La plaça del Diamant

by Mercè Rodoreda, Meritxell Talavera (Introducció)

“Distingida amiga: Arribo al despatx mort de son, per culpa de vostè. M’he passat la nit en blanc llegint la seva novel·la, sense poder deixar-la. Feia molt de temps que cap llibre no m’havia tret el son d’aquesta manera. Trobo aquesta novel·la simplement formidable. És la seva obra mestra.” (Carta de Joan Sales a Mercè Rodoreda, 1961)

“Totes aquestes pàgines, poètiques i patètiques, sense un gra de sentimentalisme, m’han emocionat profundament, i les últimes m’han deixat sense alè. Sembla mentida que amb elements tan simples es pugui arribar a una tensió tan extraordinària, a estones inaguantable. Se m’ha nuat el coll tres o quatre vegades, hi ha pàgines d’una veritat que esborrona. Aquest equilibri perfecte entre el dramatisme, la poesia i la banalitat, molt poca gent el deu haver aconseguit. I t’ho dic, no després de llegir una novel·la policíaca, sinó després d’acabar —immediatament després d’acabar— Els posseïts de Dostoievski.” (Carta d’Armand Obiols a Mercè Rodoreda, 1960)

“Pocas personas saben fuera de Cataluña quién era esa mujer invisible que escribía en un catalán espléndido unas novelas hermosas y duras como no se encuentran muchas en las letras actuales. Una de ellas —La plaza del Diamante— es, a mi juicio, la más bella que se ha publicado en España después de la Guerra Civil. Mi deslumbramiento fue apenas comparable al que me había causado la primera lectura de Pedro Páramo, de Juan Rulfo, aunque los dos libros no tienen en común sino la transparencia de su belleza.” (Gabriel García Márquez, 1983)

Aquesta nova edició inclou un postfaci sobre l’original retrobat de la primera Colometa i el seu capítol V. Amb una introducció de Meritxell Talavera sobre la història d’aquesta obra mestra.

Genres: Fiction, Spain, Classics, Historical Fiction, Spanish Literature, War, Novels

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Mercè Rodoreda i Gurguí was a Catalan novelist.

She is considered by many to be the most important Catalan novelist of the postwar period. Her novel "La plaça del diamant" ('The diamond square', translated as 'The Time of the Doves', 1962) has become the most acclaimed Catalan novel of all time and since the year it was published for the first time, it has been translated into over 20 languages. It's also considered by many to be best novel dealing with the Spanish Civil War.

Reviews

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 5 out of 5]

A novel set in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War and translated from the Catalan. Originally published in 1962, it is and it isn’t “another Spanish Civil War novel.” There is no fighting or scenes from the front. We only hear of the war from the perspective of a woman whose husband is fighting with the Republicans while she slaves at home and as a maid and cleaning lady trying to feed herself and her two children. So we hear of the war only from neighborhood women, talk in the streets, the grocer and very occasional visits from her husband or his friends.

We learn about their brief courtship and their life before the war started. This is early 1900’s, so he’s a tyrant; jealous, suspicious, demanding everything his way. He a furniture maker and he makes himself a chair that his wife and children are forbidden to sit in. Then he gets the crazy idea of raising pigeons on their apartment’s rooftop. Little by little the pigeons take over the entire house, nesting in rooms. Now the main character becomes a slave to the pigeons as well, lugging food and water and cleaning up after them.

The Spanish Civil War comes along and of course her husband is a casualty. She never learns how or where he died or where he is buried. All his buddies and essentially every male she ever knew also died in the war. But she has bigger problems. As the war drags on she and her children are starving to the point where she plans to kill them and then herself to end the suffering. The pigeons are gone now and so is every item in the home, sold for food – the bed and mattress, clothing, curtains, furniture.

Yet the women and her children survive. The war ends, she remarries, and the new family even achieve a measure of prosperity. But the story takes a new twist. Let’s call it PTSD. You can’t go through all that hell and years later just “keep calm and carry on.”

A great story that has been translated into 20 languages. The author, who died in 1983, has a literary award named in her honor. She lived in exile in France and Switzerland during the War and is best known for her first novel, Aloma. Here’s a couple of examples of her great writing: “…I thought I should rein my sadness in, keep it small, not let it surround me, or spread to my bloodstream or thereabouts. Turn it into a ball, bullet or pellet. Swallow it quick.” Writing of boys at an orphans camp: “They all had shaved heads covered in scabs and their faces were all eyes.” Well worth a read.

[Guille · Rating 4 out of 5]

“La plaza del diamante” es una novela bella y triste. La voz que nos cuenta su vida, la de aquella Natalia joven en la fiesta de la Plaza del Diamante, luego la Colometa del Quimet, después Natalia de nuevo, ya mayor, en la misma plaza, es de una sencillez poética conmovedora, casi naif, una voz que solo puede surgir de una sensibilidad innata que las circunstancias impidieron un florecimiento mayor.

“En casa vivíamos sin palabras y las cosas que yo llevaba por dentro me daban miedo porque no sabía si eran mías…”

Quimet encontró a una Natlia que no había empezado a ser, que no “sabía muy bien para qué estaba en el mundo”.

“Mi madre muerta hacía años y sin poder aconsejarme y mi padre casado con otra. Mi padre casado con otra y yo sin madre, que sólo había vivido para cuidarme. Y mi padre casado y yo jovencita y sola en la Plaza del Diamante...”

Por su parte, Natalia se vio deslumbrada por la vitalidad y la seguridad de Quimet, y este le metió a la Colometa en el cuerpo y como la Colometa vivió al lado de Quimet, sumisa y resignada ella, manipulador y controlador, él.

“Si quería ser su mujer tenía que empezar a encontrar bien todo lo que él encontraba bien.”

Una historia de violencia machista cuando no se sabía qué era eso de la violencia machista, en la que Quimet redujo la vida de su Colometa a sus propios amigos, a la señora Enriqueta, una segunda madre, y a sus hijos. Los acontecimientos del mundo exterior a ese reducido núcleo familiar solo aparecen en sus consecuencias, de pronto llega la república, de pronto llega la guerra, que ni se nombra como tal (“vino lo que vino, que parecía una cosa que tenía ser muy corta”), de pronto termina la guerra y Colometa tiene que sacar a su familia adelante con el estigma de ser la mujer de un rojo.

“…la señora Enriqueta me había dicho que teníamos muchas vidas, entrelazadas unas con otras, pero que una muerte o una boda, a veces, no siempre, las separaba, y la vida de verdad, libre de todos los lazos de vida pequeña que la habían atado, podía vivir como habría tenido que vivir siempre si las vidas pequeñas y malas la hubieran dejado sola.”

La historia de Colometa termina con un grito, “un grito de infierno”. Hay quién lo interpreta feliz, aunque… bueno, ustedes lo interpretarán como quieran, yo no soy de esa opinión.

“Un grito que debía hacer muchos años que llevaba dentro y con aquel grito, tan ancho que le costó mucho pasar por la garganta, me salió de la boca una pizca de cosa de nada, como un escarabajo de saliva… y aquella pizca de cosa de nada que había vivido tanto tiempo encerrada dentro, era mi juventud que se escapaba con un grito que no sabía bien lo que era…”

[Jeff Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's a reason why Gabriel Garcia Marquez learned Catalan just read to this novel. He called it "the most beautiful novel published in Spain since the Civil War."

Great translation by poet David Rosenthal that captures the gorgeously off-handed rhythms and glowing repetitions of Rodereda's prose. Avoid the newer version called "In Diamond Plaza."

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm writing this on the back of my doctor's note because it's the only paper I have with me at the coffee shop and a bad bout of illness has me out of sickness-induced superstition loathe to leave this composing till I go home. Yes, I know, not the best place/activity for an invalid, but I (not contagious, mind you) already had one and one too many of those days two yesters ago where no writing and a mere twelve pages of reading left me with the feeling of a small bone rotting away from lack of use. Lack of structure. I'll not compare being too ill to engage in literary matters to surviving the Spanish Civil War, but the style of prose fit the motion of my stomach-swamped brain, a pinball autopilot where not much seems to help and even less is not a threat and one obliges the familiar for as long as one can.

