Josep Bertomeu Moll's Capvespre: A Review

Josep Bertomeu Moll, Capvespre (Gandia: Lletra Impresa, 2016). 224 pages.

I was a rather naïve 11-year-old boy when Fascist dictator Franco died, yet I do have a few memories of the difficult years before his death, and particularly the profound changes that occurred in the years that followed. It could very well be argued that more than 40 years later, those political changes have turned out to be rather cosmetic in their nature. Spain has basically retained the political status quo resulting from the military coup in 1936, the ensuing Civil War and forty years of a dictatorial regime. It is a country where conservative elites and economic oligarchies exercise their unfettered power, where corruption unashamedly spreads to the top echelons of government. Unsurprisingly, though, a clear majority of voters continue to elect politicians whose decency is, to say the least, questionable. Go figure.

In those years, my home town, Valencia, was not the markedly touristic destination it seems to be today. Valencian life in the 1970s was rather different from the easy-going, festive city it is in 2016. Then there was fear in the streets, and news of the political repression elsewhere in the Spanish State would have been very discreetly commented on by people in the streets. One of my first memories associated with anything remotely political is of my paternal grandmother telling me not to speak our local language instead of Spanish when in public. I must have been about 5 or 6 years old.

This is the Valencia Capvespre (The Evening) is set in. Written in 1977, the author kept it hidden in a drawer for decades until Lletra Impresa, an enthusiastic publisher from Gandia, rescued the manuscript and took a gamble by printing it as their first volume in their fresh fiction collection. Unless there are more uncovered manuscripts of his, this might unfortunately turn out to be Bertomeu’s only published book, since he unexpectedly passed away just a couple of weeks ago.

A fragmentary narrative, Capvespre follows the lives of Lluís and Pilar, the two main characters, whose complicated, twisted, on-and-off relationship makes up the main plot of the novel. They are part of a wider circle of friends, university students who fight the regime hoping to achieve freedom, hoping to reach for their future, for their dreams at a time when Francoist repression had intensified its brutal force. Moreover, Bertomeu employs different narrative points of view, providing noteworthy contrasts between the various characters about the same events.

The terrible mishaps associated with mandatory military service, the patently injurious conditions for young females within what was a creepily Catholic society, the lively nights of jazz music and cheap booze in well-known bars of the different barrios of Valencia, the ground-breaking literature that was landing at Spanish bookshops in those years (Neruda, César Vallejo, Cortázar, Arguedas, García Márquez, Cabrera Infante, among others), the first sexual experiences of very young men and women, the extremely risky business of joining the then illegal Communist Party … these are some of the situations and circumstances narrated by Lluís, or explained through letters by Pilar, Jordi, Sergi. Bertomeu succeeds in contriving a 1977 narrative that feels way before his time, and is at times more ‘contemporary’ than some novels written in recent years, both in its circular structure and its utterly compelling style.

Non-conformism was an essential part of the philosophy of the young people at the time. They would not abide by a State that repressed and coerced them. Gathering in the streets and plazas of Valencia (which Bertomeu cleverly identifies by using the Francoist names they had until the late 1970s) to distribute radical pamphlets or marching in protest, the students regularly had to run away from riot police, or occasionally clashed with Fascist gangs at the Faculty.

For anyone arriving in Valencia by train, Plaza del Caudillo (wash your mouth, boy!) was an unavoidable passageway towards the bars in the older parts of the city. Today it is known as Plaça de l"Ajuntament.

In Capvespre, some of Lluís’s friends are arrested by Franco’s Secret Police and sent to jail, where they languish for months or even years, found guilty in trials run by ludicrous judges. Their crime? Wishing freedom for their peers and themselves.

Capvespre is a welcome and necessary reminder of the struggle for dignity a whole generation of Valencians engaged in. It should also help us to focus on the fact that 40 years later, younger generations of Valencians, let alone Spaniards, time and again see how their hopes and their dreams are smashed by inept governments that continue to underpin a decrepit, dishonest, fraudulent political system.

Apart from a few well-accomplished historical recreations such as Silvestre Vilaplana’s L’estany de foc, the city of Valencia had never really been the protagonist of a book. It is a pleasant surprise to see how the city comes alive in Bertomeu’s words, in his sharp-eyed descriptions. How unfortunate it is that Bertomeu is no longer alive to write a sequel to Capvespre.

Scorched Language Policy, by Enric Sòria

Scorched language policy

Enric Sòria

On 21 January the termination of Catalunya Ràdio broadcasts into the Valencian Country (País Valencià) added insult to the injury as the Catalan TV3 has been banned and the local TV and Radio Canal 9 were both shut down. In the words of Vicent Climent’s, spokesperson for the Vice-chancellors of Valencian universities, as of today “there is no audiovisual broadcaster, whether public or private, covering the whole of the country’s territory broadcasting in our own language”. This is a very serious matter. Apart from a handful of municipal broadcasters, in a very short time the language of the Valencian people has lost its presence in the most influential mainstream media, radio and TV.

