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Spanish writer who
won the Nobel Prize
for Literature in
1989. Cela has
explored the way
novels are written,
but also published
non-fiction, such as
DICCIONARIO SECRETO
(1968-72), a
thesaurus of
forbidden words end
expressions. His
works are marked by
overtones of
existentialism,
brutal realism and
humor, and
experiments with
narrative time. In
the author's
pessimistic world
the lives and
violent emotions of
several hundred
personages are mixed
together. Cela
writes with great
detail, describing
landscapes and
picturesque
individuals, giving
an aesthetic
dimension to
reporting.
"Through the process of thought man begins to discover hidden
truth in the world,
he can aim to create
his own different
world in whatever
terms he wishes
through the medium
of the fable. Thus
truth, thought,
freedom and fable
are interlinked in a
complicated and on
occasion suspect
relationship. It is
like a dark
passageway with
several
side-turnings going
off in the wrong
direction; a
labyrinth with no
way out. But the
element of risk has
always been the best
justification for
embarking on an
adventure."
(from Nobel Lecture, 1989)
Camilo José Cela was
born in Iria-Flavia
into a large
middle-class family.
Cela's mother was of
British origin and
his father was a
part-time author. He
studied law at the
University of Madrid
and served as a
corporal with
Franco's army during
the Spanish Civil
War (1936-39), which
is noteworthy
because literary
history knows more
writers who were
against Franco,
starting from
Hemingway, Orwell,
and
García Lorca.
(Another Spanish
Nobel winner,
Jacinto Benavente,
sympathized Franco.)
Cela witnessed the
cruelties of the war
and was also
wounded; later he
used his experiences
in many of his
stories. After the
war Cela resumed his
studies, finally
graduating at age
27. In 1944 he
married María del
Rosario Conde
Picavea; they had
one son, who became
an anthropologist.
The marriage ended
in 1989. Just before
the Nobel Prize Cela
had met Marina
Castaño, who was 40
years younger. Cela
considered her as
his muse. They
married in 1991 and
at the same time
Cela lost touch with
several old friends.
Cela's first novel
The Family of
Pascal Duarte
(1942) was
traditional in form.
Due to its violent
content, produced in
the bitter aftermath
of the Spanish Civil
War, it appeared
first in Argentina.
The work had
enormous influence
during the decade
after its
publication. Cela
employs techniques
drawn from the
Renaissance Spanish
picaresque novel to
give first-person
account. In the
purported
autobiography,
Pascal Duarte's
prison memoirs, a
primitive criminal
awaits execution for
the murder of his
mother. His life
reflects the crude
reality of rural
Spain in Franco's
time - in Spain the
book banned for some
years, and
eventually published
in 1946. Cela's
story, dealing with
the darker side of
life, cumulative
violence, horror,
and despair, was
typical for the
literary style
called
tremendismo
(anguish plus
violence?). Pascal
Duarte is both a
bloody criminal and
victim of a
destructive social
environment. The
modern classic can
be interpreted in
many ways - as the
voice of a repressed
people condemned by
a dictatorial
regime, or as a
story of spiritual
emptiness like in
Albert Camus's
novel The
Stranger (1942).
LA COLMENA (1951,
The Hive)
captured three days
in the life of
Madrid in the
aftermath of the
Civil War. In the
fragmented
chronology, which
took more than five
years to write,
appears some 250 to
360 characters. Cela
used cinematic
montage technique to
great advantage.
The Hive
portrays the
poverty,
degradation, and
hypocrisy of
post-war society. In
the center of the
story writers sit
for ours in cafés in
winter, observing
the world. "The
customers of cafés
are people who
believe that things
happen as they do
because they happen
and that it is never
worth while to put
anything right. At
Doña Rosa's they all
smoke and most of
them meditate each
alone with himself,
on those mall,
kindly, intimate
things which make
their lives full or
empty." The work
inaugurated a
novelistic style
known as
objectivismo, a
kind of documentary
realism. Inspired by
this new method of
narration, writers
used camera and
taperecorder in
order to eliminate
the author's voice.
However, Cela
presents reality in
satirical light,
strongly colored.
The Hive was
originally published
in Latin America; in
Spain it was banned
because it was
considered
subversive by the
government censors.