This work creeps up on you. Maybe more so to me with my usual "Is this abuse? Is this misogyny?" until nightmarish paranoia of years and years set three-quarters in to the novel deemed, yes. That the author meant. It's a book where the soldiers would be better off not coming home and the conditioning of peacetime kills quicker than the complicity of wartime, albeit wartime being an uncertain word when civilization incorporates so much. In short, there's a woman who was once a girl, children who were once eggs, friends of the family who were once alive, and the revenge of a much taken for granted housewife that happens to convulse with the bloodborne seizures of a country. There's losing and winning for this small scale woman and her small scale children, and what she knows of the war is drawn from the availability of work, of food, of hydrochloric acid. I could go into gender politics and bigotry and yadda yadda yadda, but I'm too tired to belittle this much grappling with the trauma of hallucinatory life.

In terms of kudoes, how often do you read Catalan literature penned by a woman? In terms of references for swift comparison purposes, an single self internalized Regeneration of another country, another time, another gender, another breed of PTSD, but a similar refrain: nothing is worth this. Nothing.

[Nikos Tsentemeidis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ένα βιβλίο γεμάτο ανθρωπιά, αθωότητα, μιας άλλης εποχής που θα θέλαμε τα χαρακτηριστικά της να ήταν ζωντανά στη δικιά μας εποχή.

[Enrique · Rating 5 out of 5]

Literatura de alto nivel. Doña Merce Rodoreda es capaz de poner al descubierto de una forma franca el alma humana, el alma de una mujer asfixiada por la condición que le ha tocado en suerte. Usa un estilo depurado (creo que a base de mucho reescribir) de escritora con muchísimo oficio. Es imposible no apreciar alguna influencia de V. Woolf en ese desasosiego existencial que ambas logran transmitir de manera magistral en sus mujeres protagonistas. Aunque pudiera resultar curioso, también encuentro conexiones entre la autora y la posterior Toni Morrison, aparte de la pequeña dosis de lo que después se llamaría realismo mágico, además en un punto central del libro, en la trama se ve una similitud que no se puede obviar con la de Beloved y la forma de enfrentar sus problemas y el de sus hijos, el capítulo 36 es sobresaliente, y el final de ese capítulo...buaahh.
La Colometa es un personaje de ficción que permanece en la cultura y tradición española por la proyección en los 80 de una serie que protagonizaba la genial Silvia Munt, al leer el libro resulta mucho más fácil ponerle a la protagonista el rostro de de esa gran actriz catalana, aunque realmente sí soy sincero, creo que el libro está por encima de lo que recuerdo de la serie, gana en profundidad esa narración en primera persona que te hace sentir lo arduo de la vida.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pigeons, pigeons everywhere for a while in Natalia’s married life, as her young husband goes nuts for them and breeds them at home, letting them fly through one end of the apartment to the other. She’s left to clean up after them whereas her husband goes to his workshop during the day, as an independent furniture maker. These birds made for a few arresting chapters in a book that was full of them.

Set in the first half of the 20th century, in a Barcelona that carried on without tourists at the time but would soon face the Spanish Civil War, In Diamond Square offers a colorful blue-collar perspective of times long gone, setting before the reader’s eyes everyday marvels that are sure to make an impression.

A doe-eyed young woman when we first meet her, though soon to be married, Natalia will preserve an engaging candor as she relates her marital and parental experiences, then her work life and her growing older, and faces domestic and personal challenges alike, dealing with mourning, dealing with poverty, overcoming it all while never quite losing her sweet innocence.

Hers is a sensory existence, in which colors, smells, sounds and textures are often referenced, and Natalia's personal mythologies draw from the very essence of everything that surrounds her, from birds to flowers to people, to wooden furniture. Her tale is often sad in ways that go from big to small, but also rife with images pulled straight out of an imaginative urban dweller’s dreaming heart – regardless of her age. She is one with her home, one with her neighborhood, given to noticing low-key beauty in modest surroundings, and closing In Diamond Square’s cover a final time, I feel like the author’s heart spoke directly to mine despite all the differences in time, place, and culture.

Thanks to Emily M for putting this slim novel on my literary path. It took me a while to get around to it, but the enchantment took.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

And Mrs Enriqueta once told me we live many lives and they all get entangled and a death or a wedding couldn't always untangle them

Rodoreda has written a sensual narrative of life full of movement, sounds, taste, smells and sights. The prose in this English translation is plain but Natalia's voice is vibrant and colourful even when telling of desperation and despair. This reads almost like a journal or diary in that it's episodic and fragmented.

I've seen this called a Spanish Civil War book but although that conflict certainly takes place in the background, it barely makes a dent in the narrative in explicitly political terms. Instead, this is attentive to the workings of power and authority in more domestic settings: the gendered divisions in the marriage of Natalia and Joe, the class affects in Natalia's relations with her employers.

The first half is all about Natalia's voice and her meeting and marriage to Joe, a woodworker whose macho behaviour tips over into abuse in twenty-first century terms. Natalia is both resistant and complicit and the book helps us see the marriage through her eyes.

The second half changes mood as Joe goes to the front with the Republican cause (though without any discussion as to the politics) leaving Natalia in Barcelona with two young children. The harsh conditions in Spain are expressed through this young mother's desperation and the choices she has to make to survive.

In lots of ways this is a book which is, oddly, easy to read, even race through. Life happens, there is loss and despair, but things also circle back and it's significant that the final word is 'happy'.

I'm struggling a little to put a helpful label on this book: it's not a deep character study though we certainly live alongside Natalia over a large part of her life-time; it's not an analytical book about politics, war, power: these things happen and are accepted; I guess it's a sort of slice-of-life book through the consciousness of an ordinary, even mundane, woman who lives the same life as many of her compatriots. There's objectively nothing singular about Natalia, her marriage or her decisions: but the power of Rodoreda's unobtrusive writing make her into an Everywoman to love and live through.

[Antonio Luis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Qué maravilla de autora! Su lenguaje es muy preciso y medido, y ello no le impide a veces un efecto sobrecogedor. Escribiendo hace lo que quiere, en un mismo párrafo puede ser moderna y clásica, realista y lírica, leerla es un espectáculo de la palabra.

En principio parece una narración realista y social en primera persona, muy fluida en todo momento mientras profundiza en las emociones más íntimas, de una forma delicada y poética a la vez que directa y contundente.

Como vengo de la lectura de La muerte y la primavera que me pareció tan bestial y simbólica, esta plaza del diamante me ha parecido una delicia poética y más delicada, e igualmente sobrecogedora. También he visto simbolismo en todo, la anterior a modo de fábula y en ésta más enfocada en personas y aspectos reales, igual o más envolvente, con metáforas allá donde pone su mirada: las palomas, el polvo, la casa, la comida, el silencio... Hasta en el nombre su protagonista lleva el simbolismo de la pérdida de identidad como mujer oprimida, de Natalia a Colometa.

“Sentía como si me hubieran quitado el nombre y me hubieran puesto una jaula encima.” Esas palomas al principio tan bonitas que van convirtiéndose en símbolo de encarcelamiento asfixiante.

Y a través de su evolución simboliza también la resiliencia y la superación.

Quimet vendría a ser la posición dominante y machista. Después la guerra y la miseria, con un tono muy gris, el capítulo considerando el suicidio es desgarrador. Los hijos como motor para sobrevivir. Y Antoni, la calma tras la tormenta, la reparación del trauma mientras reconstruye su identidad.

