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San Camilo 1936
Book by Cela, Camilo Jose
Paperback
First published January 1, 1969
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468 people want to read
About the author
Camilo José Cela
354 books444 followersCamilo José Cela Trulock was a Spaniard writer from Galicia. Prolific author (as a novelist, journalist, essayist, literary magazine editor, lecturer ...), he was a member of the Royal Spanish Academy for 45 years and won, among others, the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature in 1987, the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1989 ("for a rich and intensive prose, which with restrained compassion forms a challenging vision of man's vulnerability.") and the Cervantes Prize in 1995.
In 1996 King Juan Carlos I granted him, for his literary merits, the title Marquis of Iria Flavia.
His son, Camilo José Cela Conde is also a writer.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camilo_J...
In 1996 King Juan Carlos I granted him, for his literary merits, the title Marquis of Iria Flavia.
His son, Camilo José Cela Conde is also a writer.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camilo_J...
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
January 18, 2009
This is pure speculation on my part, but I’d bet you a venti latte that Roberto Bolano – the golden boy all the smart kids are reading now – is a direct literary descendant of Camilo Jose Cela. It’s not just the circumstantial fact that they both wrote in Spanish. It’s that they both show a predisposition to big, polyphonic works in which an ungodly hubbub of competing narratives eventually resolves itself into, um, a slightly more orderly hubbub. Which, geez, makes them sound like the Sun Ra Arkestra or something.
If anything, Cela is the more experimental of the two. Thus, in San Camillo, 1936, he dispenses with paragraph breaks, quotation marks and other typographical frills. Then he pours out these immense, riverine sentences that are not so much grammatical units as rhythmical ones, and that switch without warning from one scene, speaker or register to another. Try to imagine an Iberian Thomas Bernhard with a bad case of coprolalia (and if that comparison makes any sense at all to you, you’re like the biggest geek ever).
Given that there are – oh, I don’t know – two hundred or so characters in the novel, things soon get rather murky: half the time you’re not sure who the hell’s talking and, once you figure that out, you have to flip to the list of characters to remind yourself that Cesareo Murciego, say, is a ‘monarchist, wearer of a green hat’ or that Chelo is a ‘whore who committed suicide drinking lye’. Oh, yeah. That whore.
And, believe me, it really is easy to lose track of all the whores. Cela introduces the reader to a vast number of them, peeking into seemingly every brothel and house of assignation in the Madrid of 1936, with detours into the lives of various johns and johns’ families. You can practically smell the stale semen wafting off the page (or is that just my library copy?) For all the sex, though, this has got to be one of the least erotic novels I’ve ever read, perhaps because Cela keeps insisting – fervently, Catholically insisting -- on the connection between sex and death (one prostitute, for instance -- repeatedly described as smelling like death and rancid bacon -- is the subject of the narrator’s homicidal fantasies and then, before he can act on them, gets run over by a subway train.)
What else do you need to know about San Camilo, aside from the by now obvious fact that it’s a light-hearted Wodehousian romp? Well, just as a literary curiosity, it employs that rarest of novelistic devices, a second-person narrator (who is somehow omniscient into the bargain); plus, it gives an unforgettable picture of the deep-seated, preternatural fucked-upedness of Spain on the eve of the Civil War.
So, is it better than Bolano? Could be, on technical points, though I get the sense that Cela doesn’t care for people with the same sympathetic interest that Bolano does. Oh, he’s interested in events, all right; he’s interested in sex and violence and ideas. But people? Not so much. I admit I’m just sentimental enough to rather like people – fictional people, anyway -- so I noticed the deficiency. Still, it’s a big, dirty, difficult novel that’s almost equal to the ambitions of its author, and more than equal to the balls or ovaries of any living novelist I can think of.
ADDENDUM
The day after posting this review, I came upon an interview with Cela, conducted not long after he won the Nobel, in which he says (and I'm quoting from memory here): 'Since I'm part Anglo-Saxon, I find it easier to feel sympathy for a dog than I do for the human race.'
