I confess my distrust of unpublished books recovered posthumously, such as the manuscript of The Admunsen Papers, first novel by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán (Barcelona, ??1939, Bangkok, 2003). If its author did not publish it during his lifetime for some reason it would be. Although this far from humble reviewer keeps his first novel unpublished, it was a finalist for the Seix Barral prize, which was never awarded due to the publisher’s crisis. And there is a much more solid reason: Admunsen’s papers are of enormous interest and their reading does not falter at any time, with ups and downs (paragraphs that are too long, conversations that are monotonous exercises in dialectic) that little affect the story as a whole.
In the title of this review I was inspired by the novel Cárcel de amor, by Diego de San Pedro published in 1492. Vázquez Montalbán was sentenced to three years in prison, and his wife, Anna Sallés, whom he met at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, six months and one day, for some student demonstrations in support of the Asturian miners’ strikes of 1962, the first great challenge to the Franco regime. Admunsen and Ilsa are the protagonists of this autobiographical novel and it is understandable why censorship would never have allowed its publication.
The mysterious thing is, in any case, why Vázquez Montalbán wrote it in the mid-sixties, knowing that he would not be able to publish it. One explanation lies in the traumatic experience that the marriage suffered with prison and the need to put it in writing.
This autobiographical nature of a writer, who was already popular and respected in his student years, increases interest. Without needing to fall into the histrionics of a Francisco Umbral, Vázquez Montalbán, simply known as Manolo, was, with his character Pepe Carvalho, possibly the most popular writer and person in Spain for many years. Laconic, with few and forceful words, born in Raval from a humble family, he entered the University of Barcelona to study Philosophy and Letters and, in 1956, consistent with his vocation, he enrolled at the Madrid School of Journalism. His articles compiled in the Sentimental Chronicle of Spain made him a popular journalist.
At the PSUC he shares a cell with the philosopher Manuel Sacristán, justly and cruelly parodied in the novel as Silvio, and whose classes he had attended as a listener, and in which he also introduced me to Edmund Husserl. Without abandoning his progressive ideas, he was very critical of communism, as in Italy – so present in the sixties in its music, its cinema and its literature – would be, among others, Elio Vittorini and his controversial discussions with Palmiro. Togliatti.
Admunsen’s papers are a vivid testimony to the 1960s. Set in a Scandinavian country, in Leyden it is easy to recognize the Barcelona of the writer’s childhood in the Raval. The Trade Fair occupies a central space that coincides with the much-vaunted Development Plans. Admunsen Montalbán, we could call him) is a publicist who works for Laarsen, the manager of Bird’s, “an irreplaceable lubricant if you want to keep your car”, it’s about finding an impressive slogan, like the one found in the shaver catalog. : “Kiss without disturbing.”
It is inevitable to think of the publicist Leopold Bloom of Joyce’s Ulysses. I don’t know if Manolo, as we all called him, had read Salas Subirat’s translation, which is difficult to access, but he does go far beyond the mere chronicler from his first novel The Solitude of the Manager (1977) and his poetry from A Sentimental Education. (1967), with phrases like “her heart lifted her chest like waves of the sea.” Shocking phrases are frequent, as they were also with a bass voice, in their conversations.
“Six hundred years of national literature are not admissible to waste an opportunity like that and pronounce clichéd phrases,” he writes.
The readings, very much of the time (we must mention the unfindable books that Ramón Garrabou provided us), which many of us shared, although much more limited, occupy a central space.
And very interesting are the independent texts or papers, among them an Erec and Enide, a tribute to Martín de Riquer, as there is a less visible one to Joan Petit. It must be said that we learned both in class and outside of class. And we exchanged books, many of them from the Nissa Torrents or Rosa Regàs libraries. Jean Paul Sartre and Bertolt Brecht are the most cited authors.
We are facing a very timely critical edition. José Colmeiro, both in the introduction and in the notes, shows a very good knowledge of the work of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, although, born in 1958 and living abroad for many years, he lacks a more vivid knowledge of the period.
If I didn’t have The Admunsen Papers in my hands, I would run out and buy it.
Manuel Vázquez Montalbán Admunsen’s papers Edición de Jesús Colmeiro. Navona 463 pages 14.90 euros