Magnífica caracterización de la protagonista.
Lectura breve muy envolvente que me ha fascinado

[Entre Libros (Rocío) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Colometa, con su jaula y su silencio, encarna la fragilidad y la resistencia de quienes sobreviven a la historia desde la sombra. Rodoreda escribe con una prosa contenida y luminosa, capaz de convertir lo cotidiano en herida colectiva y susurro inolvidable. La plaza del Diamante no necesita gritar: su voz baja estremece con más fuerza que cualquier estruendo. Una lectura esencial para escuchar lo que tantas veces se ha querido callar.
📚 Análisis completo en @__entre.libros__

[Malacorda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solitamente si tende a identificare nei bambini la bocca della verità, la massima espressione di sincerità in quanto creature innocenti. Io trovo che questo sia inesatto, un bambino che sia in grado di parlare è già un essere giunto a un certo livello di complessità, ed è perfettamente in grado di affettare pose, eventualmente fingere e recitare e mentire se questo può agevolare il suo tornaconto o mitigare una punizione e/o una umiliazione. Gli esseri veramente puri e semplici sono solo gli sciocchi, quelli la cui semplicità sfocia nella stupidità.
Un'amica di mia mamma aveva un figlio autistico. Entrambi i genitori hanno molto accudito il ragazzo e fatto tutto il possibile perché ricevesse sempre tutti gli stimoli e gli spunti che il suo cervello poteva essere in grado, anche solo per un poco, di assorbire. Con lui viaggiavano molto, e in occasione di uno di quei viaggi la madre cercava come sempre di entusiasmarlo: "Vedrai quante cose belle, vedrai come ci divertiremo, quando saremo là potremo fare questo, potremo fare quello...". In realtà in quel viaggio andò tutto storto, una pioggia torrenziale e una serie di altri disguidi lo resero uno di quei week-end memorabili per tale livello di disdetta. E all'ennesimo imprevisto, mentre erano sulla strada fradici di pioggia e stanchi morti, il ragazzo – memore delle parole della madre – con il suo sorriso pacato le chiede conferma: "Ci stiamo divertendo, mamma?". La disarmante voce della verità.

Ecco, la protagonista di questo racconto non è autistica ma il suo essere sempliciotta rasenta effettivamente la stupidità; la sua incertezza nel trovare le parole adatte ad esprimere i propri sentimenti, anzi diciamo pure la sua inadeguatezza e insufficienza nel mettere a fuoco sentimenti e sensazioni umane, tutto questo insieme di carenze la rendono quanto di più simile vi possa essere alla voce della verità. Ho notato una certa qual somiglianza tra Natàlia/Colometa e Arturo della Morante: entrambi incapaci di comprendere appieno ed esprimere le proprie sensazioni. Così come il marito di Natàlia ha molti punti in comune con il padre di Arturo: entrambi ostentano forza per nascondere una debolezza più profonda.

Ed è dunque con la voce semplice di Natàlia che l'autrice ci racconta di una vita nella Barcellona degli gli anni '30 e della guerra civile. Una storia limpida e cristallina, fatta di persone ma anche di case e di oggetti: agli occhi di Natàlia, una teiera o un imbuto smaltato o un nastro colorato o una conchiglia, sono come amuleti, sono catalizzatori di vita.
Il cuore pulsante e magnetico del racconto è una faccenda seria, non ha nulla a che spartire con la frivolezza e la superficialità della voce narrante. C'è la frustrazione, c'è la guerra, c'è il baratro della miseria e della fame. Ha a che fare con l'ingenuità, certo, perché Natàlia è ingenua: una vittima ingenua. E l'ingenuità con cui questa vittima si sottomette alla vita è un tema quanto mai attuale, dato che oggi viviamo in tempi non meno difficili di quelli in cui è ambientato il racconto: magari più agiati, ma altrettanto difficili. Concordo con quanto era già stato scritto da altri nei panegirici: qui si dimostra il tema dell'annullamento. Il titolo fa riferimento al luogo in cui tutto ha avuto inizio: lui, da vero galletto, e forse anche in maniera un po' prepotente, la invita a ballare. E lei semplicemente accetta. Prima di quel momento, la giovinezza nella mente di lei è solo una indistinta foschia. E dal quel momento in avanti, la vita sarà per lei una sorta di assenza a sé stessa e annullamento del suo essere nel gorgo degli eventi che - come in ogni buon romanzo - è il vortice formato dalla vita di tutti i giorni ma anche dai contraccolpi che questa subisce a causa della Storia.

E' un racconto in crescendo, e sostiene bene la tensione fino al finale ottimamente strutturato, con una chiusura dolceamara perché il lieto fine nella realtà non esiste, e tuttavia esiste la possibilità di scaricarsi un peso di dosso. Quattro stelle sicure, magari ripensandoci nei prossimi mesi potrebbero anche diventare qualcosina in più.

"Le dissi che mi sarebbe davvero piaciuto passare una notte come quella che lei aveva passato così innamorata, ma che lavoravo a pulire uffici e a spolverare e a occuparmi dei bambini e tutte le cose belle della vita, come il vento e l'edera e i cipressi che bucavano l'aria e le foglie di un giardino svolazzanti qua e là, non erano fatte per me. Per me tutto era finito e mi aspettavano solo tristezza e grattacapi."

"Mentre camminavamo per la strada tutti e tre, io mezzo e un figlio per parte, senza sapere perché mi salì da dentro un fiotto caldo di pena, e mi si incastrò in gola."

"...così l'avremmo fatta finita e tutti sarebbero stati contenti, perché non facevamo male a nessuno e nessuno ci voleva bene."

[Zanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Lacking a mother to advise her, Natalia, whose ideas of romance and beauty seem to be symbolised by the colour white, which she loves to wear, is picked up by a douchecanoe so selfish and arrogant he takes her name from her and proceeds to arrange her life and possessions at his service. Eventually he fills their home with doves, another white creature coerced violently into confinement. Natalia is living in hell, but it seems there is a hell below this one because along comes the civil war and a famine that sucks the heart and spirit and flesh from the shell of the body

We learn all of this from Natalia's stream of consciousness, creating a special sense of melancholy since she has no interlocutor to share her thoughts. In giving Natalia a voice, Rodoreda extends a feminist solidarity that is absent from her life. Her sympathisers include two women friends but neither of them offer sufficient emotional support; Natalia remains materially dependent on men and her life is defined by them for better or worse.

I think this is a helpful novel of trauma because I felt it demanded a lot of me to understand Natalia's strange thoughts, the bizarre shapes her world took, the tenderness of odd things that mattered to her, and that it is a kind of violence to be forced to care for someone who has abused you and that this is one of the violences of war. Some suffering poisons the wells and the roots of the crops but nonetheless becomes a solid shaft that you climb and cling onto and when it's pulled out it's touch and go with you whether you survive...

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ah, this was a beautiful book. It is tragic and sad so how did she make it so beautiful? The author, a Catalonian woman who came of age during the Spanish Civil War, saw her early novels burned by the authorities of the time as she became a refugee in France and did not write again for eight years. The Time of the Doves was her first novel after that hiatus.

Though I have not ever had to live where a war was being fought, this novel was personal to me for other reasons. I was raised by parents whose childhoods were shadowed by the Great Depression and whose young adult years were crimped by the fears and deprivations of WWII. In the 50s we had all we needed, though the Cold War was a distant but ever-present threat. My sisters and I were taught to believe that happiness was ours if we behaved ourselves, trusted that Jesus loved us, and did well in school.

So I grew up thinking that happiness was the goal and I pursued it madly, not by being a well-behaved believer in Jesus, but still sure it was my birthright. It was not! Now as I approach my elderly years, I know that happiness is as fleeting as spring flowers.

Suddenly, while reading The Time of the Doves, I realized, as the Eastern sages have been saying for eons, that happiness and sorrow are only polarities as are riches and poverty, success and failure, and on and on. There is a strange beauty in all of it.

Natalia, whose mother died when she was young and whose father barely acknowledged her existence, meets Quimet during a dance in one of the town squares of Barcelona. He woos her away from her current fiance, he bullies her yet holds for her a strange fascination. They marry and have two children but Quimet becomes obsessed with raising doves on the roof of their apartment building and stops making money. Natalia goes to work as a cleaning woman, the Spanish Civil War begins, and eventually she loses her husband, her job, and barely survives with those kids, all nearly starving to death.

