Antonio Muñoz Molina: A Manuscript Of Ashes

Colin Fleming reviews Antonio Muñoz Molina's A Manuscript Of Ashes

Riddle, sham, requiem, detective story - Antonio Muñoz Molina's novel "A Manuscript of Ashes" is one nasty revenge tale, bound to trip up readers as mercilessly as it flogs its characters. Simply, this is an exercise in psychological horror, a study of how far one man and his accomplice will go to crush the literary ideals of another - for sport, spite and inspiration.

The story begins in a darkened bedroom, in Mágina, Spain, where an unknown first-person narrator commands his lover, Inés, to leave. We have no idea who this narrator is, nor will we until 300 pages later, after he has made his horrible revelation plain to Minaya, a young man who has come to Mágina to escape the police for his role in the Madrid student protests of 1969. In Mágina, he boards with his uncle, Manuel, under the pretense of writing a dissertation about Jacinto Solana, an agitprop poet who had lived in the house and was later assassinated. Both Solana and Manuel were in love with Mariana, a temptress who married Manuel and was ostensibly killed on her wedding night by a stray bullet from a rooftop exchange of gunfire. Determined to find Solana's lost novel, Minaya instead enters into the role of civilian detective, convincing himself that either his literary hero or his uncle was a murderer.

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Antonio Muñoz Molina: A Manuscript of Ashes

Tim Rutten reviews Antonio Muñoz Molina's A Manuscript of Ashes.

"A Manuscript of Ashes" was Muñoz Molina's first novel, published in Spain in 1986, although he reportedly began it shortly after the death of Franco, more than a decade earlier. It's now clear that his preoccupation with the civil war and its aftermath -- a heritage of violence and betrayal, of loyalty and accommodation -- has been with Muñoz Molina from the start. So too a fearless willingness to let the influences of popular culture work their way through his novels -- a characteristic of so much of Spain's superb contemporary literary fiction. (It's interesting that the best Spanish writers avoid the obvious temptations to respond to history as their Latin American colleagues have with the cinematic impulse into magic realism. One suspects the Spaniards' deep and authentic sense of tragedy forecloses that option.)

Take this passage from Muñoz Molina's novel "Winter in Lisbon," which borrows fruitfully from film noir and jazz: "On the Gran Vía, by the cold gleaming windows of the Telefónica building, he went over to a kiosk to buy cigarettes. As I watched him walk back, tall, swaying, hands sunk in the pockets of his large open overcoat with the collar turned up, I realized that he had that strong air of character one always finds in people who carry a past, as in those who carry a gun. These aren't vague literary comparisons: he did have a past, and he kept a gun."

On one level, "A Manuscript of Ashes" follows the conventions of a detective story, though less those of the hard-boiled Raymond Chandler -- whom Muñoz Molina admires -- than the older, more ruminative and atmospheric Wilkie Collins. The novel's callow protagonist is Minaya, a university student arrested for political activism in the waning years of Franco's sclerotic dictatorship. He is released from jail through family connections after a rough interrogation and finds himself beset by an emotional condition common to those who believe they have no choice but to accommodate themselves to tyranny: "An unpleasant sensation of impotence and helpless solitude . . . forever denied the right to salvation, rebelliousness, or pride."

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Spanish Literature

Antonio Muñoz Molina: A Manuscript of Ashes

Adam Kirsch reviews Antonio Muñoz Molina's A Manuscript of Ashes.

Five years ago, Antonio Muñoz Molina's novel "Sepharad" was published in English to rapturous reviews. Not since W.G. Sebald's "The Emigrants" had a new European writer so powerfully seized the imagination of American readers. "Sepharad" was, in fact, a kind of transposition, into Spanish history and language, of Sebald's masterpiece — with its blending of fact and fiction, its obsession with the horrors of the 20th century, and its deeply ethical insistence on retrieving individual stories obliterated by history. In a fluid, even slippery narrative, Mr. Muñoz Molina braided the stories of Sephardic Jews, exiled from Spain in the 15th century, with the experiences of Spaniards during that country's civil war, and the more public lives of figures such as Franz Kafka. I'm not sure how many people read "Sepharad" — it was not the kind of book that makes a best seller — but it helped to give Mr. Muñoz Molina the literary stature in America that he has long enjoyed in Spain, where the 52-year-old is one of the leading writers of his generation.

