A botched but very active secret state organization, based in Barcelona’s Eixample, is the protagonist of ‘Three Enigmas for the Organization’ (Seix Barral), the new novel by Eduardo Mendoza (Barcelona, ??1943) – on sale this Wednesday the 24th. -, in which the agents of said entity – a total of nine – must solve the mysterious murder of a guest at a hotel on La Rambla, among other shady matters that reflect current society in a sense of crazy humor. The writer – who sometimes bursts into laughter remembering some of the book’s occurrences – receives this newspaper in a hotel very close to the agency’s headquarters, whose exact address he prefers not to reveal because “it’s a house I go to because is there a doctor”.
On April 10, 2021, you declared to this newspaper that you had had enough of writing novels, that you did not believe you would write any more. And here we are, talking about the one that is published today. Aren’t you like some politicians?
And like bullfighters. When I told him, he sincerely thought about it: there is a time when you have to retire. But I said to myself: ‘Well, what do I do now? If what I have is the desire to write…’ In short, I started writing for myself, without knowing if I would finish it. I thought about adopting the detective novel model, and making a parody. Now detective books are collective. First it was Raymond Chandler’s lone wolf, then the couple, and now it is the district police station, to the point that they find a dismembered corpse, they start to investigate and soon they forget about it because what happens inside that ‘family’ is much more interesting than crime: that if the boss wants I don’t know what, the other one is corrupt, the other one is in love…
The humor is more unleashed than in his other books.
Yes, I thought this novel wouldn’t exist, I was doing it just to have fun. So it didn’t matter.
It happens from jewelry stores on Passeig de Gràcia to brothels in La Jonquera.
Places I haven’t visited, by the way.
But have you carried out any type of research, in this or other aspects?
Not at all. Everything is invented and so absurd that it is seen that there is no field work.
This is his novel with the most stunning women.
Yes. You will find here all the clichés that I use and abuse: the shocking girl, a harpooner, a gangster, a Japanese…
Will this gallery of characters continue?
No. That would be pushing too hard. I think I will continue writing, because the truth is that, if not, I don’t know what to do, I have been doing this my whole life and it is not possible to stop suddenly. Plus, it’s a source of income, why would I leave it?
He pays tribute to the world of taxis, with that character who drives one and who wants to join the Organization but they won’t let him.
When I had been with the taxi driver for a while, I realized that in my childhood there had been an important character on the radio, Taxi Kane, a taxi driver detective, which was totally absurd. For me he is a reference, I was waiting for Saturday to hear the Radio Barcelona program.
It is a very contemporary novel, it integrates new technologies, streaming platforms, phone apps…
Everything, but seen from the outside. I am a disaster, I am not on any social network, neither Twitter nor Instagram nor Tik Tok… So the Organization is prohibited from using these things. Unintentionally, perhaps I have painted a portrait of my generation: these characters who have been created by the Franco regime, who survive, it is not clear why, in a world that they no longer know, but continue sticking their nose where no one calls them, are useless and do not even want to have contact via mobile phone, so that they cannot be located.
There are interactions between the agents and then with the outside world…
They come and go, and they are also at home, each of them has a life like a character in a novel but then at home he is a poor unfortunate, as happens to all of us.
To you too?
Clear! You are interviewing me here as supposedly a respected writer but then I get home and they tell me ‘hey, I told you to go buy chickpeas’, ‘oh, I forgot’… and they don’t forgive you because you have the Cervantes prize.
It deals with the world of immigration.
Barcelona, ??like all cities, has changed its DNA. The people of Barcelona are like the Indians of a reservation and everything else is colonization. And I like it that way, it seems like a good way to renew. Barcelona is an open city, as it has always been, and like all of them are, except for some very disgusting ones, which have no mixes. There may not be many foreign workers in North Korea. There are those who come to Barcelona to look for work, those who come because they have retired and are looking for the climate and good food, young people bored with their home who have more fun here… all these people are what make the city and I wanted them to come out. .
A key character is a prostitute. At some point did she think about stopping herself because of political correctness?