Huh. So why didn't you write novels about dogs, shithead? I'd dock him a star just for that bit of nihilisic posturing if I thought it would do any good. But, after all, it is a fine novel, whatever reservations I may have about the author's, er, wholesomeness.
If anything, Cela is the more experimental of the two. Thus, in San Camillo, 1936, he dispenses with paragraph breaks, quotation marks and other typographical frills. Then he pours out these immense, riverine sentences that are not so much grammatical units as rhythmical ones, and that switch without warning from one scene, speaker or register to another. Try to imagine an Iberian Thomas Bernhard with a bad case of coprolalia (and if that comparison makes any sense at all to you, you’re like the biggest geek ever).
Given that there are – oh, I don’t know – two hundred or so characters in the novel, things soon get rather murky: half the time you’re not sure who the hell’s talking and, once you figure that out, you have to flip to the list of characters to remind yourself that Cesareo Murciego, say, is a ‘monarchist, wearer of a green hat’ or that Chelo is a ‘whore who committed suicide drinking lye’. Oh, yeah. That whore.
And, believe me, it really is easy to lose track of all the whores. Cela introduces the reader to a vast number of them, peeking into seemingly every brothel and house of assignation in the Madrid of 1936, with detours into the lives of various johns and johns’ families. You can practically smell the stale semen wafting off the page (or is that just my library copy?) For all the sex, though, this has got to be one of the least erotic novels I’ve ever read, perhaps because Cela keeps insisting – fervently, Catholically insisting -- on the connection between sex and death (one prostitute, for instance -- repeatedly described as smelling like death and rancid bacon -- is the subject of the narrator’s homicidal fantasies and then, before he can act on them, gets run over by a subway train.)
What else do you need to know about San Camilo, aside from the by now obvious fact that it’s a light-hearted Wodehousian romp? Well, just as a literary curiosity, it employs that rarest of novelistic devices, a second-person narrator (who is somehow omniscient into the bargain); plus, it gives an unforgettable picture of the deep-seated, preternatural fucked-upedness of Spain on the eve of the Civil War.
So, is it better than Bolano? Could be, on technical points, though I get the sense that Cela doesn’t care for people with the same sympathetic interest that Bolano does. Oh, he’s interested in events, all right; he’s interested in sex and violence and ideas. But people? Not so much. I admit I’m just sentimental enough to rather like people – fictional people, anyway -- so I noticed the deficiency. Still, it’s a big, dirty, difficult novel that’s almost equal to the ambitions of its author, and more than equal to the balls or ovaries of any living novelist I can think of.
ADDENDUM
The day after posting this review, I came upon an interview with Cela, conducted not long after he won the Nobel, in which he says (and I'm quoting from memory here): 'Since I'm part Anglo-Saxon, I find it easier to feel sympathy for a dog than I do for the human race.'
Huh. So why didn't you write novels about dogs, shithead? I'd dock him a star just for that bit of nihilisic posturing if I thought it would do any good. But, after all, it is a fine novel, whatever reservations I may have about the author's, er, wholesomeness.
December 10, 2016
Un libro maravilloso. De una aspereza inicial en el lenguaje que termina tornándose en adicción pura. Brutal y lleno de ternura al mismo tiempo. Un alegato contra la masa y en favor del individuo, confuso y lúcido a partes iguales.
Un libro de dimensión similar a La Colmena pero, allí donde en aquel todo es asepsia y rutina, aquí se torna conmoción y angustia.
Un libro de dimensión similar a La Colmena pero, allí donde en aquel todo es asepsia y rutina, aquí se torna conmoción y angustia.