Now, with the publication of "A Manuscript of Ashes" (Harcourt, 305 pages, $25), we have the chance to read the book that launched Mr. Muñoz Molina's career as a novelist. First published in Spain in 1986 under the title "Beatus ille," now translated into English by Edith Grossman, "A Manuscript of Ashes" shows that some of Mr. Muñoz Molina's central concerns were with him from the very beginning. Once again we find him investigating Spain's damaged past — in particular, the violence and betrayals of the Spanish Civil War, and the fear and tedium of the Franco dictatorship that succeeded it. Again he is tormented by the pastness of the past, which makes it impossible to know reliably, as well as by its continuing presence, which makes our own lives seem like mere sequels to great events that happened long ago. And already in his first novel, we can now see, Mr. Muñoz Molina was experimenting with a narrative technique adequate to these perceptions. "A Manuscript of Ashes" is divided between two narrators and at least three time frames, and the reader must be constantly on the alert for multiple shifts of perspective, sometimes in the space of a single paragraph.

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Spanish Literature

Best books of 2007

The Washington Post's best books of 2007 list includes seven Spanish and Latin American authors.

The Bad Girl, by Mario Vargas Llosa; translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman (FSG). Irresistibly entertaining and, like all of its author's work, formidably smart. - Jonathan Yardley

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot DIaz (Riverhead). Oscar clearly is not intended to function as a hero in the classical sense. Geek swagger, baby. Get used to it. - Jabari Asim

Delirium, by Laura Restrepo; translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer (Nan A. Talese). A book-and-a-half: stunning, dense, complex, mind-blowing. The setting is Bogota, Colombia. Far above politics, right up into high art. - Carolyn See

In Her Absence, by Antonio Munoz Molina; translated from the Spanish by Esther Allen (Other). This elegant, precise and inimitable novel focuses intensely on a civil servant and his passionate yet painful relationship with his wife of six years. - Brigitte Weeks

Nada, by Carmen Laforet; translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman (Modern Library). After six decades, it has lost none of its power and originality, and we are fortunate to have it in this fine translation. - JY

Dancing to "Almendra", by Mayra Montero; translated by Edith Grossman (FSG). The fictional, gossamer beauty and blood-soaked brutality that personifies Cuba of 1957. - Joanne Omang

Lost City Radio, by Daniel Alarcon (HarperCollins). Readers will recognize fragments of recent history in Argentina, Chile and, most particularly, Peru. A fable for the entire continent. - Jonathan Yardley

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Latin American Literature

Antonio Muñoz Molina - In Her Absence

Three reviews of Antonio Muñoz Molina's In Her Absence.

Several years ago Antonio Muñoz Molina was described as "a Spanish writer laden with prizes and so far scandalously unknown in English." His awards include not one but two Spanish National Narrative Prizes, and he is the youngest-ever member of the Royal Spanish Academy. Despite these honors from his native country and 13 books published in Spanish, not much has happened to bring him American readers. Sepharad won the 2004 PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club translation award for Margaret Sayers Peden, but since then nothing else by him had appeared for us Anglophones. Now, we are getting another chance. He is back with a new translator and a short novel published in 1999 as En Ausencia de Blanca.

Molina is a fearless writer. He is not afraid of making demands on his reader's imagination. In Her Absence is no passive entertainment. This elegant, precise and inimitable novel focuses intensely and solely on Mario López, a not-quite-middle-aged civil servant working as a draftsman in the small city of Jaén, and his passionate yet painful relationship with Blanca, his wife of six years.

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You'd have to be pretty jaded not to get hooked by a book with these opening lines:

"The woman who was not Blanca came down the hall toward Mario wearing Blanca's green silk blouse, Blanca's jeans, and Blanca's ballet flats, her eyes narrowing into a smile as she reached him - eyes the same color and shape as Blanca's, but not Blanca's eyes."

What is going on here?

Mario Lopez is a civil servant in a provincial town in southern Spain. His wife, Blanca, is a sometime translator and convention hostess with artistic aspirations. In this marriage of opposites, he is from a working-class background, she from a wealthy family; he is plodding and meticulous, she is mercurial and reckless; he wants to start a family, she doesn't.

Still, having rescued Blanca from a life of druggy dissolution, Mario remains besotted with her. "Six years after meeting her, he was still moved each time he re-entered her presence."

