlier review, but I don't know if I made this specific connection: Both books, above all, are about the pleasures of storytelling and of reading; about stories told for the simple pleasure of their telling.

One of the more interesting stories concerns, like many of the stories, individuals who seem to have no connection to the primary subject, Eusebio, whatsoever. It's a story that seems straight out of Ovid (but which may be more a nod to One Thousand and One Nights) where a man turns into a stork and flies to where his wife has moved for work for a handful of years in order to spy on her, witnesses her infidelity, but is then taken in and adopted by his wife and tended to and given free license to roam about the house as "she" (as he's mistakenly called) wishes, shitting all over the house and the bed, which her secret lover eventually leaves in order to sleep on the couch. The story has no evident connection to the subject at hand until the end when we learn the author retold his story as he heard it from his friend who heard it from his neighbor, and who was his neighbor but the elusive Eusebio?

[montserratca1 · Rating 3 out of 5]

“todo te había sido arrebatado en el oscuro transcurso de una trama
que no habías escrito, pero aquellas lagrimas te pertenecían”
Juan Goytisolo
La historia nos narra la forma en que un círculo de veintiocho escritores —de distintos géneros— se unen para crear un proyecto: una novela colectiva en torno a la vida de Eusebio; se basa en la demolición sistemática de la entidad del novelista Eusebio. Los escritores se propusieron acabar con la noción opresiva del autor y pretendían trazar una continuación de la historia a través de la construcción del personaje, es por ello que la narración cambia.
Los elementos que encontramos y que sin duda alguna forman parte importante de la obra son: digresiones, real maravillo e intertextualidad en autores —Miguel de Cervantes y Jorge Luis Borges— y en obras; El aleph, La lozana andaluza, el Quijote, etc…
El inicio de la obra parte del encuentro de una maleta con dos obras y de la presentación de nuestro personaje Eusebio, este se encuentra encarcelado en un psiquiátrico de la Falange en donde es sometido a castigos y medicamentos: “El sufrimiento purifica y redime. Ya no te duele el alama: el cuerpo solamente” (p. 23). Se trata de un poeta homosexual, situado a inicios de la Guerra Civil Española, este escapa de aquel psiquiátrico y tras su desaparición se desata una investigación por su paradero. Posteriormente se nos son presentados los posibles acontecimientos de su vida.

[Abril · Rating 3 out of 5]

Raro.

[valen · Rating 4 out of 5]

si borges, chaucer y cervantes tuvieran un hijo

[George Ilsley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Often with translations you have to wonder how the text reads in the original. Especially here, with each chapter in a different voice, a different style. There are many references to Spanish history and culture which I fear are over my head. A cultured reader could get so much more out of this book. Ultimately it explores the “unknowability” of a person, and the subjective nature of an observer’s view. At the center is an enigma, just as in life itself — there is an unknowable enigma at the centre of all things.

[Carla · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fantásticas las lecturas vanguardistas pero mi experiencia de lectura se resume en el clip del Diego diciendo "eh?"

[noelia ceballo · Rating 2 out of 5]

me vuelve loquita la invención de juan goytisolo. de la muerte del autor al retorno del demiurgo intensifies. pero, la verdad, muchos de los relatos me aburrieron una banda. quizás estoy quemada yo, puede ser, seguro que sí

[Baklavahalva · Rating 4 out of 5]

If Danilo Kiš were Spanish, Moorophile, and gay (and we exchanged Franco-fascism for Stalinism), then The Tomb of Boris Davidovich would be The Garden of Secrets. Masterfully written. Made me want to hang out with kooky expats and popular-devotion saints. The cover is a little ridiculous.

[maría o]

lleva al extremo la imposibilidad de escribir una vida de manera unívoca. todas las versiones son válidas porque en todas incide, fundamentalmente, la interpretación.

[macarena martínez · Rating 2 out of 5]

esta buena la idea. me pareció un bodrio que se alargue tanto

[Santiago · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Reconstruyendo la vida de Eusebio"
Chismes, investigaciones y otras cosas.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me maree un poco, pero la idea me pareció original

[Natasha Rivas · Rating 1 out of 5]

horrible

[Bianca · Rating 4 out of 5]

La angustiante e inescapable certeza de que existen tantas versiones de nosotros como perspectivas haya.

[Lucía ⁠♡ · Rating 2 out of 5]

interesante, pero lo leí tan por arriba que en muchas partes no entendí nada. no tengo tiempo para dedicarle tiempo a una buena lectura.

[Rochelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Twenty eight stories told by imaginary storytellers from a variety of walks of life about an imaginary poet who left Spain just before the Civil War, some focusing on his politics, others on his North African life, others on his homosexuality, at least one on his imprisonment. A true cornocopia of stories that I found as compelling as the ones stories I know from The Thousand and One Nights of Scheherezade. As soon as I finished it, I began rereading. Readers familiar with Hispanic literature are likely to recognize some storytelling styles but that's just an extra perk. I suppose the closest parallel in English would be Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

[Χριστόφορος]

I have never had this problem in which I could not find this book. I look at the DC public library; Kramer Books; Politics & Prose; Books A Million; and Kindle. It is available on Amazon, but even with my "Prime" supposed 2-day delivery--this book takes 2-3 weeks. I needed it for book club for next week, so I give up! Broken, defeated, and bitter.. ;-)

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

maybe Lorca escaped. . .

[STAVROULA NTINTA · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goytisolo nos sorprende una vez más con su estilo tan peculiar. Una novela enfocada al infortunio que sufrieron los contrarios al régimen de Franco durante la guerra civil española (1936 1939).

[Marcos Faria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Não é pra qualquer um. "As semanas do jardim" parte de uma premissa ambiciosa, que evoca Borges imediatamente, mas que também se inscreve numa linhagem que junta Joyce, Cervantes e as Mil e Uma Noites. Goytisolo, ou antes o escritor imaginário que chamam de Goytisolo, consegue cumprir o desafio e transformar o mosaico composto por 28 fragmentos de diferentes narradores numa reflexão sobre o ato em si de compor um romance.

Os 28 autores-leitores que formam o círculo não conseguem chegar a uma conclusão sobre o poeta desaparecido Eusebio/Eugenio, preso por ser comunista e homossexual. Herói, traidor, santo, vítima, escroque? Eusebio é como o elefante da fábula dos três cegos, impossível de ser capturado pelo texto. Ele é maior que a literatura, e ao mesmo tempo menor do que ela: não importa quem foi Eusebio, importa o que se conta sobre ele. tanto que a reunião dessas histórias foi capaz de criar um outro homem real, o autor Goytisolo.