August 12, 2025
San Camilo 1936 (publicada en la Octava de San Camilo de 1969), es la obra culmen del escritor Premio Nobel Camilo José Cela. Se trata de un proyecto que triplica (aunque se queda corta la expresión) el mundo creado en La colmena (1951). A través de un monólogo interior y con algunos pasajes en tercera persona, reflexiona sobre la existencia humana con un trasfondo social en los años previos y durante la Guerra Civil, con un sinfin de personajes y cuadros madrileños.
A mitad de la novela, se me ha hecho bastante repetitivo y pesado, pero ello no quita el gran valor literario que tiene. Aquí algunos fragmentos que más me han gustado:
A mitad de la novela, se me ha hecho bastante repetitivo y pesado, pero ello no quita el gran valor literario que tiene. Aquí algunos fragmentos que más me han gustado:
Los españoles somos muy nerviosos y cabezotas y queremos tener siempre razón aunque no la tengamos, y si no la tenemos peor aún porque entonces atropellamos al vecino y si nos dejan lo descalabramos [...]. Los ricos saben coger el tenedor muy finamente pero no leen un libro aunque los aspen, los de en medio cogen peor el tenedor y leen algún libro, lo que pasa es que no se enteran, y ls pobres comen con las manos, cuando comen, y no saben ni leer, ¡usted dirá!
Nadie se elige a sí mismo. Narciso no se eligió a sí mismo, se conformó con sí mismo y apoyó su amor en la conformidad, todos podeís convertiros en Narciso, la historia está llena de Narcisos, es cuestión de que os propongáis encontraros bellos y capaces de recibir amor, el amor más puro y desinteresado es el que se siente por sí mismo el hombre que se mira al espejo.
Este es un país de locos, aquí nadie se entera de nada y lo único que quieren es rugir y cargarse al vecino, asesinarle o darle por el culo o mearle encima, depende de que se sea más criminal o menos, en España las revoluciones terminan siempre en matanza, se mata al prójimo se le da por el culo se le mea encima se le escupe a la cara se le pone la zancadilla pero no se revolucionan las estructuras económicas y sociales, el pueblo español cuando se echa a la calle pidiendo pan y justicia tiene siempre razón, lo que pasa es que suele perderla a las pocas horas y al final acaba siempre interviniendo al guardia civil.
August 1, 2020
Tan casposo y reaccionario, incluso teniendo en cuenta el año en que se escribió, como el régimen al que sutilmente aplaude.
July 22, 2024
Este señor es un cabroncete, casi no hay por donde disculparlo, pero el monólogo del libro te atrapa fuerte.
November 30, 2022
Una versión de la inmortal "La colmena" con un ejercicio estilístico muy depurado. Toda la novela la recorre las vanguardias de principios del siglo pasado y el tremendismo, santo y seña de este autor.
September 18, 2014
This novel by Noble winning Cela was written in 1969 and relates the experiences of people in the prelude to and conclusion of the Spanish civil war. Doubtless, as in deed his name is mentioned a couple of times, his own experiences too.
The narrative is ‘standard’ experimental in that it is a stream of conscientiousness-come-stream of disjointed narrative. The style is typical Cela and much like Jesus versus Arizona, the Hive, Boxwood but still distinctly different. There are some remarkably long sentences. The book has a character list at the back of some 450 people (yes four hundred and fifty) and as you can guess only a very few manage to maintain a presence throughout the whole story. The narrator is ostensively a 20 year old student interacting with girlfriend and family but it soon becomes obvious that any attempt to track a real story, other than the civil war backdrop, is too difficult. Unlike, for example Faulkner who has impenetrable narratives but develops a conclusion, Camilo 1936 is a Monet of dots developing a feeling of the war through vignettes and re-occurring themes and similes. Some major aspects do reappear: the constant reference to whorehouses and prostitution, the clear division between the republican and the Flangist/monarchist/fascist groupings i.e. rebellion; mirrors reflecting and for some reason the fictional King Cyril of medieval England? Not familiar with the actual history of the civil war but I do gather there are many, many references to actual people, places and events (such as the Coup in Morocco and the Massacre at the Monataña barracks)
This novel really paints an intricate picture of love and life when all around is tittering on the abyss. It is a difficult style – you have to let the scenes flow over you – but at the end, like me, you’ll find a real sense of the times then. I really like Cela and indeed this is now the final major work (of seven) of his readily available in English that I’ve read. I’d still say “Jesus versus Arizona” is his absolute best.