The Deputy Leader of the Valencian Government (Generalitat), José Císcar, has claimed his government has nothing against Catalunya Ràdio, but that it is against illegal broadcasting – that is, against the signal being received here in the País Valencià. The illegality occurs mainly because the government has for decades done their best to make it illegal, as they did with TV3, by hindering any possible sensible solution to the issue. However, there are at present about 300 radio stations in the País Valencià in either an illegal status or a legal loophole, yet none of them have been silenced. No leniency has been shown to Catalunya Ràdio. Mr Císcar also claimed that radio stations in the Valencian language can obviously exist in the País Valencià only, where the language is spoken. By the same token, if Spain is the country where Spanish is spoken, Latin American books, films and TV series should have been banned, as it is not possible for them to be in the very same language as that spoken by Spaniards. When it is about the Spanish world, the Popular Party know perfectly well that borders and states are one thing, but languages are another. But accepting the fact that Catalans and Balearics speak the language spoken by Valencians, just like a denizen of, say, Teulada in Alacant? NO WAY! One feels such arguments are but examples taken straight out of the Bad-Faith Book – which in José Císcar’s case is not at all impossible – and the issue here has been to switch our own language off the radio.

Doubtful arguments were proffered in the case of Canal 9, too. The Generalitat Premier himself, Alberto Fabra, asserted it was necessary to close down the broadcaster, in order to avoid shutting down schools. Yet schools have been closed down all the same, most particularly those schools that offered tuition in Valencian. That is to say: no TV, no radio, and increasingly less education in the local language. This is the way our government complies with the constitutional mandate of rendering special respect and protection to the native languages in every autonomous community. For a very long time now, the kind of respect and protection the Generalitat renders the local language has by far no correspondence elsewhere in Spain. That is why our country is the only one where the use of the local language keeps decreasing. Just the opposite of what is happening to our language in Catalonia or the Balearic Islands (or in Galicia, the Basque Country and Navarre with their respective local languages). It is here and only here where the language is evidently becoming an endangered language; this situation is absolutely the government’s doing. But recently, the mistreatment that the language of the Valencian people suffers at the hands of our own institutions has worsened. It must also be pointed out that the Popular Party has recently begun a process whereby the Balearic Islands are fast being deprived of the common language, using the very same methods we are accustomed to here, and also in the area Aragon where our language is spoken – where, it needs to be reminded, our language has been officially reduced to a miserable acronym.

Thus, it is necessary to ask ourselves what our language has done to these people. Why do they have this fixation with the language, to the extent that they have obliterated it from the audiovisual map of the country and seem intent on wiping it out from schools and elsewhere? There are those who suspect this hastened campaign of de-valencianising the country is a reaction against the growth of the Catalan push for sovereignty. Once the language has been eradicated, the separatist virus will also be neutralised. It is not unthinkable that something like this might be the case (with these people, one must not discard any options). While we have been speaking Valencian for centuries, it is evident that the pro-independence option amongst us has been supported by a negligible minority. Moreover, the marginalisation, suppression and the various endeavours to achieve the eradication of the language occurred much earlier than these recent political trends. There has to be something deeper to the contempt and fierce dislike they show for our language. Why does it annoy them so much? A possible explanation is that, in the notion of Spain these people have had their brains engraved with – an idea diametrically opposed to the Swiss model – languages that according to the Constitution deserve respect and protection should in fact not exist at all, and the sooner they become extinct, the better. One language, one nation. This is the idea they have in their mugs. The Valencian branch has proven it can out-Herod Herod; it must be acknowledged that their tenacity and efficiency are extraordinary. They don’t need the language, and therefore they stifle it.

The original article can be found here.

Paella

L’altre dia vaig fer paella. Feia gairebé tres anys que no en feia, de paella. La paella, com tothom sap, és el menjar valencià dels diumenges, però a Austràlia sovint el menjat fort del dia es fa a la vesprada, al sopar. Als meus bessons els va agradar molt; fins i tot, recordaven quan van menjar-n’hi a València el nadals de 2010. És clar, em van demanar que torne a fer, de paella. Encara que no li pose conill, ix bona.

Abans feia servir una paella més gran, d’eixes paelles on poden menjar fins a deu persones. Ara faig servir una paelleta més petita, de ferro, què va ser de la meua àvia, i què em vaig portar cap a Austràlia a l’any 1996. Ha plogut, veritat?

Abans necessitàvem la paella gran perquè ens agradava portar-nos paella per dinar al dia següent al treball. D’això ja fa molt de temps. Ara, amb la paelleta més xicoteta mengem prou els quatre. Abans menjàvem cinc, i a la cinquena (la filla major) li agradava menjar-ne, de paella.