Finally rescue, safety, and even love come back into her life but she cannot recover from the trauma or believe in love anymore. It is only because of Merce Rodoreda's exquisite prose (probably even more so in Catalan) that the whole picture of this woman's desires, fortitude, despair, and finally hope kept me from collapsing under all of Natalia's misfortune. I was sure she was doomed but there was beauty everywhere in the writing.

By the end, another one of my mother's lessons finally made sense to me. Only if one keeps going, one foot in front of the other, doing one's duties, does one have a chance at happiness, survival, and even life itself. As a child I thought she meant it was my duty to be happy. But she knew how fleeting happiness is, she already knew how long life could be, and that there is no sense crying about it. Instead she grew flowers, played the piano, and kept an orderly home. Thanks Mom. Thanks Merce Rodoreda. They both knew that beauty matters.

[Paula Mota · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5*

Em casa vivíamos sem palavras e as coisas que eu tinha dentro faziam-me medo porque não sabia se eram minhas…

Mercè Rodoreda (1908-1983) admirava Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust e James Joyce, e isso é flagrante tanto no estilo modernista da escrita, como no uso de certos leitmotives e na urdidura da vida interior das personagens.

A minha mãe nunca me falara nos homens. Ela e o meu pai tinham passados inúmeros anos a discutir e muitos anos sem dizerem nada um ao outro. Passavam as tardes de domingo sentados na sala de jantar sem se falarem. Quando a minha mãe morreu, este viver sem palavras ainda se acentuou mais. E quando ao fim de alguns anos o meu pai voltou a casar, não havia, em minha casa, nada a que eu pudesse agarrar-me. Vivia como deve viver um gato: de um lado para o outro, com a cauda baixa, com a cauda levantada, agora são horas de ter fome, agora são horas de ter sono, com a diferença de que um gato não tem de trabalhar para viver.

“A Praça do Diamante” é um livro complexo e profundo de uma autora paradoxal que me suscitou várias dúvidas. Devemos levar as declarações de um escritor à letra ou ignorá-las interpretando uma obra a nosso bel-prazer? Vale mais o percurso ou o discurso de um escritor? Quando devemos parar de ler nas entrelinhas de um texto só para satisfazer a nossa tese? Apesar de ser considerada protofeminista por alguns, Mercè Rodoreda deixou a sua posição bem clara:
“Acho que o feminismo é como o sarampo. Na época das sufragistas tinha um sentido, mas na época atual, onde todos fazem o que quiserem, acho que o feminismo não tem sentido.”
E, no entanto, há tanto na sua vida e na leitura de “A Praça do Diamante” que contradiz este seu comentário. Com apenas 20 anos, Mercè casou com o seu tio (yikes!), de quem teve um filho, tendo pouco depois retomado os estudos e começado a escrever com o intuito de se tornar autossuficiente. Em 1939, dois anos depois de se ter separado do marido, com a derrota dos republicanos, para os quais trabalhara como revisora de catalão, optou pelo exílio até 1972, tendo deixado o filho aos cuidados da avó.
Se se torna difícil ignorar a problemática do casamento e da maternidade na biografia desta mulher independente e determinada, não há como contornar a forma como estas duas instituições são postas em causa em “A Praça do Diamante”. Desde o primeiro encontro, quando Quimet decide unilateralmente que a protagonista será sua mulher, passando por cada interacção no namoro e atitude na vida de recém-casados, tudo aponta para a submissão de Natalia…

Disse-me que se queria ser sua mulher tinha de começar a achar bem tudo o que ele achasse bem. Fez-me um grande sermão sobre o homem e a mulher e os direitos de um e do outro e quando consegui interrompê-lo perguntei-lhe:
- E se não gostar mesmo nada de uma coisa?
- Tens de gostar, porque tu não percebes.

…que culmina na anulação da sua identidade ao passar a chamar-lhe Pombinha, pois Quimet desenvolve uma obsessão tal com estas aves que acaba por transformar o apartamento do casal num autêntico pombal onde, a dada altura, vivem 80 pombos. Visto que o dinheiro que o marido ganha como marceneiro e com o eventual negócio dos pombos não é o suficiente para o sustento do casal e dos seus dois filhos, Natalia vê-se obrigada a fazer limpezas por fora, até que o marido se junta aos milicianos durante a guerra civil espanhola e a situação se torna dramática.
Seria neste ponto da narrativa que teria de concordar com o desprezo de Rodoreda pelo feminismo. Natalia é uma personagem totalmente passiva, a quem a vontade alheia é imposta sem que ela lhe ofereça muita resistência, que anda à mercê dos homens; o primeiro que é a sua perdição e o segundo que é a sua salvação. Há, porém, alguma rebeldia fatalista nesta mulher que, acossada pela força das circunstâncias, tende a agir como um anjo da morte, tanto em relação aos pombos como aos próprios filhos.
Essa pulsão de morte acompanha a protagonista até ao final no que parece ser uma espiral de loucura, na qual ela entra e sai em passagens de cortar a respiração.

Virei-me de costas para a porta e descansei e havia muita escuridão dentro de mim. E virei-me outra vez de frente para a porta e com letras de imprensa escrevi Pombinha bem gravado e, sem saber como, comecei a andar e eram as paredes que me conduziam e não os passos e entrei na Praça de Diamante. (…) E com os braços a tapar a cara para evitar não sei bem o quê, soltei um grito infernal. Um grito que devia haver muitos anos que trazia dentro de mim e com aquele grito, tão comprido que lhe tinha custado a passar-me pela garganta, saiu-me da boca um bocadinho de coisa, quase nada, que parecia uma bola de saliva… e aquele bocadinho de coisa, quase nada, que tinha vivido tanto tempo fechado dentro de mim, era a minha mocidade que fugia com um grito que não sabia muito bem o que significava… desamparo?

[Milly Cohen · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://spotifycreators-web.app.link/...

qué adorado adorado libro
lo encuentro en una librería de Israel, cubierta de piso a techo de libros en hebreo
cuando pregunto si tienen algo en español, me sientan en el piso, destapan el mantel que cubre una pequeña mesa y ahí, debajo de la mesa, como resguardados de algo, o escondidos, me encuentro con que hay dos pilas de libros de segunda mano en español
casi todos los conocía, o al libro o a su autor, ninguno de mi interés
y de pronto...

es una ternura, la protagonista, Natalia, la amo, cómo mira el mundo, y lo relata y lo sufre y lo vive y casi desiste y aguanta y aguanta y narra cada emoción de una forma que suspiras, y describe una gota de lluvia como nadie lo ha hecho, y se describe a sí misma como un "corcho" y con un "corazón de nieve" y a sus hijos, ufff, a sus hijos

hay que buscar este tesoro, leerlo y aliviarse las penas con él
olvidarse de esta literatura barata que abunda y tratar de encontrar esta literatura poética que es escasa

adorado adorado libro...

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is very sad, but also very beautiful; and I think as other reviewers have noted, it is very much about the horrors, and privations of war from a woman's perspective. It was originally published in 1962 - ahead of the 60s Women's Movement; and then Virago republished in 2013, with an English translation by Paul Bush.

As I read I can certainly understand why Virago would add this to their list of translated fiction. It is most definitely a feminist voice with Natalia writing about her husband Joe who behaves with all the traditions of male privilege. Joe proposes they strip the wallpaper from the house he has found, but it is Natalia and Joe's friends, who spend hours and hours stripping the layers of paper and so it goes for all of Joe's projects - including the pigeons. It is Natalia who carries the heavy bags of bird seed to the top of the house; feeds the pigeons, cleans their water troughs and ensures the broody females are not disturbed in their nest boxes.

Our narrator Natalia tells in detail how the men cut a hole through the ceiling into the box-room so the pigeons can wander freely from the terrace through the windowless box room to the front balcony; they put a ladder so the pigeons can climb back through the trapdoor; but sometimes someone forgets to close the room door and Natalia finds pigeons all over her house - pigeon droppings everywhere. She doesn't complain. And when Joe stops with his carpentry job, because work is slow, it is Natalia who finds cleaning work to support her family - two small children she must lock up in the dining room - for their safety while she is out, cleaning for the high-class family who pay her two and a half pesetas for the four hours!