"After the lunch time the waste ground is the resort of old
people who come
there to feed on the
sunshine like
lizards. But after
the hour when the
children and the
middle-aged couples
go to bed, to sleep
and dream, it is an
uninhibited paradise
with no room for
evasion or
subterfuge, where
all know what they
are after, where
they make love
nobly, almost
harshly, on the soft
ground which still
retains the line
scratched in by the
little girl who
spent the morning
playing hop-scotch,
and the neat,
perfectly round
holes dug by the boy
who greedily used
all his spare time
to play at marbles."
(from The Hive)
Cela lived largely
in Madrid until
1954, when he moved
to Mallorca. There
established a
literary review
Papeles de son
armadans, which
appeared from 1956
to 1979, and was
known for its an
anti-fascist line.
During this time he
started to publish
his multivolume
Diccionario secreto,
a compilation of
'unprintable' but
well-known words and
phrases. In 1957 he
became member of the
Spanish Academy. In
1977 he was
designated a senator
by the monarchy.
SAN CAMILO, 1936
(1969) is Cela's
bitter masterpiece,
in which at times
every woman is a
whore, every man a
pig, every person a
liar and poseur.
Cela used explicitly
sexual language in
this almost
pornographic novel.
Its stylistically
complicated
monologue is set on
the eve of the Civil
War. In MAZURCA PARA
DOS MUERTOS (1983,
Mazurka for Two Dead
Men) Cela
returned again to
the war years. In
the rainy Galician
mountains, a local
townsperson is
kidnapped and
murdered; at book's
end, his killing is
avenged by his
brother according to
the law of the
mountain.
Consistently an
experimental
novelist, Cela's
work of the 1940s
and 1950s met with
greater critical
acclaim than his
later t novels,
which were attacked
as unduly whimsical.
Mrs. Caldwell
Speaks to Her Son
(1953) was written
in the form of a
madwoman's letters.
VIAJE AL PIRINEO DE
LÉRIDA (1965) was a
travel book based
upon notes of a trip
made seven years
earlier. IZAS,
RABIZAS Y
COLIPOTERRAS (1964)
had pathetic and
grotesque
photographs of
prostitutes. OFICIO
DE TINIEBLAS, 5
(1973) was an
atemporal anti-novel
without protagonist,
plot, character
delineation, or
development. It
consisted of over
one thousand
unpunctuared short
paragraphs and prose
fragments. After its
publication Cela
'abdicated' his
novelist status and
did not return to
the genre for nearly
a decade.
Cela also published
books of travels -
he enjoyed traveling
in his Rolls-Royce -
operas, poetry,
essays, short
stories, memoirs,
and unclassified
works, spin-offs of
his narratives.
Significant examples
are the seven
volumes of NUEVAS
ESCENAS MATRITENSES
(1965-66), APUNTES
CARPETOVETÓNICOS
(1965), LOS VIEJOS
AMIGOS (1960-61),
HISTORIA DE ESPAÑA
(1958).
Miscellaneous works
include ENCICLOPEDIA
DEL EROTISMO
(1982-86), and
DICCIONARIO SECRETO
(1968-72), an
esoteric
investigation of
obscenities and
sexual terminology.
VIAJE A LA ALCARRRIA
(1948) presented on
one level an escape
from the urban
milieu to country
life. Among other
works are CHRISTO
VERSUS ARIZONA
(1988), LOS
CAPRICHOS DE
FRANCISCO DE GOYA
LUCIENTES (1989), EL
CAMALEON SOLTERO
(1992), MEMORIAS,
ENTENDIMIENTOS Y
VOLUNTADAS (1993),
and LA CRUZ DE SAN
ANDRÉS (1994), which
won the Planeta
award. In his novels
from the 1990s Cela
has exaggerated
religio-erotic and
sadistic themes
characterizing his
earlier works, and
used unreliable,
limited narrators
who unwrite and
rewrite the text. Or
as Cela himself
stated: "Novel is
everything that says
'novel' underneath
the title." Camilo
José Cela died from
chronic heart
disease in Madrid on
January 17, 2002.
Before his death
Cela was accused of
plagiarism by a
Spanish writer,
Carmen Formoso
Lapido, who claimed
that her novel
formed the basis for
the La Cruz de
San Andrés. Cela
described the
accusations as a
"fallacy".
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