Bon profit!

"Les normes del 32", bien cultural de los valencianos

Noticia en el diario Avui del 10 de febrero de 2011

Las ‘Normes de Castelló’ serán reconocidas como Bien de Interés Cultural

Las llamadas ‘Normes de Castelló’, también conocidas como ‘Normes del 32’, año en que fueron firmadas, son las directrices ortográficas elementales que siguen las normas instituidas por el filólogo Pompeu Fabra para la lengua catalana y que son de aplicación para la variedad que se utiliza en las comarcas del País Valencià.

Dos instituciones de renombre, la Universidad Jaume I y la Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua, han informado favorablemente. Mientras tanto, la persecución del gobierno de la Generalitat Valenciana contra la lengua de los valencianos va adquiriendo una naturaleza esperpéntica. El gobierno del muy bien vestido President de la Generalitat exige que una loable asociación cultural, Acció Cultural del País Valencià (ACPV), pague una multa de €600.000 por emitir la señal televisiva de los canales de TV3. Si no fuera tan grave el asunto, sería un chiste excelente.

¿Cómo es posible que la difusión y la promoción de la lengua propia sean atacadas y penalizadas? ¿Por qué el gobierno del Estado español no se interesa – que puede hacerlo – por un tema tan importante para la cultura de los valencianos?

Una breve visita a España

Una imagen que ya es historia

Una breve visita – de apenas unas tres semanas – a España me lleva a dejar constancia escrita de unas cuantas observaciones acerca de ciertos comportamientos y actitudes de los españoles en general. La reciente entrada en vigor de la ley que prohíbe fumar en recintos cerrados como bares y restaurantes, en parques de uso infantil y a las puertas de los hospitales, entre otros sitios que lógicamente debieran escapar a los malos humos, ha dado pie a una enorme polémica, con un político conservador comparando lo que es una medida de protección de la salud pública a la persecución de los judíos durante el terror nazi en la Alemania de Hitler. Tal necedad no merece ni siquiera la consideración de un comentario. Las reacciones de índole cavernaria a lo que supone, después de todo, equiparar de forma legal la legislación española con la del resto de Europa, son en cierto modo la guindilla a lo que podríamos definir como la quintaesencia hispana del desprecio al prójimo y la usurpación del espacio público.

En su columna de El País Semanal del domingo pasado (9 de enero de 2011), la escritora Rosa Montero hablaba de una “diferencia abismal entre el prurito de limpieza doméstica y el bárbaro descuido de los espacios exteriores”, y subrayaba: “a veces hasta me asalta la inquietante sospecha que no es que no les moleste la suciedad; no es que, en su ignorancia de marmolillos, no sean capaces de verla, sino que en realidad lo hacen aposta y con inquina; que agreden y ensucian y maltratan el espacio público porque lo que es de los demás es zona hostil. Porque sólo nos cabe la horda en la cabeza, nuestro grupo, nuestra pandilla, nuestra tribu, y todo lo que no sea eso es el enemigo. Es decir, el Estado, el bien común, la colectividad, la sociedad civil: todos son adversarios a los que hay que combatir y llenar de basuras para que se jeringuen”.

 

The Valencian image branding? Caca de gos! 

La foto que aparece arriba fue tomada en una calle de Valencia durante las recientes fiestas de Navidad. Es una imagen que lamentablemente se repetía una y otra vez en las calles de la ciudad del Turia, día tras día, calles por las que no transitan los turistas, naturalmente. Es una imagen ciertamente asquerosa y repulsiva, y que, en mi opinión, refleja mucho mejor ese maltrato del espacio público que caracteriza el comportamiento de muchos españoles al que se refería Rosa Montero, preocupada por el abandono de basuras en las calles. Y resultó un tanto curioso constatar que en otras grandes ciudades del territorio del estado español ese tipo de abuso y maltrato del espacio público apenas se produce; mientras sí sucedía en algunas calles de la capital del estado, Madrid, en otras, en concreto en Barcelona, no era necesario ir mirando al suelo de seguido para no ensuciarse los zapatos.

 

Otro comportamiento muy habitual en España entraña el ejercicio de un poder despótico por el simple hecho de llevar un uniforme, o quizás por el mero placer de fastidiar al prójimo. El turista puede acercarse a un guardia de seguridad, por ejemplo, a preguntar por la ubicación de una puerta de acceso; el guardia sabe perfectamente donde queda dicha puerta, pero en el 99% de las ocasiones le dirá al turista en un tono entre soez y chulesco que no es ése su trabajo, y que se dirija a otro con su pregunta. ¿Por qué no les es posible tratar a sus congéneres con un pizca de amabilidad, olvidando por un momento que esa persona que les pide ayuda o información no tiene culpa alguna de sus problemas, sean los que sean? ¿Acaso no pueden vivir sin mezquindad? Pareciera que no.