Many readers will find the style a little odd, but I think it is a deliberate choice by Rodoreda. Natalia is a working-class woman with minimal education. Her mother died when Natalia is young and her father takes little interest in her. She quickly falls for the charms of the handsome Joe and her only counsellor is Mrs Enriqueta - who later helps with the children. There are several whole chapters devoted to descriptions of houses new to Natalia - both being places of work. She writes in great detail, over-awed I think by their size and attractions - the sunken bath with a glass window directly above, the curved staircase to the first floor. It is only towards the end of the book, when Natalia returns to the impoverished neighbourhood of her first home, that we see how it truly is:

And I started walking through my old life until I was opposite our old house, under the bay window . . . The front door was shut. I looked up and saw Joe in the middle of a field near the sea, when I was pregnant with Anthony, and he was offering me a little blue flower and laughing at me. I wanted to go upstairs, back to my flat, to my terrace, to the scales and run my hand over them as I passed. I'd gone in through that door for years and years as Joe's wife and had left through it to marry Anthony trailing my kids behind me. The street was ugly, the building was ugly, and the paving was paving fit only for carts and horses. The street lamp was a long way off and the entrance was dingy.

That piece of writing reveals so much. Natalia or Pidgey as Joe had called her is a woman whose life is ordered by the wishes and desires of men - they have jobs, they own businesses or property - the second husband, Anthony who rescues them from starvation. And we see Natalia's lack of perspective. She remembers the beginning years with Joe full of love and excitement. She has forgotten his feckless ways; she can only think to return to this house of her youth - and when she arrives all she finds is the poverty and dirt of that earlier existence. Her first years of marriage to Anthony, the first time in her life when she doesn't have to work are years of mourning; to leave her children alone so she can work, the death of Joe and most of all her youth. Her daughter Rita marries a young and handsome man, Vincent with a prospering business; and Natalia sees the same pattern, but everything is so much better, easier for her daughter. Her daughter and son have education, with opportunities she never had.

This book is not easy to read. It seems simple - on the surface, the sentences are plain, there is little conversation, and we are mostly closed within Natalia's head, seeing everything through her eyes. The "simple" narrative, however is structurally very competent. Our author doesn't provide explanations. We have to understand that Rita's wedding causes great turmoil in Natalia's heart for all she has missed in life.

There is a "purple prose" chapter when Natalia reunites with her friend, Julie and we see the war through the eyes of two young women, one who is in love and Natalia who wishes how much she could have again the carefree life of a young girl: " . . . without really knowing why a ball of hot, raw pain came up from deep inside me and lodged in my throat".

This chapter, the whole book, this style of writing was frowned upon in the past, by the Male Establishment, but it is Virago who have firmly established that this writing; this perspective, is also worthy of reading. In Diamond Square is now a Classic. Here's a small sample which literary critics may have dared to describe as female writing!

And Mrs Enriqueta took the children off and Julie came and blurted out how she was really frightened they would kill her fiancé and if they did she'd throw herself into the sea because she loved him so much and they'd spent the night together but nothing had happened, and that was why she was so much in love because he was such a good lad and seemed to love her in a way that was quite out of the world. They'd spent the night together in a requisitioned mansion where he did his guard duty because he belonged to some party.

The run-on sentence, full of 'and, and, and' - gushing and emotional, but exactly as a young girl might speak. And then we hear Natalia's response:

. . . I told her I'd have given anything to enjoy a night of love like the one she'd enjoyed, but I had my work cut out cleaning offices and dusting and looking after my children and all the beautiful things in life like the wind and the creeping ivy and cypresses spearing the air and leaves blowing this way and that in a garden weren't meant for me. It was all over for me and I could only look forward to headaches and sadness.

That readers, is a profound invocation of the Cinderella dream - all the little girls dreaming of falling for the handsome prince etc. Then marriage - and your life is over.

Natalia reports back to the older women, her good friend, Mrs Enriqueta, and this is what she has to say about Julie's adventure.

When I told Mrs Enriqueta, she got very angry and said these revolutionary hussies were shameless, and how could anyone think of spending a night alone in a house where the owners might have been executed, let alone with a young man, and putting on a lady's dresses to lure the young man on, then stealing them into the bargain. She said one shouldn't do such things, not even for fun. And she said the kids had eaten lots of jam and . . .

Do you see how all those flat sentences reflect the mundane quality of a life full of work and looking after small children. Natalia loves her children, there is no doubt about that; but Rodoreda exquisitely high-lights those extremes in life. The fantasies of love and romance against the hardships of daily existence.

Let me remind all - Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend didn't burst onto the literary scenes until 2011.

Allow me to end with The Dress:

They found a wardrobe full of evening dresses and fur coats and she said she couldn't resist and tried on a backless black tulle dress that billowed like a cloud with yellow roses on the bust and skirt and she said he stared and didn't say anything and then they went into a long gallery full of sofas and cushions where they lay down, wrapped in each other's arms and listened to the wind scattering leaves and swaying branches and spent the night like that: half asleep, alone in the world, surrounded by all the dangers of war, and the moon came up and striped everything white through the slats of the shutters. It was their first and last night for everything and they fled before dawn and the whole garden was a tumult of branches and wind; the tendrils of ivy seemed to be alive, chasing them and reaching for their faces, and she took that dress because she thought it wasn't stealing if the owners were dead and put it in a box, and when she was missing him a lot, she put the dress on and heard the wind blowing in that garden again, like no other wind anywhere.

I have read two other books about the Spanish civil war - Laurie Lee's evocative descriptions in A Moment of War and Carmen Laforet's Nada - both are powerful, and well worth reading. The other book that came to mind as I was reading was Janet Frame's The Envoy from Mirror City: An Autobiography. It it the third and for me my favourite part of her autobiography. As I read In Diamond Square I remembered quite distinctly Frame's travels to Barcelona and then up into the Andorra Mountains where she is befriended by a Catalan family - who want her to marry a local boy. The writing has that same loss of agency that you can feel in Rodoreda's text. A woman buffeted by the trials of her existence, lost, unable to steer her own destiny, reliant upon the structures of a man providing security through marriage. The style is so similar - Frame writing in 1985, and just for those few chapters - that sense of being pushed and pulled with no choice of her own.

[Steve]

Mercè Rodoreda i Gurguí (1908-1983)

We went up a narrow stone staircase with very high steps and a ceiling over it and walls on each side and came out in a yard full of boys. Their heads were all shaved and covered with lumps and their faces were nothing but eyes.


One of the unfortunate many to have been born in Europe during the first third of the 20th century, the Catalonian Mercè Rodoreda started publishing early, but the Spanish Civil War intervened and when it ended in 1939 Rodoreda - a fervent supporter of the Republican cause - had to spend the Franco years in exile in France and Switzerland running from the Nazis. Franco forbade the public use of the many regional languages of Spain, so Catalan literature rarely saw the light of day; Rodoreda herself didn't publish for two decades. But the success of a collection of short stories (Vint-i-dos contes, 1958) encouraged her to write and publish La plaça del diamant (available in English translation under the title The Time of the Doves) in 1962, a popular and critical success translated meanwhile into thirty languages and taught in Catalonia's schools.

Unsurprisingly, La plaça del diamant is set during the Civil War but the means by which Rodoreda chose to approach the Spanish trauma is quite unexpected. Working class Barcelona before, during and after the Civil War is presented via the stream of consciousness of a young, naive and submissive woman, Natalia, who understands next to nothing of the world and is swept off her feet by a pushy, possessive, domineering jerk. A match made in Heaven.




Joan Miró, Nocturne - 1940


The quotidian, the trivial, the completely normal life of hard work, of bearing and raising young children - told with a certain apt poetic flair and with a plentiful supply of eccentric characters - gives way at the halfway point to the war as seen by poor Natalia. Her husband is off to the front, and each time he returns it is with less food and in a more bedraggled state. The utilities fail and there are rumors of mass executions by the Falangists. And then things get really bad.

