To The Last Page

Written in 1973, Los soldados de Cataluña was published in 1975 under the title La verdad sobre el caso Savolta on the recommendation of the Spanish censor. It was published then in the same year as the death of Franco, and although it doesn't directly address the events leading up to the dictatorship, there is an entwined history in how Eduardo Mendoza covers the social and political climate at the turn of the century. Mendoza's methods and style are unconventional, as capable of writing satirical comedies and SF adventures as political and social issues, but even in that wide range of writing, even while writing comedy, he remains for me a great chronicler of the history and people of Barcelona and the enormous upheavals it has experienced over the course of the 20th century. His first fictional novel sets the scene of that intriguing past at the beginning of the 20th century. On the 1st January 1918, businessman Enrique Savolta y Gallibos is assassinated during a high soci...

El rey recibe is the first of a trilogy where Mendoza blurs the line between autobiography and real life, playing it for humour. The protagonist is Rufo Batalla, young man starting out on a career in journalism in 1968 who gets his unexpected break covering a royal wedding for a small Catalan newspaper's society column. During the Franco years, the public's interest in royalty remains undiminished, with the coverage of Grace Kelly still memorable for its impact, not least in popular gossip magazines. This royal wedding doesn't seem quite as promising but, inevitably with one of Mendoza's protagonists, complications ensue as he runs into any number of eccentric characters. Batalla doesn't get too far in his plans and hopes for furthering his career. After an encounter with a young woman the day before, he ends up being late for the wedding at a hotel in Mallorca, and when he does turn up he is bundled off to a room at the hotel by the minders. He might have missed t...

Eduardo Mendoza never disappoints with the comic possibilities of his protagonist of El misterio de la cripta embrujada , El laberinto de las acietunas and La aventura del tocador de señoras and with the peculiarities of Barcelona and its inhabitants, as it tries to keep up in its own unique way with modernisation, globalisation and, in the case of El enredo de la bolsa y la vida , with the economic downturn and international terrorism.  The unnamed and unfortunate former asylum inmate is trying to keep to the straight and narrow, but it's proving difficult during the global economic crisis. His ladies' hairdressing business in a less than salubrious part of Barcelona isn't doing as much business as the Chinese variety market across the street and the bank are taking all his money. A former fellow inmate and handsome Tony Curtis lookalike Rómulo el Guapo has a proposition for him but despite his current predicament, he knows enough about his friend's previous escapade...

Eduardo Mendoza's regular novels can seem quite mundane in comparison to the delights of his witty and entertaining comedies, but there is always something compelling in his characters lives and their struggles with personal dilemmas that holds the reader's attention. Set in Mendoza's hometown of Barcelona, a chance meeting with an old school friend Fontán gives Mauricio the chance to enliven his rather routine solitary life as a dentist by becoming involved in local politics. When his half-hearted political career as a candidate for the socialist party doesn't take off, he goes back and puts his efforts into improving his dentistry career. His encounter with Fontán and his brief flirtation with local politics however bring two women into his life - Clotilde, a young woman who lives with her parents and is underemployed and undervalued at a lawyer's office, and la Porritos an unemployed woman living in deprived conditions who he meets playing guitar and singing at p...