Uncertain Glory
by Joan Sales
On This Page
Description
"A classic Catalan work about love, family, and class during the Spanish Civil war. Spain, 1937. Posted to the Aragonese front, Lieutenant Lluís de Brocà i de Ruscalleda eschews the drunken antics of his comrades and goes in search of intrigue. But the lady of Castel de Olivo--a beautiful widow with a shadowy past--puts a high price on her affections. In Barcelona, Trini Milmany struggles to raise Lluís's son on her own, letters from the front her only solace. With bombs falling as fast show more as the city's morale, she leaves to spend the winter with Lluís's brigade on a quiet section of the line. But even on "dead" fronts the guns do not stay silent for long. Trini's decision will put her family's fate in the hands of Juli Soleràs, an old friend and a traitor of easy conscience, a philosopher-cynic locked in an eternal struggle with himself. Joan Sales, a combatant in the Spanish Civil War, distilled his experiences into a timeless story of thwarted love, lost youth, and crushed illusions. A thrilling epic that has drawn comparison with the work of Dostoyevsky and Stendhal, Uncertain Glory is a homegrown counterpart to classics such as Homage to Catalonia and For Whom the Bell Tolls"-- show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
Member Reviews
I really liked this novel of the Spanish Civil War. The politics of that war always confuse me and this shows that the participants were pretty confused too. Sales was involved in the war.
AG-4
Oct 27, 2020Catalan
Me abre la puerta a las relecturas: Xavier Benguerel (El testament), Villalonga (Bearn) y Rodoreda (Mirall trencat). Placer anticipado sólo de pensarlo.
"És curiós com unes discussions tan interminables i tan idiotes podien apassionar-nos en aquell temps; ens passàvem les hores en aquell antre segurs que allí forjàvem el futur del món i que l'univers trontollava suspés del que decidíssim. Que n'érem d'enzes. Qui sap si el que hi tocava més, a la seva manera, era el xarcuter extremeny, que escoltava bocabadat aquelles coses per a ell imcomprensibles i al capdavall, movent el cap, murmurava: "Mejor haríais ingresando todos en el partido radical"."
"És curiós com unes discussions tan interminables i tan idiotes podien apassionar-nos en aquell temps; ens passàvem les hores en aquell antre segurs que allí forjàvem el futur del món i que l'univers trontollava suspés del que decidíssim. Que n'érem d'enzes. Qui sap si el que hi tocava més, a la seva manera, era el xarcuter extremeny, que escoltava bocabadat aquelles coses per a ell imcomprensibles i al capdavall, movent el cap, murmurava: "Mejor haríais ingresando todos en el partido radical"."
Oct 19, 2013Spanish
La història de la guerra civil en tres visions diferents
Jun 8, 2018Catalan
BB-5
Sep 15, 2020Catalan
Ratings
Members
- Recently Added By
Lists
Books Read in 2020
4,379 works; 124 members
Kirkus Starred Fiction Reviews of Books Published in 2017
412 works; 7 members
Author Information
21+ Works 565 Members
Some Editions
Awards and Honors
Awards
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Work Relationships
Is contained in
Contains
Has the adaptation
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Uncertain Glory
- Original title
- Incerta glòria: novel·la
- Original publication date
- 1956
- People/Characters*
- Lluís de Brocà i de Ruscalleda; Juli Soleràs; Cruells; Trini Milmany; Llibert Milmany; Rodolf Lamoneda i Gallifa (show all 9); capità Picó; doctor Puig; comandant Rosich
- Epigraph
- Above all, one must adopt a doctor's precaution and never check a pulse before one is sure it is the patient's pulse and not one's own...
Virgilius Haufniensis (Copenhagen 1844) - First words
- "The uncertain glory of an April day..." (A Confession by the Author)
At the end of 1956, when I finally managed to fulfill my dream and leave the suffocating political, literary and moral atmosphere in France's Spain to find refuge in the freedom of Paris, my individual act of rupture soon too... (show all)k a more ambitious, less selfish turn. (Truth against the red lie and the black)
Joan Sales drew closely on his own experience of fighting in the Spanish Civil War when he began writing Uncertain Glory in 1948 in Barcelona, after nine years of exile in Haiti. (Translator's Note)
I am in excellent health, but as full of grumbles as a sickly child. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Because Thy Glory is our end. (A Confession by the Author)
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)The present renaissance of narrative in the language forged by Ramon Llull would have been impossible without them. (Truth against the red lie and the black)
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Nuria Sales, for providing valuable clarification of certain referenced and pointing out distant resonances. (Translator's Note)
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)It put up almost no resistance. - Original language
- Catalan
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, General Fiction, Historical Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 808.83 — Literature & rhetoric Literature, rhetoric & criticism Rhetoric and collections of literary texts from more than two literatures Literature Collections Collections of fiction
- LCC
- PC3941 .S336 .I513 — Language and Literature Romanic languages Romance Catalan
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 279
- Popularity
- 115,992
- Reviews
- 5
- Rating
- (3.98)
- Languages
- 5 — Catalan, Dutch, English, German, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 21
- ASINs
- 5