The excruciating poetry of survival in extremis is followed by the quotidian, the trivial, the completely normal life of hard work, of children growing, marrying and having children of their own, but this life reverberates with the memory of that excruciating poetry...no, it is more than memory.

[Ratko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Трг дијаманта (или Дијамантски трг у српском преводу) најпознатији је роман каталонске/шпанске књижевнице Мерсе Рудуреде.

Живот у Бареслони тридесетих година ХХ века живописно је приказан кроз визуру једноставне, помало и наивне девојке Наталије, продавачице у посластичарници. Непромишљено остављање дечка којег је волела због летње авантуре, која ће прерасти у (мукотрпан) брак, донеће јој доста муке. Муж је посесиван, љубоморан, често је њихов однос на граници психичког и физичког насиља. Наталијин живот се углавном води у четири зида, са двоје деце и непрекидним домаћичким пословима, а све уз претварање стана у својеврсни голубарник због голубова које њен муж пасионирано гаји (занимљива је та симболика голубова и оно што се са њима напослетку догађа, а и Наталија је за мужа - Голубица).

Ускоро долази Шпански грађански рат и све оно што сваки рат са собом носи – смрт, патња, глад и немаштина. Ипак, овде се рат експлицитно практично ни не помиње, нема овде великих догађаја, фронтовских борби или филозофских и политичких трактата. Приказује се живот малог, обичног човека у тешким и смутним временима. Када јој муж погине на фронту, немаштина ће постати све неиздржљивија. Све то она подноси без непотребног роптања и самосажаљења. Наталијин језик је једноставан, сведен, догађаји се приказују онаквим каквим јесу, без улепшавања или бескрајног анализирања. Из сиромаштва и ратне немаштине, Наталија ће се избавити удајом за ситног трговца, но ипак, нешто ће се у њој променити и надаље то неће бити она иста особа...

Каталонска књижевност је практично непозната код нас, али се последњих година све више преводи, што је заиста сјајно. А, Мерсе Рудуреду свакако вреди читати.

[Hakan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marquez’in hayran olduğu anlaşılan Katalan yazar Rodoreda (1908-1983), sade bir üslupla, öncesi ve sonrasıyla, ana kahraman Natalia’nın ağzından İspanya iç savaşı döneminde Barcelona’daki yaşamdan etkileyici bir kesit sunmuş. Natalia’nın genç kızlığından başlayarak, önce kötü bir insan olmayan ancak bencilliğiyle öne çıkan kocasıyla ilişkileri, sonra da, iki küçük çocuğuyla savaşın getirdiği zorluklarla mücadelesi, hayata tutunma çabası anlatılmış. Kitabın özellikle ikinci yarısı, savaş patlak verdikten sonraki bölümü içinize işliyor. Ama kafanıza vurmadan. Rodoreda, söylemedikleriyle etki yaratabilen yazarlardan olduğunu göstermiş. Savaşın başlaması bile belli belirsiz yansıtılmış. Zaten savaş derken, cephe, kan, şan, şeref gibi konulara girilmemiş. Bunlar arkaplana itilirken, savaşın cephe gerisinde yarattığı yıkıcı etkilere odaklanılmış. Kitabın sonuna konulan Yazarın Sözü’nde belirtildiği gibi yalın ve insancıl bir roman Güvercinler Gittiğinde. Kıyıda köşede kalmış böylesine iyi bir romanı bastıkları için yayıncı Alef’e teşekkür edelim. Ama arka kapak yazılarında bu kadar abartıya kaçmaları pek şık değil. Çeviri de (Suna Kılıç) iyi.

[SilviaG · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5. La pluma de Mercè Rodoreda me ha resultado muy personal. Al principio, te cuesta introducirte en su prosa, en lo que te quiere decir. Tienes que dejarte llevar, y llega un momento en que algo hace "clic", y la historia te lleva como mecida por las olas.
La plaza del diamante es la historia de Natalia (de la "Palometa"), una mujer crecida en el barrio de Gracia de Barcelona de principios del siglo XX. Es una mujer de su época, que sigue la vida que la sociedad espera de ella: encontrar un novio, casarse, tener hijos, cuidar de su familia...... Pero la mala suerte hace que le toque vivir una guerra, unas circunstancias familiares difíciles y una situación económica complicada. Pero ella, con su tesón, su fuerza y su adaptación a los tiempos, consigue salir adelante, prosperar y dar un futuro a sus hijos.
Voy a seguir con la obra de esta escritora, a mi parecer, poco conocida.

[gatos_y_letras Maria Correas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Si alguien me pregunta qué libro despertó en mí el amor por la literatura, la respuesta es clara:
·
La Plaça del Diamant de Mercè Rodoreda.
·
Ya van cuatro lecturas de esta obra mayúscula de la literatura universal (sí, universal, no sólo catalana) y siempre descubro matices y sutilezas nuevas. Jamás defrauda. Jamás se hace tediosa. Siempre me aporta más y más.
·
La elegancia y sencillez de Rodoreda te llama, te agarra y no te suelta. Te remueve por dentro hasta sentir que caes en el abismo. Que te falta el aire y no puedes respirar.
·
Y es que si el mismísimo García Márquez aprendió a leer en catalán para apreciar esta obra en su idioma origial... sería por algo.

[[P] · Rating 3 out of 5]

You should never ignore the signs. In a relationship, I mean. It is easy to tell yourself that you are overreacting, or imagining things, that your doubts are unreasonable or that what you see or feel is insignificant relative to the positives, but you ought to trust your instincts [or your counter-instincts, if your instincts are telling you that things will work out ok with someone who is giving you the impression of being a douche]. The reality is that, contrary to what we are repeatedly told, no one ever ‘suddenly flips’, no one’s personality completely changes for the worse with a snap of the fingers; the clues to someone’s future behaviour or attitudes are always there, sometimes subtly disguised perhaps, but there nevertheless.

I was once talking to a friend of mine and she told me about a guy she had been seeing and how he would get aroused when she cried. I’m not making this up. He got an erection…when she cried. And as I listened to this story I was sure that the conclusion would be that she had freaked out and ended the relationship, but no. She thought it was ‘a bit odd’, sure, but it never crossed her mind to stop seeing the man who was made horny by her unhappiness. No doubt some of you will dismiss my example as a one-off, as an extreme or unusual incident that is not representative of anything, that is not applicable to people-in-general. You might say ‘no right thinking person would have given him the benefit of the doubt in those circumstances’, and yet I have heard hundreds of similar anecdotes and stories, often with unpleasant outcomes.

All of which is to say that as I was reading Mercè Rodoreda’s La plaça del diamant [or The Time of the Doves in the best English translation] I was struck by how depressingly familiar, how predictable, the trajectory of Natalia’s and Quimet’s relationship is. In the early stages, one’s impression of Natalia, who narrates the novel, is that she is kind and gentle, but green or naïve, perhaps even weak. The book opens with the young woman attending a party, dressed all in white. I do not think that this is a coincidence. White is, of course, traditionally worn by brides, and in this way the dress is a hint at her forthcoming marriage, but it also says something about her character, in that the colour is representative of virginity, of purity, even innocence. Likewise, Quimet’s name for Natalia, ‘Colometa’ or dove, which he bestows upon her almost immediately, is obviously significant. Doves are regarded as an emblem of peace and love, which is ironic because Quimet delivers little of either of these two things.

“I covered my face with my arms to protect myself from i don’t know what and i let out a hellish scream. A scream I must have been carrying around inside me for many years, so thick it was hard for it to get through my throat, and with that scream a little bit of nothing trickled out of my mouth, like a cockroach made of spit…and that bit of nothing that had lived so long trapped inside me was my youth and it flew off with a scream of I don’t know what…letting go?”