But when Blanca falls under the sway of an artsy crowd that hangs out in places with names like the "Center for New Theatrical Tendencies," Mario senses that his life is slipping away from him, "that someone had assigned him a biography that wasn't really his." He plunges into despair and isolation, obsessing over the tiniest of details, fearing that Blanca has left him for good.

Has she? Or has she killed herself? Has an impostor actually taken her place? Or is Mario just hallucinating?

Antonio Munoz Molina leaves enough hints for us to figure out who has lost a grip on reality here. But it is the nature of that loss, haunting and obsessional, that makes this slim novella compelling.

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Spanish Literature

In Her Absence - Antonio Muñoz Molina

Nick Antosca reviews Antonio Muñoz Molina's "In Her Absence".

Unconditional romantic love can be a particularly subtle and damaging form of masochism. As the act of gamely rationalizing away flaws in the character of one's beloved becomes a daily ritual, one's misery and devotion increase by equal measure. The absolute best way to make the whole experience more excruciating is, of course, to get married.

Antonio Muñoz Molina's sly and enigmatic new novel, "In Her Absence" (Other Press, 126 pages, $13.95), concerns a provincial Spanish bureaucrat named Mario López who has married, well out of his league, a beautiful woman for whom he could not be more poorly suited. Because Mario remains infatuated to the point of obsession with his wife, he must regularly engage in grueling mental gymnastics to a) convince himself that the marriage has any chance whatsoever of survival, b) not resent the relative tepidity of her feelings for him, and c) not break his mind as a result of the psychological contortions required for a) and b).

The reason Mario and his wife, Blanca, are not right for each other is that his frightful dullness (and he knows he's dull; he tries to be otherwise but just cannot manage it) simply does not complement her petulance, frivolity, or persistent attraction to fashionable artistic poseurs. In Mr. Muñoz Molina's frank, blunt sentences, one senses both pity and contempt for the ill-matched lovers.

Before Blanca, Mario's life was drab. For seven years he dated a bland creature named Juli, but that quietly crumbled. ("How strange, he thought ... I was on the verge of marrying a total stranger.") There followed a time of watching videos alone and slowly, diligently reading Ramon Menéndez Pidal's "History of Spain": "He embarked on a plan to read it from the first volume to the last, and would always remember that he had made it to the obscure and tedious reign of the Visigoths when he met Blanca."

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Spanish Literature

Alfaguara Prize 2007 Jury

Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa will preside to the jury of the 10th edition of the Alfaguara Prize 2007. Like in previous editions, the composition of the rest of the jury will not become public until the award is announced.
From his first edition in 1998, outstanding writers have presided over the Jury of the Alfaguara Prize: Carlos Fuentes, Eduardo Mendoza, Alfredo Bryce Echenique, Antonio Muñoz Molina, Jorge Semprún, Luis Mateo Ten, Jose Saramago, Manuel Caballero Bonald and Angeles Mastretta.
The Alfaguara Prize is one of the most important literary awards in Spanish language.
Previously awarded authors include, last year's winner Peruvian Santiago Roncagliolo with Abril Rojo, Graciela Montes, Ema Wolf, Laura Restrepo, Xavier Velasco, Tomás Eloy Martínez, Elena Poniatowska, Clara Sánchez, Manuel Vicent.
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Latin American Literature, Spanish Literature

Sepharad by Antonio Munoz Molina

Review of Antonio Muñoz Molina's Sepharad

"Waking from a night of fitful dreams, Gregor Samsa discovered he had been changed into a gigantic insect."
That must be the second most famous opening line in literature. It has been enshrined as a classic statement of existential angst. But for Antonio Muñoz Molina, Franz Kafka's grotesque tale of metamorphosis has a more chilling, flesh-and-blood significance. It prophetically anticipates the Gestapo, the KGB and indeed all the secret police who have found ingenious ways to make human beings cower like cockroaches under their boots.
Homage to Kafka appears in nearly every episode of his hybrid fiction- memoir-history, "Sepharad." But when Molina writes, "You are uprootedness and foreignness, not being completely in any one place, not sharing the certainty of belonging that seems so natural and easy to others, taking it for granted like the firm ground beneath their feet," he doesn't intend philosophical abstractions about modern man in search of a soul.

You can find the full review here

Buy Sepharad at Amazon.com