[This
article was first published in Catalonia
Today magazine, January 2015.]
"Look,
I'll tell you how things really are," says one of the author's
characters (speaking in 1936) "whatever they say, this is not a
poor country. This is a country of poor people."
And it is the elements of
social class, poverty and inherited wealth that I most enjoyed in
this book, and not just those about Spain.
The
Englishman of the title is Anthony Whitelands, a middle-class,
Cambridge-educated art specialist who meets a seemingly generous and
affable police officer on a train to the capital.
Before
long though, we learn that he is being closely watched.
Whitelands
has arrived in an atmosphere of public demonstrations, protest
marches, strikes, beatings and sometimes fatal street violence
between the forces of the right and the left.
The
victims are largely the young and politically undeveloped but
Whitelands is at first ignorant of all the friction and tension that
was gripping so much of the country.
Increasingly, the
protagonist is caught up in a number of situations outside his
control and he is also snared by his own appetites: both carnal and
his desire for greater recognition and fortune in "the narrow
world of academia, with its tedious research and sordid rivalries."
He
sees himself as just a small fish but is convinced that a newly
discovered (privately-owned) Velazquez painting could be exactly what
he his hoping for.
Whitelands
goes on to find himself "in somewhat of a pickle," as his
compatriots might say - everyone in the big, small town of Madrid
wanting a piece of him for their own particular reasons.
He
appears in many senses to be an "English gentlemen" but he
eats like someone else. I find it hard to accept that he would sit
down to a breakfast of "squid and beer."
Amongst
other things, what really comes through in the pages of this jaunty,
lively tale is Mendoza's sensitive and intuitive reading of art.
This
book reads like a longish short story though it has a pace that is
clearly Mediterranean. After ninety pages very little has happened.
It's
a kind of slow burner with the characters regularly spouting extended
"speechifying" monologues or digressing into unconnected
anecdotes.
The
reader gets a good feel for their personalities, facial expressions
and other mannerisms and this all gives the narrative the feel of
something written almost in the period in which it is said. That's
not something easily achieved by a writer sitting at a computer in
the 21st century.
The author is also astute
enough to point out the existence of masons in Azaña's government of
the time and, with an eye for detail, draws what he must think is a
distinction between the British upper class with their apparent love
of ceremony and the Spanish upper class who opt for simpler, less
formal social situations and meals.
One
of his more observant characters knows the necessity of explaining to
the Englishman that "it's not just money that the proletariat
wants. They want justice and respect."
In
fact Mendoza drops comments on the hesitancy, contradictory
decision-making and general malfunctioning of public administration
that surely also apply to many companies and to the excesses of
today.
"The
Spaniard's keep wages low," says a English diplomat "while
at the same time making social hierarchies plain. Workers earn half
what they should and have to thank their employers...That way, their
social position is reinforced."
On
the other hand, one of the Spanish toffs makes the absurd statement
that England has an "egalitarian society based on social
relations that satisfy everyone," as if the trade union members
and socialists in Britain did not exist.
Ultimately,
the author entertains and occasionally informs while giving a
relatively favourable portrait of the Spanish "nobility" of
the day. He provides an explanation for their inaction on social
progress that lies somewhere between a reason and a weak excuse.