It is worth noting that Quimet is sweating heavily when Natalia first meets him at the party in the plaça del diamant, for this suggests manliness, and, as the sweating is caused by him having been dancing, sensuality too. Moreover, Natalia compares his eyes to those of a monkey, indicating a brutish animality. From the very beginning Quimet dictates to Natalia, informing her that one day she will be his wife. Even giving her a nickname is an attempt to establish ownership; it is a way of making her his. As the couple continue to spend time together these negative signs, or indications, as to his character become more pronounced. He jealously accuses Natalia of taking a walk with her ex-boyfriend [and she, who is innocent, almost comes to believe that she had done so]; he attempts to make her quit her job; he grabs her around the throat. He is, then, quite clearly a possessive, self-centred bully; he is, as we in Yorkshire might say, a wrong ‘un, and Natalia ought to get rid, because life with him will not be happy, but she, of course, does not.

As a result of all this, one cannot help but read The Time of the Doves with a heavy heart, with frustration and a sense of helplessness. It is like watching, from a safe distance, a car skid off the road and into a ditch. However, although on the surface this appears to be a novel about family and responsibility, poverty and suffering, it struck me that it is ultimately about power and control. And, yes, this refers to Quimet’s desire to dominate his wife, to have her, as he himself says, like everything he likes [which results in the ridiculous situation with the doves], but it relates to Natalia also, and her efforts to wrest control of her life back, from her spouse and from the world-at-large. For example, when Quimet’s dove-mania reaches its apex, and he has them moved into the family apartment, Natalia sabotages them, and tries to murder the chicks. Then, later, when the family are starving, she makes the decision to kill her two children and herself.


[La plaça del diamant in Barcelona]

It has been said that The Time of the Doves is a political novel, and, although the action takes place over thirty years, covering Franco’s ascension, the Spanish Civil War, and World War Two, and although all of these things are mentioned in the text, it may still strike one as a strange claim. That is because these events are kept in the background; they are never the primary focus. Natalia appears to do her best to not acknowledge politics, or at least not take a serious interest in it outside of the effect it has upon her day-to-day life; and she certainly does not choose a side, being, for example, neither obviously in favour of the republicans or the revolutionaries.

In order to understand the political nature of the story it is necessary to return to what I was discussing previously: power and control. First of all, to be an ordinary citizen in times of conflict or strife is to be at the mercy of a bunch of madmen who will decide the direction of your life, who are, specifically, fighting in order to have that level of control over you. Moreover, it is important to keep in mind that the novel is set in Barcelona, and that Natalia is Catalan, as was the author. Francisco Franco, who was Head of State from the 1930’s until his death in 1975, was a brutal dictator, and one of his policies was to make Spanish or Castilian the dominant language in Spain. In order to achieve this he made it the official language, and banned the public use of any others, including Catalan. I don’t want to speak for Catalans, but it seems reasonable to suggest that they would have felt as though they could not be themselves, as though they were being forced to be something other than who they were, as though they were being stripped of their identity, and this is similar to how Natalia is portrayed, as someone always constrained, but who is looking to be at ease, to be free like the doves.

[Argos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kitabın ilk bölümü roman kahramanı Natalia’nın sonradan kocası olacak Quimet ile tanışmasını, evliliklerini ve yaşamlarını anlatıyor. Bu bölümde hikaye yer yer büyük boşluklar barındırıyor, sanki yazarın acelesi varmışcasına nefes nefese yazılmış kıs kısa cümlelelerle tatsız bir anlatım var. Üç yıldızı zor hak eder.
İkinci bölüm ise İspanya İç Savaşı sırasındaki Barselona’yı anlatıyor, kocası ve çevresinin savaşta yaptıklarını ve savaşın yıkıcılığını resmediyor. Bu bölüm ilk bölümden tamamen farklı, kısa olmalarına rağmen derinlikli ve duyarlıklı cümleler, güzel tanımlamalar ve sürükleyici bir okuma ile kitabın sonuna ulaşılıyor. Beş yıldızlık bir bölüm bu.
Sonunda yazarın bir “sonsöz” bölümü var ki neden buna gerek dıymuş anlamadım. Adeta bir yorumcu,bir eleştirmen gibi kendi kitabını okuyuculara anlatıyor, “anlamadıysanız ben bunu demek istedim” der gibi. Kitabın beni etkilediğini söyleyemem ama Bask ve Katalan Edebiyatı’nın kredisi yüksek bende...

[Carlos Catena Cózar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hay libros que cuando los leo y voy subrayando, deseo que lo que estoy subrayando no se me olvide nunca y lo tenga siempre presente. Este libro está lleno de cosas así, y por eso me ha dado una pena enorme que se me acabara.

Tenía miedo de que fuera una lectura seca, sobria y exigente, y todo lo contrario. Es fresco, entretenido, dinamiquísimo. Además es una escritura muy interesante, que, parapetada tras una aparente sencillez, utiliza el lenguaje de una forma tan hábil como potente. ¡Lleva a muchos sitios este libro!

[Great-O-Khan · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Auf der Plaça del Diamant" von Mercè Rodoreda wird als "der berühmteste Roman der neueren katalanischen Literatur" beworben. In der Suhrkamp Taschenbuchausgabe wird der Roman aus dem Jahr 1962 darüber hinaus mit einem lobenden Nachwort von Gabriel García Márquez aus dem Jahr 1983 geadelt. Die hohen Erwartungen, die dadurch bei mir geweckt wurden, haben sich vollständig erfüllt. Es ist eine fesselnde Geschichte, die mich vor allem durch die Form des inneren Monologes, die Sprache und den Symbolismus begeistert hat. Durch den Blickwinkel und die Sprache ist man als Leser nah dran an der Protagonistin. Die Autorin verwendet viele starke Symbole (z.B. Tauben, die Farbe Weiß, Schnee, Affenaugen, Waage). Das wirkt aber nie aufdringlich sondern wie ein ganz natürlicher Bestandteil der Geschichte.

Erzählt wird die Geschichte von Natàlia, die selbst spricht. Sie lernt auf einem Fest auf der Plaça del Diamant den Tischler Quimet kennen. Sie trennt sich von ihrem Verlobten und heiratet den toxischen Quimtet. Er unterdrückt Natàlia. Das beginnt damit, dass er ihr ihren Namen nimmt und sie als Täubchen bezeichnet. Sie heißt jetzt nur noch Colometa. Neben Psychoterror wird Natàlia in einer bedrückenden Szene auch geschlagen. Sie lässt alles über sich ergehen. Die beiden bekommen zwei Kinder. Quimtet beginnt eine Taubenzucht. Schließlich geht er als Kämpfer in den Spanischen Bürgerkrieg. Das Elend wird aufgrund der Hungernot für Natàlia zunächst sogar noch größer. Doch letztendlich kommt es zur Wende. Natàlia bekommt ihren Namen und ein besseres Leben zurück.

"Auf der Plaça del Diamant" ist nach "Der Garten über dem Meer" der zweite Roman, den ich von Mercè Rodoreda gelesen habe. Wenn ich nicht gewusst hätte, dass beide Romane von derselben Autorin stammen, wäre ich nicht darauf gekommen. Im Gegensatz zum "Garten" ist "Plaça del Diamant" wild und ruppig. Ich mag beide Romane, aber mir gefällt der atemlose und direkte Ton von Natàlia viel besser als der ruhige Ton im "Garten".

