The Family of Pascual Duarte

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The fictional narrator that starts the story is there just to introduce it - a story that he had found and is just publishing. The real story is the first person narrative of Pascual Duarte - who had decided to write his story after he had been condemned to die for a murder.

Pascual is one of the poor, almost illiterate boys which had lived in the small villages in Spain at the beginning of the 20th century. Growing up without the love of his parents (even if they were present) and seeing violence as the way to succeed in life, he becomes short tempered enough to be pulling a knife on anyone that he does not like. And if for the first half of the story you almost feel sorry for him and for what is happening to him, his constant show more disavowing of his own actions and blaming them to the Fate or whatever you want to call it start nagging at you. And then he kills for the first time.

There is a lot of people that will never take responsibility for their own action - that believe that it is fate that they got in a trouble. For these people anything bad happening to them is not their fault and they apologize any bad decision with this. Pascual is one of these people - to the point where he blames his early release from prison for his further crimes.

The novel's narrative finishes before the Spanish war erupts. Pascual's story does not - we know that he kills again during the war - but we never get any details. The fact that this last murder is so different from the rest of them is an anomaly that leaves the reader thinking about what might have happened - was it Pascual deciding to throw himself on one side of the war or was him, remembering meeting the killed earlier in life and deciding that if he cannot have anything, he can at least do that.

It's a depressing story - all too familiar, all too contemporary, even if it was originally written in 1942. Violence begets violence and following one's impulses can lead to a ruin. Even if one blames the Fate for everything. And the fact that the author manages to tell such a common story in a way that keeps you reading is only showing his talent. show less

Me sorprendió esta novela, en el sentido de que nunca pensé leer, de un autor galardonado con el Nobel en el siglo XX, una novela que me disgustara así. Poniendo de lado lo que dijo Bolaño sobre sus cuentos (que, dolorosamente, tengo que confirmar), la novela del nobel gallego me pareció inverosímil en su lenguaje y una burda imitación de naturalismo en su ejecución. Aunque es verdad que hay capítulos de una belleza incuestionable, estos no la definieron, a mi gusto, como una obra de tanta relevancia como muchos críticos españoles dicen.
Saber que su autor fue falangista y censor del régimen dictatorial español tampoco ayuda.

Ha il grande merito di dare un'immagine della Spagna virata al verde livido, in cui il sangue è nero e viscoso...

The protagonist is the type of a vigorous man, who considers violence being the only way to step forward. There is a lot of brutality in this book. Reading it, one does not wonder about the atrocities of the Spanish civil war.

De memoires van een ter dood veroordeelde primitieve boer die, als reactie op de boosaardigheid van zijn omgeving, verscheidene moorden pleegde terwijl hij eigenlijk naar liefde en geborgenheid hunkerde.

Pascual is the kind of guy who has no power over his own destination, just like many of us he lost the trace of his life and give it up as easily as he can.