No, not that. What I do try is to be very respectful. The hunchback scared me more. But there is a moment when you already think: from lost, to the river. And I tell the story of the hunchback, which is like a story within the novel. And, if the group of hunchbacks is offended, we will ask for forgiveness. They have disappeared, but many were seen before.
The head of the group exercises peculiar leadership.
He is the character I like the most. He is the only one who does not have a name, he treasures all human miseries but is very proud of his position and, from time to time, reflects on the loneliness of power.
There is a phrase that I highlighted: “Time passes with incredible speed and, if one has known how to enrich one’s understanding with substantial readings, instructive journeys and serene reflections, in the end one receives the reward of the wise man, which consists of verifying that everything learned is useless.” , that all experience is late and that all life is of unmitigated vulgarity.” Do you subscribe to it?
Of course, it’s the pure truth! But, to reach this conclusion, you have to have studied a lot, you have to reach it after having made an effort.
There is a remarkable work of language: you achieve the humorous effect with a parody of official or bureaucratic language.
I’m good at that. These are things that I have studied a lot from my time as a lawyer. The legal language and that of the police reports have to be very precise because they have to serve as evidence, and they use redundancies a lot, because they are necessary, but the result is shocking.
One of the agents has to reconcile and takes his teenage son with him on some missions.
The boy has to do his homework and the condition is that, despite all the adventures that are happening, he does his homework in his notebook.
That’s quite modern, taking your child away.
Crime novels and series usually start out very well but, by the third or fourth installment, they begin to take themselves very seriously. It has happened to me reading Jo Nesbo and others, at first you find powerful dismemberments, all the force of Scandinavian noir, something hilarious, but after a while you start to get attached to the characters and they want you to take it seriously. So I’m going to look for another author who is just starting out and hasn’t reached that level yet.
You were an interpreter in international organizations, and worked with great leaders (you translated the meeting between Reagan and Felipe González, for example). Is there anything about those experiences in this novel? Maybe he thought, with everything he saw, that you would have been a good secret agent?
On the contrary, there you realize that the intelligence services are nonsense. Its main function is to justify its existence. I treated many spies…
And so?
In that UN, it was the time of the cold war, and the delegations, like the Russians, were full of spies, who had nothing to do and, for example, photocopied the plans of a fighter plane that were published in ‘Newsweek’ because, of course, it was impossible for them to access the plane factory, no one entered there. It’s not like in the James Bond movies. The secret services are very human: great things are discovered because, for example, someone goes to pee and forgets their wallet with microfilms in the sink. That’s how it actually happens, it’s pretty ridiculous.
You who have lived in London, do you see differences between the famous British and Spanish humor?
Yes, the English have always considered humor to be part of their identity and have great respect for those who practice it. Its most illustrious novelist is Dickens, who is an author of humor, also a dramatic one, but, well, if he survives it is because of humor, not because of little orphans. His politicians always start their speeches with a joke, they parody themselves, things that go very wrong here and, when they try, it is worse. There they have good scriptwriters who prepare those phrases for them. There have been quality comedians here but in general it has been considered something second-rate and the genre has been left in more ordinary hands. Now, because of the film, Eugenio has become fashionable again and there you see that this is very serious and ‘molt nostrat’, Eugenio can only be Catalan. He comes from Cassen’s humor.
In ‘Three enigmas for the Organization’ there is a Barcelona priest who nervously awaits the Pope’s visit to his parish.
What nonsense, right? And, to get information from the priest, the Asian-looking secret agent tells him that he is a Shintoist but that he wants to convert to Catholicism and raises important questions in their conversations. I have been very fond of religious themes, it is my secret vice, I have read a lot of Saint Augustine: I marvel at how, if you want to define and explain philosophically an impossible thing, very funny Byzantine prose emerges.
There is an agent with multiple jobs, who goes to the house of a high society lady, who pays her to talk to her. That exist?
Not so explicit, but I have realized that many older people have caregivers and that their main function is none other than to give them care, to talk.
Did we miss something important?
Important? With this book, surely not.
