The Catalan

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Catalan is a novel by Noah Gordon , originally published as The Bodega in 2007 .

The young winemaker Josep Àlvarez turns his father's property into a bodega and wins the love of Maria del Mar Orriols.

time and place

The action takes place from 1870 to 1877 in Languedoc and the fictional Catalan village of Santa Eulalia near Sitges . The fictional Pedregós River flows past the village.

structure

In the five-part novel, the narrated time is divided into two sections. In the earlier of these two sections, it runs from April 3, 1870 to around January 1871, the prehistory is brought into the novel. This prehistory is offered as a flashback in the second and third parts. The actual story is told in the remaining three parts, which run from February 22, 1874 to 1877.

In the novel, the narrator - the title suggests it - always stays close to the Catalan, the young Josep.

action

Part 1 - February 1874

When Josep receives news of his father's death, he leaves the exile in Languedoc and returns home on foot across the Pyrenees on secret paths to his village of Santa Eulalia. On the run from Peña and his captors, Josep went into hiding in 1870 near Roquebrun in the winery of Monsieur Léon Mendès. Now, after a four-year absence, Josep is daring a new beginning in Santa Eulalia. The homecomer does not stand there all alone. Nivaldo Machado, his father's friend, runs a grocery store in the neighborhood. Nivaldo helps with words and deeds. Josep's older brother Donat, who as the firstborn is the legal owner of the vineyard of the long-established farming family Àlvarez, has put the property up for sale and lives with his possessive wife Rosa as a factory worker in Barcelona . The destitute Josep acquires the inherited property from his brother and undertakes to pay off the contractually agreed purchase price. That turns out to be an almost unbearable burden, especially since Rosa sends her relatives, the lawyer Carles Sert, to squeeze Josep out using every trick in the book. But Josep doesn't give up. Quite the contrary - he lets his neighbor Quim Torras talk him into his rotting vineyard. Quim, free of this concern, looks for relief. Josep, burdened with additional debts due to the new purchase agreement, becomes Maria del Mar's neighbor via his second vineyard. The young woman, mother of the handicapped little boy Francesc, tends her vineyard in tireless, hard physical labor.

Part 2 and 3 - April 1870

Flashback: Josep and eight other young boys from different farming families in the village of Santa Eulalia are not firstborn. So they cannot inherit the farm of the respective father and look for work. Then Peña, a Carlist sergent who wants to prepare the boys for military service, comes in , just right. Peña chose the village of Santa Eulalia because he knew the patriotically minded veteran Nivaldo from the past. After military training and targeting exercises near Santa Eulalia, the prospective soldiers and Peña leave their home village for Madrid. Before being accepted into a regiment, the boys still have to pass a practical test. A traitor is said to be surrounded and arrested. Peña duped the farm boys. Riflemen appear immediately after the encirclement and wound the "traitor". This is none other than Juan Prim y Prats , the President of the Cortes . Prime Minister Prim dies as a result of the attack. Carlists murder those who know it. Josep has to watch as his comrade Jordi Arnau, the father of little Francesc, is murdered. Josep is the only one of the nine boys to survive. He manages to flee abroad.

4th and 5th part - October 1874 to 1877

The story continues: Josep is not only accompanied by friends on his way from farmer to businessman. Tonio Casals, the good-for- nothing son of the Alcaden , envies Josep the desirable Maria del Mar. The Alcalde seeks Josep after an argument between the two fighting cocks and wants to excuse his son. Tonio leaves the village, but remains as an official in the Las Granjas district prison in the region. Josep does a lot for the community of Santa Eulalia. He repairs z. B. the church door and procures the right pump for the village well from Barcelona during a dry period for the community. So it is not surprising that Josep becomes a member of the three-person parish council. As chairman of this council, the Alcade knows how to win the laurels for Josep’s charitable work.

Josep is called to Nivaldo. The frail old man killed the wiry Peña. Nivaldo had suspected that Peña had suddenly reappeared all alone after years, not only to get rid of Josep, but also him, the old confidante. Nivaldo persuades Josep to bury the dead man in secret. It turns out that the patriot Nivaldo had brought the military Peña into the village and recommended him to the nine lads. Peña, actually Coronel Julian Carmora, had meanwhile risen to the position of general candidate in the War Department. Josep cannot forgive Nivaldo for this “recommendation”, which has now expired. Eight comrades from the village died. He leaves the old man in anger. Josep marries Maria del Mar.

While Josep's father only supplied inferior grapes for the vinegar factory, the couple grows high-quality wine on their three vineyards. Sales are slowly taking off. When Nivaldo fell seriously ill, he made Donat and Rosa the new shop owners. Nivaldo is on his deathbed. Josep wants to forgive him, but is too late. Maria del Mar wants to reconcile Josep with Rosa. Josep is stubborn at first, but then gives in. Tonio Casals, who wants to join the Guardia Civil , leads two gendarmes into the village. The search for Peña's corpse is unsuccessful. The happy ending: Josep becomes a businessman. Léon Mendès buys the wine supplies from him on favorable terms. Both Maria del Mar and Rosa are expecting children.

Quote

"Blessed is he who has found his job."

logic

  • The title Past and Present by Carlyle is - in terms of the order - incorrectly translated.

Self-testimony

  • Josep is "a good-natured, righteous young man who gets caught between the millstones of a deadly political intrigue" .

German editions

source
  • Noah Gordon: The Catalan. Novel. From the American English by Klaus Berr. Exclusive book club edition by RM Buch und Medien Vertrieb GmbH and the affiliated book clubs, 496 pages, book no. 093776 (Karl Blessing Verlag Munich 2008)
expenditure
  • Noah Gordon: The Catalan. Translated from the English by Klaus Berr. Karl Blessing Verlag, Munich, November 5, 2008. 496 pages, ISBN 978-3-89667-367-1

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Source, p. 496
  2. ↑ Source, p. 389, 5. Zvo
  3. ↑ Thomas Carlyle , Past and Present , quoted in the source, pp. 7, 10. Zvo
  4. ^ Noah Gordon in the preface to the source, pp. 5, 11. Zvo
  5. ↑ ISBN not available