[pilarentrelibros · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este es un libro que llevaba años queriendo leer y posponiendo. Tonta de mí, por no leerlo antes. La plaza del Diamante ha sido una auténtica joya literaria, de esas que demuestran cómo una novela puede ser al mismo tiempo sencilla y universal.
Mercè Rodoreda nos transporta al barrio barcelonés de Gràcia a través de la voz de Natàlia, una mujer que podría ser cualquiera, una protagonista corriente que acaba convirtiéndose en el hilo conductor de toda una época. Lo que más me ha fascinado es cómo la autora utiliza el flujo de conciencia: un recurso que en otras manos puede resultar denso o difícil, pero que aquí se adapta con naturalidad a la protagonista. Sus pensamientos fluyen con ternura y dureza a la vez, y nos permiten entrar de lleno en su mundo interior, compartir sus sufrimientos y preocupaciones y escuchar, por fin, la voz de quienes nunca la tuvieron.
Mientras muchas novelas sobre la Guerra Civil y la posguerra prefieren centrarse en bandos, política o grandes figuras históricas, Rodoreda hizo algo radicalmente distinto: puso en el centro a las mujeres y a los niños. Nos muestra la guerra desde la cocina vacía, desde la calle del barrio, desde la mirada de quienes no combatían pero sostenían la vida cada día. Esa perspectiva íntima y silenciosa es precisamente lo que hace que la novela sea tan poderosa. La Historia con mayúscula aparece, sí, pero siempre filtrada por la experiencia mínima y cotidiana de quienes la sufrieron en carne propia.
La lectura me ha dejado la sensación de haber acompañado a un personaje profundamente humano, contradictorio, vulnerable y resiliente. Con una prosa clara, poética y cargada de símbolos, Rodoreda convierte la vida pequeña de Natàlia en un espejo de toda una generación. Y al terminar el libro, siento que pocas veces la literatura ha sabido expresar con tanta delicadeza y fuerza el dolor, la supervivencia y la resiliencia.
🌟 Una novela que recomendaría sin dudar a cualquiera que busque una historia intensa, bella y conmovedora. Una obra que deja huella. Nunca olvidaré a Natàlia.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️(5/5)

[Karen·]

I was thinking how I had done everything I had ever done not knowing where I was or when, as if it were all planted and rooted in a time that had no memory...

Natalia, the first person narrator of this deeply disturbing novel, speaks these words very near the end, in a passage where at last she seems able to connect. Everything before is marked by a sense of dissociation, everything happens to her, without her active participation, often without her consent. She is a person without desires of her own.

My mother had never told me about men. She and my father spent years and years together arguing and a good few more not saying a word. They'd spend Sunday afternoons sitting in the dining room not saying a word. When my mother died, this life without words extended. And when my father remarried several years later I had nothing at home to latch on to. I lived a cat's life, running all over, tail up, tail down, time to eat, time to sleep, except a cat doesn't have to work to survive. We lived in a house without words and I found the things that came to me frightening because I never knew what sparked them off...

And the things that come to her are frightening: a husband who recognizes the blankness that he can fill.

... he said that if I wanted to be his wife I'd have to start liking every single thing he liked. He gave me a long sermon about men and women and their respective rights and when I managed to get a word in I asked, 'And what if I don't like something one little bit?'
'You've just got to, you don't have a clue.'

Then come pigeons; frightening, smelly birds that take over the living space, take over the children, like some alien life form invading this planet.

And then war.

The whole thing is nightmarish, which throws the one and only tender scene in the novel into such sharp relief. Natalia has survived, she has married again. A kind man, a gentle man. At last she dares to feel, and see, and know. She can connect with this husband, Anthony. She climbs into bed to warm him.

I pressed my cheek against his back, against his knobbly bones, and it was as if I could hear everything alive inside, that was also him: his heart, his lungs and his liver, all swimming in juices and blood. And I began to move my hand gingerly over his belly because he was my cripple and pressing my head against his back I thought how I didn't want him to die on me and I wanted to tell him everything I was thinking, that I thought more than I said, and thoughts you can't say, and said nothing and my feet were warming up and we went to sleep like that...

Happy...

[Els Book Hunters · Rating 4 out of 5]

A aquestes alçades, seria una mica absurd posar-me a fer aquí una sinopsi de 'La plaça del Diamant', però sí que vull compartir amb vosaltres les meves impressions i destacar-ne alguns factors.

- La Natàlia ens explica la seva història personal des de ben joveneta, però també ens explica la història d'una Barcelona, concretament la del barri de Gràcia, que viu la prosperitat de les classes treballadores, la decadència que va portar la guerra civil i la misèria que es vivia després. El retrat que fa és tan realista, tan versemblant, que és pràcticament una lliçó d'història social.

- L'evolució de la protagonista, des de la més tendra innocència, fins l'acceptació de la maduresa, passant per fases de desesperació, és meravellosa. En cap cas m'ha semblat beneita, ni fleuma, és una heroïna que topa amb un marit masclista, controlador i maltractador, una persona impulsiva i penques de qui n'està molt, però que pel lector actual no li fa ni un bri d'ombra a la Natàlia.

- Aquelles que diuen que Rodoreda és 'la jefa' tenen raó. Aquest llibre va aconseguir enganxar-me des de la primera pàgina, i això té molt de mèrit perquè narra una vida amb totes les seves fases, desgràcies i alegries, derrotes i petits èxits. Això s'ha de saber fer. L'estil, la capacitat descriptiva, el saber novel·lar temes que li preocupen. Destresa i talent desbordants. Un exemple només: com exposa diferents sensibilitats ideològiques respecte el conflicte bèl·lic.

- No llegia Rodoreda des de l'institut. Em van fer llegir 'Mirall trencat' i en tenia un record tediós, el vaig trobar molt avorrit. Llegida de gran l'autora m'ha semblat brillant i voldré llegir-la més. Això em porta a fer la pregunta que us deixo a baix. Però des d'ara mateix la meva percepció de Mercè Rodoreda canvia. Tot un tresor de les nostres lletres.

(SERGI)

[Virginia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Qué novela más triste y bella al mismo tiempo. La historia de Natalia empieza con una historia de amor y termina con otra, pero por el camino hay muerte, miseria, hambre y, sobre todo, falta de libertad y opresión. Lo que sufrieron las mujeres españolas a mediados del siglo XX en España está personificado en la figura de nuestra protagonista, llamada Colometa (paloma) por su marido, que la enjaula, la reprime y la hace más y más pequeñita sin ella darse apenas cuenta.

Pero nada más lejos de la realidad. Porque es una mujer que debe hacerse fuerte para sobrevivir. Y lo hace en la más estricta soledad, como madre de dos hijos a los que apenas puede mantener durante la guerra. Que sufre de hambre, miseria y una identidad "robada", apropiada por su marido. Pero que lucha por encontrarla, aún en el sometimiento.

Una historia que podría haber sido la de nuestras abuelas o bisabuelas y, quizás, en parte lo sea. Lo que más me ha gustado de es ver que, detrás de la fachada de mujer "que todo lo puede", está muchas veces una mujer que sufre la soledad del machismo tragándose sus sentimientos para sobrevivir y sacar adelante a sus hijos.

Y, respecto al estilo, aunque sigue una estructura tradicional con un lenguaje sencillo, ya que la narradora (Natalia) es de clase humilde y nos lo cuenta todo desde su punto de vista, la novela tiene fragmentos que te atrapan, que te hacen pensar, narrados de una forma bellísima. Fragmentos a los que es inevitable querer volver de vez en cuando.

Os dejo algunos de ellos:

«Y el muchacho dijo cuando estemos solos, y todo el mundo esté metido dentro de sus casas y las calles vacías, usted y yo bailaremos un vals de puntas en la plaza del Diamante... gira que gira».

«Bajé la cabeza porque no sabía qué decir y pensé que tenía que estrujar la tristeza, hacerla pequeña enseguida para que no me vuelva, para que no esté ni un minuto más corriéndome por las venas y rondándome. Hacer con ella una pelota, una bolita, un perdigón. Tragármela».

«Y sentí intensamente el paso del tiempo. No el tiempo de las nubes y del sol. El que rueda y rueda dentro del corazón y le hace rodar con él y nos va cambiando por dentro y por fuera y poco a poco nos va haciendo tal y como seremos el último día».

[Makis Dionis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Νοσταλγικό υφος, με μια εικόνα αθωοτητας να αιωρείται , στα ορια της αδιαφορίας το πρωτο μισό
Συγκλονιστικό το δευτερο , τα χρονια του εμφυλίου μεσα απο τα μάτια αυτών που μένουν πισω απο το μέτωπο