I have chosen, to title this article about Cèlia Palau de Sílvia Alcántara (Puig-Reig, 1944), a sentence from the novel. The protagonist has separated from her husband and when she wants to start living her life, she realizes that the conditions of the labor market have changed in relation to the mid-sixties, when she joined it. She goes to the shops to hire herself as a clerk, they tell her she is too old and they ask her to know Catalan, English and computers. We are in the early nineties and Celia is over forty years old. What should he do, “lower his head? Allow their hopes to be like that red-hot log of fire that slowly turns to ash? No!” And then comes the sentence I say: “I haven’t come this far to give up”.
While he thinks about how he can recycle, study, prepare, he starts mopping floors. how small the world is The year that Eva Baltasar returns to the novel and tells the story of a woman who scrubs houses in Ocàs i fascination, Sílvia Alcàntara also publishes one. What a difference between these two characters: nihilism and inner strength, cynicism and the will to be yourself, despair and love. Cèlia Palau represents a generation of women – the generation of the author – made of crushed stone. It is not a criticism of Eva Baltasar: they are two recommended novels, two sides of the same coin.
I have chosen this phrase and I could well have titled these two columns “Elogi de Sílvia Alcántara”. I think she is a unique author in our landscape and that we would be better off if we followed her example. First of all: the language. Such simple, clear and well-written Catalan, with the vibe of an authentic language, which allows you to say everything. Cèlia Palau reunites with her husband at her daughter’s house, who is going to live in Madrid. He would have liked to save it but it’s already done and he can’t run away. “How was it possible that one day she would have had her (heart) beat, seeing him, would have waited for him longingly and would have counted the days left to be all of him?” And he ends it with a great image: “Now I saw it like a bunch of wilted flowers when you take them out of the water, their leaves fall and they smell like death”.
Alcantara is the writer I know who is closest to the concept of the non-writer. It is not affected, nor pedantic, nor convoluted, nor does it serve us a false innocence or a literary false candor. It is pure naturalness sustained on a language of total effectiveness.
Once I was able to talk to him for a long time, he explained to me that he had started doing amateur theater and that he had fallen in love with Josep M. de Sagarra. In his novels there is a very well thought out stage movement. In Cèlia Palau, we have already seen half of it, in relation to the meetings with the ex -Ricardo-. But also in the episodes with the man who dates her -Martí- and with the owner of the notary -Joan- with whom she ends up working. Or with the children and their partners.
In this triangle of male relationships there is social truth. But, since there is no literary premeditation, Alcántara does not teach lessons about the crisis of large families or about the relationship of dominance that is established between a notary and a secretary. It just tells a story. Powerful, human, moving. The rest is more and more. Cèlia Palau was married to the heir of a large family, she had a maid. The separation has left him with nothing. After the period of scrubbing stairs, she works as a nanny for the notary’s daughter’s children. Since she is studying and wants to get out of the smelly apartment where she lives, she offers to be his secretary. He ends up being her lover, but the man never lets himself be seen with his friend. The meeting with an ex-nun – Maria – that he had treated as a young woman upsets everything. It confronts us with the theme of freedom and sexual freedom, love and companionship.
“I haven’t come this far to give up.” Well done, Celia. And well done Sílvia Alcántara for continuing her work with firmness and conviction.
Sílvia Alcántara Cèlia Palau Editions of 1984 217 pages 18.50 euros