Some quotes (part sentences):
It is easy to turn a young man into a murderer, it is also easy to make him into a good torturer, a good cop, all that’s needed is for someone stronger to smile at him at the right time as though leading him to feel himself mature (or historic or messianic, it’s all the same), it’s desirable to empty his head through the hole made by the little itch….
…Miguel Hernandez shaves his head and has very good coloring, healthy and like a tan, Maruja Mallo talks a lot and paint vignettes for the Revistta de Occidente, Ildefonso Manolo Gil accepts some of your poems for his magazine Literatura, Camilo Jose Cela writes poetry but up to now he hasn’t been able to publish it….
…all of them obedient and blind, night, the yearning for adventures, the messianic urge, reluctance to let anyone notice your fear, discipline as a mask for the most confused inclinations, and talking too much, these are the best stimuli for crime afterward when the shot is heard and a body falls it is too late for repentance and undoing, you have to keep going….
… some people believe in the efficacy of the rosary, the second glorious mystery of the Asencion of the son of God, some prefer the tangible recourse of a rifle, weapons, weapons, weapons for the revolution or the counterrevolution…
The narrative is ‘standard’ experimental in that it is a stream of conscientiousness-come-stream of disjointed narrative. The style is typical Cela and much like Jesus versus Arizona, the Hive, Boxwood but still distinctly different. There are some remarkably long sentences. The book has a character list at the back of some 450 people (yes four hundred and fifty) and as you can guess only a very few manage to maintain a presence throughout the whole story. The narrator is ostensively a 20 year old student interacting with girlfriend and family but it soon becomes obvious that any attempt to track a real story, other than the civil war backdrop, is too difficult. Unlike, for example Faulkner who has impenetrable narratives but develops a conclusion, Camilo 1936 is a Monet of dots developing a feeling of the war through vignettes and re-occurring themes and similes. Some major aspects do reappear: the constant reference to whorehouses and prostitution, the clear division between the republican and the Flangist/monarchist/fascist groupings i.e. rebellion; mirrors reflecting and for some reason the fictional King Cyril of medieval England? Not familiar with the actual history of the civil war but I do gather there are many, many references to actual people, places and events (such as the Coup in Morocco and the Massacre at the Monataña barracks)
This novel really paints an intricate picture of love and life when all around is tittering on the abyss. It is a difficult style – you have to let the scenes flow over you – but at the end, like me, you’ll find a real sense of the times then. I really like Cela and indeed this is now the final major work (of seven) of his readily available in English that I’ve read. I’d still say “Jesus versus Arizona” is his absolute best.
Some quotes (part sentences):
It is easy to turn a young man into a murderer, it is also easy to make him into a good torturer, a good cop, all that’s needed is for someone stronger to smile at him at the right time as though leading him to feel himself mature (or historic or messianic, it’s all the same), it’s desirable to empty his head through the hole made by the little itch….
…Miguel Hernandez shaves his head and has very good coloring, healthy and like a tan, Maruja Mallo talks a lot and paint vignettes for the Revistta de Occidente, Ildefonso Manolo Gil accepts some of your poems for his magazine Literatura, Camilo Jose Cela writes poetry but up to now he hasn’t been able to publish it….
…all of them obedient and blind, night, the yearning for adventures, the messianic urge, reluctance to let anyone notice your fear, discipline as a mask for the most confused inclinations, and talking too much, these are the best stimuli for crime afterward when the shot is heard and a body falls it is too late for repentance and undoing, you have to keep going….
