A liberal and vitalist spirit, raised among books and good company – the friends of his father, Rafael -, Carlos Abella has compiled a sort of diary of Barcelona from the end of the Civil War in 1939 to the 1992 Olympic Games, with the incentive to rescue so many disparate characters who marked the popular heartbeat of the city and some corners – from cinemas to restaurants – that still exist in memory, because what is in reality…
So that the reader understands it better: here the execution of Lluís Companys is explained, the tram strike or the revolution that the airlift entailed in 1974 but also the glories of Carmen Amaya, the rivalry of Manolete and Arruza, the idolatry of Kubala, the keys of the fighter Jesús Chausson in the Price or the Iris room, the bonhomie of Néstor Luján or that generation of eminent doctors who made Barcelona a healthcare reference on a global scale.
Although he lives in Madrid, Carlos Abella is one of those liberal, cultured and civilized Barcelonans who were born in 1947, the year of the death of Francesc Cambó and Manolete – well-known facts. The merit and interest of the book is that it does not limit itself to lane anniversaries but rather broadens the angle of vision, like someone walking along a Diagonal without bicycles, scooters or tram works. Relaxed and happily, go. Thus, since we are talking about Barcelona and 1947, Abella remembers the overwhelming success of Manolo Caracol and Lola Flores in the Poliorama, the murder of the former CNT member Eliseo Melis shot by the feared Quico Sabater, who gave him a lead against the number 3 of the Montealegre street, or the visit of Eva Perón, received in a big way in gratitude for the shipments of cereals and meat from Argentina.
As the author does not declare himself anti-Franco nor does he feel obliged to adjective the events he narrates, the reader will discover the intense, popular and active life of Barcelona even in a time – the post-war and the Franco era – dismissed as dark, a description compatible with the desire to live and enjoy the people of Barcelona. The author is very careful not to say or insinuate that “with Franco we lived better” but he makes it clear that neither that – or that Barcelona – was a wasteland, much less a gloomy village, perhaps because society sought escape routes.
A great connoisseur of Barcelona and Madrid, Abella makes it clear in this book that in that period from 1939 to 1992, there was no color: Barcelona turned a thousand circles around the capital of Spain, more “kidnapped” by the weight of the civil service, official life and a stricture superior to that of Barcelona, ??whose nights and scenes he knows and mentions: the Cova del Drac, Runner, El Snob, The Pub de Tuset, the Pastís bar, Bocaccio…
Supported by numerous sources and journalistic texts, Abella describes the milestones of that Barcelona with rigor and objectivity, far from establishing ideological trenches, as is common when describing life under the Franco regime, which lasted so long. The author introduces anecdotes and experiences, with balance, and stands out in the description of some friends of his father, Rafael Abella, scholar, historian, mainstay in the Planeta publishing house and regular collaborator in La Vanguardia. We are talking about Barcelona figures of the stature of Néstor Luján, Horacio Saénz Guerrero, Mariano de la Cruz, Dr. Juan Obiols, Juan Ramón Masoliver…
Seen this way, that Barcelona, ??with its tragedies and misfortunes, was also a happy, vital city without complexes or great traumas. That he bathed in Piscinas y Deportes or the baths of San Sebastián, he went to the movies, bullfights and soccer without even imagining that one day in 1992 he would be the center of the universe.