… some people believe in the efficacy of the rosary, the second glorious mystery of the Asencion of the son of God, some prefer the tangible recourse of a rifle, weapons, weapons, weapons for the revolution or the counterrevolution…
July 27, 2025
An extremely complex cool living breathing tragicomic work of fiction. Surreal and autobiographical stream of consciousness. Plenty structural to play with and great lines by the handful. "The dead lose interest in almost everything, the living should take example, who are often killed by curiosity." Excellent. And feels like it leads almost right into the rhythm and place of The Hive.
March 27, 2021
Wow! Nobel prize-winning! Inspiring, even to the point of suggesting to me I brush up my Spanish sufficiently to read it in Spanish because this translation into English is just too difficult. Even though the translator prefaces the work with a 21 page declaration of how well he has done.
April 18, 2016
Cela's masterpiece (at least out of the few available in English translation). A complex but stunning evocation of the chaos that engulfed Madrid with the onset of the Spanish Civil War.
June 29, 2016
Denso, difícil, vanguardista, surrealista, magnífico...
April 22, 2019
Cela won the Nobel Prize for literature and I can see that this book is a tour de force carefully crafted. But, it was too difficult for me to enjoy reading.
May 1, 2020
Mästerverk. Enastående trovärdigt Stream of Consciuosness.
November 27, 2021
Muchísimo humor.
January 4, 2026
Creo que es la obra culmen de Cela y creo que la manera tan ingeniosa de usar un solo párrafo por capítulo realmente te da la sensación de estar en el acontecimiento histórico que trata el libro y transmite muy bien esa angustia o pesadez, por así decirlo, y realmente te engancha a seguir leyendo porque no quieres parar en el siguiente capítul, no se siente bien, es como si fueran 300 y pico de páginas seguidas del tirón.
Aunque también hace que el libro sea realmente confuso de leer y es verdad que en algún momento de la lectura me ha empezado a cansar pero creo que esa era la idea del autor y por eso mola, aunque no voy a ponerle 5 estrellas por esto mismo, y la verdad es esto me deja una sensación de que realmente es un poco injusto.
Las reflexiones que plantea el libro son maravillosas, esa exploración interior es tan interesante, igual que la forma de introducir y comentar a los personajes me gusta mucho y que refleja tan bien a la época y que se asemeja mucho a su otra obra "La colmena".
Aunque también hace que el libro sea realmente confuso de leer y es verdad que en algún momento de la lectura me ha empezado a cansar pero creo que esa era la idea del autor y por eso mola, aunque no voy a ponerle 5 estrellas por esto mismo, y la verdad es esto me deja una sensación de que realmente es un poco injusto.
Las reflexiones que plantea el libro son maravillosas, esa exploración interior es tan interesante, igual que la forma de introducir y comentar a los personajes me gusta mucho y que refleja tan bien a la época y que se asemeja mucho a su otra obra "La colmena".
July 18, 2022
Libro para leer sin prejuicios, con la mente abierta, centrándose en la concatenación de desgracias de seres humanos que conviven en una fecha y lugar desgraciada. No hay párrafos, escritura directa desde el pensamiento a la tinta, uniendo ideas reflexiones y ocurrencias.
March 23, 2023
Obra maestra
September 4, 2024
Me recordó a Pasto Verde de Parménides García Saldaña. Dicho como algo positivo.
November 5, 2024
Obra maestra escrita en un particular estilo continuo. Durante tres días se describe la situación prebélica en el Madrid de 1936
September 2, 2025
Cierras este libro como Neo cuelga el teléfono al final de Matrix, antes de echarse a volar.
January 12, 2026
Me gustó mucho su punto de vista con los acontecimientos del principio de la guerra civil española, anécdota con protagonistas, charlas filósoficas y su punto de vista de la época.
August 20, 2014
No recuerdo nada de su contenido porque hace mas de 40 años que la he leído.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews