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Journal of Catalan Studies 2006

83

Francoism and the Dialectics of Space:The Case of Manuel Vzquez Montalbns

Angst-Ridden Executive1

Alexander IbarzUniversity of Sheffield

The workers have nothing to lose in this but their chains.

They have a world to gain. Workers of the world, unite!

(Last words of the Communist Manifesto of 1848)

In a recent study, Caragh Wells has written convincingly on theimportance of an urban dialectics in Vzquez Montalbns fiction(2004). Wells argues, drawing upon theoretical studies, that the realand imagined space of Barcelona, and all the socio-political mappingit entails, is as central to the Carvalho detective novels as the plot andcharacters themselves. The present study seeks to pursue anotherrelated stratum of this dialectical question: national space as anextension of, and dialogical engagement with, urban and politicalspaces. Benedict Andersons influential notion of imagined

communities (1983) raises the question in its present form.

2

What isthe relationship between the collective imaginaries of the diverseconstituents of a nation, or of nations within a nation, and theurban space portrayed in a novel? How can an author metonymicallyand metaphorically negotiate these collective imaginaries within theconfines of a text using only the narratological devices that can becategorized as constitutive of novelistic structure?

1This article started out as a paper entitled Carvalhos Franco: Franquismoand thedetective fiction of Manuel Vzquez Montalbn (1939-2003) presented to the LIConference of the Anglo-Catalan Society, 18 November 2005 (Fitzwilliam College,

Cambridge). I am grateful to the conference organizers and the participants for theirhelpful comments.2 As John Payne states: Benedict Andersons phrase imagined community is souseful because it does remind us that we create and recreate our identities in ourminds. A rethinking of the Catalan national project now seems more probable thanpossible. It might or might not include the acceptance of the complexity of identityand community within Catalonia (2004: 251).

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One of the most frequent methods of applying categories ofseparation to nationalities in Spain is to divide them into two opposedcamps: the minority nationality (e.g. the Catalan) and the majoritynationality (e.g. the Spanish). In the case of Catalonia, this division isoften taken for granted. So it is customary to speak of a Castilian anda Catalan-speaking Catalonia, as an exchange between Georges Tyrasand the late Manuel Vzquez Montalbn (1939-2003)illustrates (froman interview conducted in 1996). The passage that will be quoted nextis representative of Manuel Vzquez Montalbns non-binary view ofCatalonias linguistic and national-ethnic pluralism and is of particularinterest here because it demonstrates the metonymical value of theProvincial capital (Barcelona) as representative of wider communities(Catalonia). The discussion of charneguismo, in the second half of thislong but fascinating passage, is especially revealing of the authorsengagement with, and experience of, living in a multiethnic andbilingual society where symbolic imaginary structures are constantlyin dialogue. The pejorative designation, charnego, generally appliedin the 1950s and 1960s by Catalan speakers to the new wave ofmigrant workers encouraged by the Franco regime to boostCatalonias programme of post-war industrialization, is particularly

relevant to La soledad del manager (Vzquez Montalbn 1978[1977]) as a novel that negotiates national identities and loyalties. Infact, the term is dialogically reassessed and re-appropriated byMontalbn so that it becomes multi-accented. In a single wordintersect the polyphony of ethno-cultural voices that resonate acrossthe physical and imaginary space of Barcelona (an example from thenovel is discussed later in this article):

Georges Tyras: Quel est ton rapport la langue catalane? Ny a-t-il pas

un problme de vraisemblance utiliser le castillan pour un crivain qui

situe lessentiel de ses romans dans la capitale de la Catalogne?

Manuel Vzquez Montalbn: Eh bien, Barcelone, en Catalogne, il y a

cinquante pour cent de personnes de langue castillane, qui parlent

presque toujours en castillan, bien que tout le monde comprenne le

catalan.

G.T.: Cest le phnomne du charneguismo...

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M.V.M.: Il est important ici. Tu sais sans doute que charnego est un mot,

pjoratif lorigine, qui se rapportait limmigrant n ici, mais fils

dimmigrants... Moi, je serais un charnego. Et, si je suis bien inform,

cest un mot dorigine franaise, comment dit-on carne en franais?

G.T.: Viande, ou chair, selon le cas...

M.V.M.: Chair... voil cest cela. On appelait les migrs catalans qui

allaient faire les vendanges dans le sud de la France des Chairs ngres.

Je suppose que ngres tait une catalanisation de noir comme couleur

de la chair, sans doute de la peau. Comme ils allaient faire les

vendanges dans le Roussillon, du ct o lon parle catalan, ce

nologisme sest appliqu eux. De chair ngre... chair negro...

charnego. Quoi quil en soit, ma relation la catalanit a toujours t de

cohabitation... [...] cohabiter, ctait savoir quil y avait quelquun de

diffrent, parce quil parle diffremment, et quil y a des us et coutumes

diffrents, des rfrents symboliques autres, dont tu timprgnes peu

peu comme dune nourriture prcise, le club de football de Barcelone par

exemple. (Tyras 2004: 63-64)

Vzquez Montalbns novel, La soledad del manager, from thepopular serie Carvalho detective novels, depicts Barcelona in the

spring of 1977 when the book was written. Thirty years on, it nowrepresents a historical contribution to a theme (the impact ofFrancoism on Catalan life) that was especially relevant to the author atthe time of writing. Montalbn wrote the novel at a time of socialupheaval in Spanish society generally, and in Barcelona and Cataloniain particular. The rapid composition of the novel as momentous eventsunfolded in the wake of Francos death, a year and several monthsearlier, means that today, in addition to a tightly structured detectivenovel,La soledad del managerprovides a peculiarly candid evocationof an atmosphere that is now part of the history of the Transicin.Although the book is fiction, the fact that the author was a career

journalist whose life work was dedicated to bearing witness to, anddocumenting Spanish society, means that several descriptive passagesof the novel may be said to represent quasi-journalistic sources, if notfor actual events, then at least for the atmosphere of social andpolitical unrest that engulfed Barcelona in early 1977.

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Vzquez Montalbn wrote extensively on Francoismthroughout his life in numerous articles and books. Moreover, hisvision of the plurality of Barcelonas socio-political and culturalcomponents, its history, present and future (see Vzquez Montalbn1987; 1991; 1998) go hand in hand with his profound knowledge of,and interest in the philosophy of the dictatorship (1978; 1985; 1992).In this article I shall examine the use of a novel in the creation of adialogical, or dialectical, space where politics and social comment arecommunicated to the reader through the narratological triad of point ofview, characterization and plot structure. References to Catalonia in

La soledad del manager have been collected and analysednarratologically to relate these indices to the main theme, developedthrough the plot of a detective story. This novel has been selectedbecause it is the first of the Carvalho series to make an importantimpact. The eight thousand exemplars of the first edition of December1977 sold out in less than a month and by January 1978 a secondedition was already available. It is also the first Carvalho novel that isthe work of a fully accomplished and mature literary talent and, as itwas published in the wake of Francos death, is of particular interestto the theme under consideration.

Lasoledad del managerportrays the divisions and animositiesof three generations. They are victims of, or collaborators with, centralstate repressive system. The novel emphasizes the role ofmultinational capital in the manipulation and control of the Spanishstates emergent democratic machine; and the author explores therepercussions of this phenomenon through the sociology ofcharacterization and plot. The semiotic method as adopted by JosValles Calatrava in his study, La novela criminal espaola (1991),employs a number of narratological terms which are particularlypertinent to this study. The first is the concept of function, developedin the sixties and adapted from the work of Vladimir Propp (1968

[1917]) though preference in this particular case will be showntowards Roland Barthes (1966) model of Distributive and IntegrativeNarrative Functions. In this scheme, the former define narrative action

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whilst the latter refer to narrative meaning.3 They can be listed asfollows:

(1) Cardinal functions or nuclei.4 These are the principalmotors of action in the narrative, which inaugurate, moveforward and develop plotlines.

(2) Secondary functions, or catalysers. These depend on thenuclei, and are structured around them.

(3) Integrative functions are called indices:5(i.e. those parts ofa narrative that do not serve to move forward the action,but delay it, by invoking character, feeling, or atmosphere).

(4)Informants: references to pure data, time, place, etc.It is useful at this point to remember the histoire/discours

distinction first posited by mile Benveniste (1966: 237-250).Histoire refers to that which is signified by a narration, the virtualsequence of events as they happen in time and space. Discoursrefersto the particular disposition of these events in narrative.6 This

3Vzquez Montalbn lived through the formative years of European structuralism in

the 1960s, and its presence is reflected in his intellectual and fictional work. Forexample, in his first novel, Yo mat a Kennedy, he places the following opinion (ladenwith burlesque surrealist irony) in the mouth of the American President: Elestructuralismo es un vano esfuerzo neopositivista, escogido por el capitalismoimperialista para meter una cua ideolgica dentro del pensamiento marxista. Y sobretodo para restar votos al partido comunista francs, votos procedentes de losnormaliens de izquierda y de toda la pequea burguesa intelectual en general (1972:30-31).4Verdaderos nudos o ncleos narrativos, hechos centrales en la progresin del relatounidos entre s en el discurso por relaciones lgicas y cronolgicas (Valles Calatrava1991: 185).5Los indicios revisten especial importancia porque van permitiendo al protagonista iravanzando paulatinamente en su bsqueda y llenando de sentido los diversosinterrogantes; hasta cierto punto podra decirse por ello, en general, que el relato

criminal de investigador es una novela indicial, un relato donde los indicios tienenun peso ms especfico para el desarrollo de la accin que en otras modalidadesnarrativas (Valles Calatrava 1991: 186).6The Russian formalists sought to disentangle the Aristotelean mythos(which seemsto refer both to mimesisand the arrangement of the incidents, often translated as bothstory and plot [Roberts 1927]). Thus, to distinguish story the events as they actuallyoccurred (fabula) from plot (sjuet) as Tomashevsky did (1965 [1925]: 67) provides

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distinction is of peculiar significance to the genre of enigma stories.The creation of suspense depends upon the author holding back vitalparts of the histoire in order that the disposition of material in thediscours presents an enigma to be proposed, developed and, onlywhen the whole narrative has run its course, finally resolved. In thissense the detective genre is characterized by various strategies thatproduce necessary delays to the action; the more prolonged, and themore tantalizing, the better. La soledad del manager is an excellentexample of this process; and one of the key features of this type ofnarrative is the relationship of the indices to the functions.

Dramatic tension and psychological insight are also achievedthrough the process of focalization (Genette 1980), which divides intothree classes:

(1) Zero focalization is where there is no ostensible limitationof point of view alignment with characters or protagonists;traditionally equivalent to the omniscient narrator.

(2) Internal focalization may be fixed or variable. Point ofview is limited to a particular character.

(3) External focalization. No point of view is ascribed.Characters are viewed from outside by the results of theiractions (a technique often associated with Hemingway).

The way the functions are organized within the narrativesequence is partially determined by focalization. La soledad delmanagerbegins when, on a flight from Las Vegas to San Francisco,Carvalho meets Antonio Jaum, a top-level executive in amultinational company (La Petnay, una de las compaasmultinacionales ms importantes del mundo [Vzquez Montalbn

a simplified, but still workable distinction, which has born many subsequentqualifications and modifications, especially in the wake of Genette. The present studyretains the concepts in their basic form, relying on Todorov (1966: 157-158) andValles Calatrava (1991: 183). I shall not enter the linguistic debate opened byBenveniste and continued more recently by, amongst others, the cognitivists (e.g.Ryan 1991).

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1978: 12]).7The chronological location of the meeting is imprecise,and for a reason; the events recounted, the reader discovers later, arein factflashbacks. Carvalho met Jaum while he was working for theCentral Intelligence Agency in the late 1960s and their acquaintance,Carvalho afterwards explains, lasted three days. This three-daymeeting is a cardinal function of the plot: Sus dos compaeros deasiento hablaban de Espaa y uno de ellos en un ingls evidentementeacentuado en cataln.(12)

This beginning in medias res is typical of the genre, andattests to the freedom of authors of detective fiction to set up anenigma without, at first, declaring its nature. Montalbn juxtaposesCarvalhos meeting Jaum, the first cardinal function, although itsstatus as such is concealed, with another seemingly unconnectedevent, which turns out to be the second cardinal function of the novel:the discovery of the body. Chapter 2 contains a descriptive passagedetailing a new location, in which narrative time and perpetrator areleft at first unexplained. In fact, the individual is a minor character,whose sole function is the discovery of Jaums murdered corpse. ButMontalbn disguises this function, by introducing a minor character asif he were a leading protagonist. Because this is achieved through a

shift in focalization, which is directly relevant to the spatio-temporallocation of the narration as a Catalan phenomenon, it will bear moredetailed commentary.

The descriptive passage that will next be quoted is not limitedthrough the eyes of the character but is an instance of the omniscientnarrator, or zero focalization. The indicial contrast between the firstand second chapters is therefore striking. In the first chapter, focalizedthrough Carvalho, we have a blurred representation of time and placealongside a sharp portrayal of Antonio Jaum. By contrast, chapter 2begins with a lengthy passage describing the countryside and geologyof one of the northern strongholds of Catalan culture, the city of Vic.

Here, I suggest, Montalbn assumes the dominant voice of thetraditional narrator, in order to reinforce thus an ideological oppositionat the heart of the text, between, on the one hand, the shimmering

7All quotations of the novel are taken from this 1978 edition. Henceforth only pagenumbers will be given.

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near-dream-state subjectivity of far-away America, and, on the other,the solidified geographical space of long-dead volcanoes, objectifiedas an almost atemporal zone:

Como si los vapores de los viejos volcanes se hubieran vuelto niebla fra

y hmeda, de la tierra gris cada maana de invierno suben los vapores

que empapan las viejas geometras de las casonas que limitan Vich.

Expulsada de la villa por el aliento de los primeros portales abiertos, la

niebla se ceba en las casillas de adobes encalados que marcan la

transicin entre la vieja ciudad y su paisaje de turones grises. A estas

horas de la maana no se percibe plenamente el paisaje de antiguo

desastre prehistrico, de fin del mundo limitado que alguna vez debi

ocurrir en la hoy llamada llanura de Vich, un ceniciento terreno salpicado

de autocontrolados cerrillos de cenizas petrificadas. Tampoco se percibe

el casero de piedra desnuda, oscura, cubierto por tejados cejijuntos no se

sabe si por la lluvia o por subrayar la gravedad de una ciudad a la que uno

de sus escritores locales calific de ciudad de los santos. Los curas an

no han salido de sus infinitas madrigueras olorosas de cera y mazapn.

Las nicas propuestas humanas son payesas que bajan hacia el mercado y

obreros que salen de la ciudad en busca de fbricas de embutidos y

muebles, bvilas o factoras de piedra artificial. Herramientas mismas delfro, las bicicletas zigzaguean con su luz loca, nerviosamente estudiadas

por los ojos humeantes de los faros de los coches o por el iceberg de un

camin del que slo emerge la frente de inmenso animal cbico. (15-16)

The author is engaged in mapping out, literally and figuratively, thespace in which his fictional world encounters the real one. Catalonia,through the metonomy of Vic, is thus placed at the centre of thenarrative. From the universal to the particular, from volcanicprehistory to the prehistory of an individuals childhood memories,Montalbn takes us step by step, first to a radio weatherman and

finally to a radio listener, Joan de can Gubern, who is concentrating onthe temperature read out. La Corua is at minus two; there is noreadout for Granada, Bilbao at two degrees, Barcelona is at fourdegrees: Y en Vich? Se pregunta el hombre. Seguro que por debajode cero. Si en Barcelona estn a cuatro..(16-17) This is an example ofan informant which is indicial to set the scene, reminding us that,

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in Catalonia, Barcelona is the central reference point by which all elseis measured. It is also an example of interior monologue (an indexposing as a catalyser to create suspense): Hay que ver los recuerdos!Cualquier cosa te desencadena un amontonamiento de imgenesrotas!.(17)

From the prehistoric volcanoes of Vic we have finally arrivedinside a mans mind, and he is remembering the past. It turns out theradio he is listening to is a car radio, and that he is waiting in a traffic

jam at a level crossing that has been described earlier. His chain ofthought is followed and leads him to a childhood memory of drinkingearly morning caf amb llet. The way he was told off by hisgrandfather (Joan, no emprenyis ms i pren-te la llet! [17]) remindsJoan of how he tells off his own children: Oriol, un dia macabarsla pacincia i et fotar un calbot! (17). Joan also describes how heloses his patience with his wife because she criticizes him for insistingon drinking his morning milk out of a large mug (psychonarrationleads to Free Indirect Style): El tazn de leche le permita recuperarla infancia, rostros de fondo, casi imposible recuperarlos del todo(17).

All these indicial elements of characterization of Joan de can

Gubern are absolutely of no relevance to the story; and yet they areimportant as indices to introduce a theme. They serve to evoke anatmosphere, a Catalan everyman waiting in the cold, in a queue ofearly morning traffic, in the fog, thinking about his situation. Thisapparently mundane scenario presents the novels themes subtlythrough a kind of foreshadowing of leitmotivsand, at the same time,leads chronologically to the introduction of the cardinal function ofchapter 2, which is the discovery of the body of Antonio Jaum. Apartfrom its strongly evocative Catalan atmosphere, I suggest that thethematic integration which the passage as a whole, and not only thesnippets I have quoted, achieves is threefold: (1) the theme of

generational conflict; (2) the role of individual memory; (3) theproblem of sex. First I will illustrate the theme of sex with an examplethat combines index, catalyser and cardinal function.

Joan de can Guberns chain of thought is interrupted by hisnoticing that he has an erection. His immediate response is one of self-congratulation, which turns to panic when he realizes that he

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desperately needs to urinate. As an index, this points forward in thenarrative to the large role that sex plays in the thoughts and speech ofthe male protagonists. It also foreshadows the complication of thenovel which involves the discovery of a body that seems, according tothe police, to have been a sex-related murder (a smokescreen, as itturns out). As a catalyser, Joans urgent need to relieve himself sendshim out of the traffic into the mist and the snow; and this leads to thediscovery of the body. It is a fountain of yellow urine in the snow thatuncovers the hand of a man, a dead man, Antonio Jaum. Thisillustrates the interlinking of formal distinctions indices, catalysersand functions , so that the fabric of the text produces a holisticreading experience that is thematically embedded.

The theme of generational conflict is the link to the nextchapter, which sees a youngish man in his forties be described byCarvalho as Un muchacho que se ha quedado anclado en lagesticulacin de James Dean (19-20). Focalized entirely fromCarvalhos perspective, this character functions, according to theLithuanian critic A. J. Greimas actant model (or list of six actants)(1966), as both sender and helper, conveying information of the deathof Antonio Jaum to Carvalho, sent by Concha Hijar, wife of the dead

man. Thus Montalbn avoids but also reappropriates the film noirtopic of the grieving widow, whom the forty-something muchacho,Marcos Nez, takes Carvalho to visit in chapter 4.

Marcos Nez was also a friend of Jaum; and it is throughhim that the widow, not trusting the official version of Jaumsmurder, contracts Carvalho to investigate her husbands death.Following Greimass list, the friends of the deceased Antonio Jaummay be categorized into two camps: helpers and opponents. Thosewho wish to find out the truth about the executives politicalassassination and those who would prefer that the matter were soonforgotten. Interestingly, this group of six friends, whose interviews

occupy a large part of the book, brings the theme of generationalconflict into the fore. They also drag Carvalho into the problem andthe enigma of the story, because Carvalho is implicated in thegenerational, cultural, linguistic and political conflict which the bookdescribes taking place in Catalonia during this period. As a problemnot only of the present, but of history, it is a theme first introduced by

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Jaum in the conversation with an American passenger overheard byCarvalho in the opening flashback:

Los americanos sabemos vender.

No dira yo lo mismo. Lo que ocurre es que estn en condiciones

polticas de hacer comprar a los dems.

Es ley de historia, amigo mo. Ustedes tambin tuvieron un imperio

(12-13)

Jaum, the angst-ridden executive, as the English translationby Ed Emery is entitled (Vzquez Montalbn 2002), saw himself as acog in the capitalist machine. Trapped by financial considerations intosustaining his position within a multinational company, he was oncean idealistic revolutionary and his heart lay with the ideals of the left-wing insurrectionary student movements of the 1950s and 1960s. Thegroup of seven of which he formed part as a student consists of twodistinct halves. On the one hand are the left-wingers Marcos Nez,exiled to East Germany until Francos death, Jacinto Vilaseca, abeatnik filmmaker and Toms Biedma, abogado laboralista el msrojo Capitanea un grupsculo de extrema izquierda (72). The other

part of the group is illustrative of the Catalan bourgeoisie: JordiArgem, a yoghurt manufacturing magnate and secret poet, andMiguel Fontanillas, abogado, como todos nosotros, pero ejerciendo ybien. Es decir: abogado de no s cuntas empresas, tres casas, cuatropiscinas (72). In between the two groups is the egomaniac novelistJuan Dorronsoro, a meticulous example of la pasin del escritorracional dispuesto a dejar testimonio de la mediocridad colectiva de laciudad franquista (107). Carvalhos condescending attitude towardsthis novelist is indicative of the low esteem in which Montalbn heldthe Spanish and Catalan novel during this period. These politicaloppositions mirror a wider contrast. In turn, la ciudad franquista is

opposed to la ciudad vencida (113). These refer us to the two Spains,the bourgeoisie that arrives at a cosy arrangement of co-existence withFranco and the underclass who have trouble making ends meet, and itis la trama estrecha y satnica de la ciudad vencida (113) to which itis Carvalhos fate to bear witness:

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Cuando me muera, conmigo desaparecer la memoria de aquellos

tiempos y aquellas gentes que al parirme me situaban en la platea de su

propia tragedia. (113)

Before returning to the roles played by the friends of Jaum,the theme of Catalonias experience of fascism may be pursuedfurther. The lasting influence of the failed coup dtat of 18 July 1936extends far and deep into the books thematic and therefore structuralnucleus, because it provides the historical background to theresolution of Antonio Jaums murder. This fact is reiterated at anumber of points in the novel, and illustrations of it provide much ofthe material studied over the course of the following pages. Forexample, and to follow Greimas once again, the principal opponent ofthe subject (Carvalho) is veiled until right at the end of the novelsdiscours. From the moment Carvalho enlists the help of Pedro Parra,however, a revolutionary guerrilla leader in waiting, whose nom deguerre in the sixties was el coronel (incidentally, Carvalhos wasVentura), it becomes clear enough that the principal suspect is themultinational organization for which Jaum worked. When Carvalhovisits Pedro Parra to pick up an initial report on Petnays organization

he encounters an apartment porter reading Cernuda, which remindsthe detective of an exiled poet he had once met in Tijuana, who said:Hasta que muera Franco no vuelvo. Es un hecho moral (68):

Cada vez que me ha llegado un rumor de que Franco estaba enfermo o de

que estaba a punto de caer, he dejado de afeitarme, he hecho las maletas y

no me he cambiado las sbanas de la cama. Para que todo me empujara a

marcharme de aqu. Hace unos meses me desesper. Tengo veinte libros

de poemas inditos, amigo. (69)

Jaums private accountant, Alemany, refused to die until he had seen

the fascist dictator dead: Ha vivido tantos aos para conseguir queFranco se muriera antes que l (127). Although Alemany serves animportant functional role in the novel, his characterization providesMontalbn with another opportunity to lend meaning to the wholestory in terms of his theme of Catalonias experience of fascism: Eneste pas hay tanta basura, tanta basura acumulada bajo la dictadura de

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aquel brtol. De aquelptol! (125). Interestingly, Alemany thenrefers us to the underlying unity of right- and left-wing catalanistas:

Ya haba llevado la contabilidad de su padre, un autntico industrial de

los de antes de la guerra. Era de la Lliga, pero no de los que se marcharon

a Burgos... Siempre nos habamos entendido... porque los dos ramos

catalanistas de verdad. l de la Lliga y yo de la Uni Socialista de

Comorera, pero catalanes los dos, catalanes de verdad. (125)

Alemany is portrayed as a stalwart cul, and his view of the clubstrajectory during Francoism is dismal:8Se baja las ropas de la cama ysobre el pecho del pijama aparece un escudo de oro del Barcelona F.C... (126). Alemany also explains, in a tirade, that:

Si no fuera por los bandarresque se apoderaron del club despus de la

guerra civil. Yo fui un dirigente del Bara durante la Repblica, cuando

el Bara s era ms que un club. Porque ahora esos brtols, esosptols...

venga a decir que es ms que un club. Claro que es ms que un club. Es

un apndice del Valle de los Cados hasta que nos se saquen de encima la

basura de la Federacin Espaola de Ftbol. Yo lo dije en Madrid en los

aos treinta, a Hernndez Coronado, un periodista que luego fue directivodel Atltico de Madrid... Le dije : Si por m fuera, el Bara se retirara de

la Liga espaola y jugara en cualquiera otra, en la de Francia o en la de

Australia, me da igual. (126)

Alemany interrupts his doleful soliloquy with a comic interrogation ofthe charnegodetective. The passage is important because Carvalhosreappropriation of a pejorative and racist term comes at a key momentof the novels development of the theme of Francoism and Catalonia.The accountant inquires:

Usted es cataln?

No lo s. Yo ms bien dira que soy charnego.

8On the importance of soccer and Barcelona F. C., see Vzquez Montalbn (1992b).

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En Catalunya los verdaderos charnegos son algunos catalanes. Como

Samaranch, Porta y otros botiflers que han hecho el caldo gordo al

franquismo. sos son los charnegos de primera. (127)

Thus, by redefining Carvalhos use of the term charnego, Alemanyapplies it to those who collaborated with the regime. Both Carvalhostrips to visit Alemany are obviously cardinal functions and, as Barthespredicted, the first one anticipates the second, as a correlate (comingclose to the narrative peak of the novel, when functions become moreintense); but indicial information still accompanies these visits, andreinforces the impact of Carvalhos discoveries. On the first visit, thedocumentation of Petnays accounts which Carvalho seeks isaccompanied by documentation of another kind:

Ya desde el recibidor, el piso de Alemany era una declaracin de

principios. Sobre una bandera catalana, las fotos enmarcadas de Maci,

Companys y Tarradellas, los tres presidentes de la Generalitat de

Catalunya en el siglo XX. Muy cerca de la foto de Maci, un marco

convierte en reliquia y proclama una carta autgrafa de Companys

dirigida al dueo de la casa: Estimat Alemany, em va dir el nostre amic

Rodoreda que vost est malalt (123)

But when Carvalho visits the accountant a second time, Alemany is illand both his accounts, together with his papers concerning theGeneralitat, have been purchased by a mysterious visitor on behalf ofPetnay. Thus, commercial subterfuge goes hand in hand with thepolitical suppression of Catalonias historical memory. As such, it isthrough indices of this kind that Montalbn lends depth tocharacterization while also subtly extending the socio-politicaldimension of his novel. This narratological tension (which may beconceived as essentially dialectic) is also central to the relationships

established between Jaums friends and Carvalho.Carvalho had once looked up to Marcos Nez as a semi-mythical leader of the first generation of student protests in the 1950s;and this merger with authorial experience is fictionalized throughreferences to Carvalhos own left-wing activism. Nez, likeCarvalho, fled Spain into exile during the 1960s and so their fates

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during the transition are comparable; both are outsiders looking in ona society that has not yet decided what their position, or contribution,could or should be. Carvalho sides naturally with the underclass of ElRaval, metonym par excellence of la ciudad vencida: Carvalhoconoce estos caminos y estas gentes. No los cambiara como paisajenecesario para sentirse vivo, aunque de noche prefiera huir de laciudad vencida (48). At its heart, the generational conflict describedby the novel unveils the principal theme of the book, which is thehistorical or collective memory of Catalonia and, in particular, thememory of the Spanish war of 1936. To sum up, the dialecticstructures that emerge from this analysis, especially in terms ofindices and functions, result in the build-up and release of narrativetension, thus manifesting the dialectical friction that Todorovdescribes as the oscillatory relationship between histoireand discours.

At the heart of this tension, depth of character is created forCarvalho who struggles between his professional function to discoverthe murderer of Antonio Jaum, and the extra-professional nature ofthe wider facts uncovered about Petnay and Catalonias relationship tothe regime more widely. Nowhere is this tension clearer than at themicrocosmic level of narratological analysis. For example, it seems no

coincidence that Jaums former acquaintances split into two tripartitegroups: one with left-wing political sympathies, and the other withmore bourgeois leanings. This provides a clear dialectic structure ofthesis and antithesis. The tension is negotiated via Carvalho, whoserves as the synthetic nexus uniting these two groups; and his ownrelationship with each in turn serves not only a functional role in thediscovery of new facts that move forward the investigation, but anindicial purpose of revealing new facts both about Carvalho himself,and his internal struggle in the face of political and socio-culturalconfrontations. An example of the way the process of detective workresults in Carvalho facing his own personal demons is provided by the

details he discovers concerning the relationship between Argem andthe murdered Jaum.Two crucial twists of narrative sequencing await the reader.

The first is that Jaum was betrayed by his close friend Argem who,following orders from Petnay, organizes Jaums murder and that ofhis associate Dieter Rhomberg. Jaum became expendable not

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because he found out that since 1974 Petnay had been siphoning offconsiderable amounts of cash to fund armed right-wing groups for thepurpose of frightening the bourgeoisie and coercing the left-wing inpreparation for the transition to democracy but because he wanted todo something about it, thereby showing loyalty to his political beliefsand, more importantly, to his old friends. The greatest betrayal in thisaffair was committed by Argem, the covert political agent of Petnaywho, by remaining faithful to his class masters betrays somethingmore sacred. Such is Carvalhos disgust upon discovering thistreachery that he pours a 1966 vintage of Nuit de Saint Georges onArgems carpet rather than drink the brew of the enemy. Given thewhole books obsession with enological and gastronomical pleasures,this act acquires the status of symbol. The second betrayal iscommitted by Jaums widow, Concha Hijar, who conspires withArgem and the police to silence an investigation which she herselfhad begun.

In opposition to all this stands no-one. The hero himself ispowerless as only an anti-hero can be. This powerlessness of theprotagonist is figured through the increasing irrelevance of Carvalhosenquiries. The original commission by Jaums widow gradually fades

into insignificance. The financial reward promised becomes less andless the incentive for detection, to the point that, quite soon, thewidows employment is merely an excuse for the investigation, andthe detective actively seeks to avoid speaking directly with her forfear, justified as it turns out, that she will want him to drop the case.Carvalhos escapism is laden with narrative tension.

He seeks to elude the widow, and prevent her speaking withhim in order to postpone as long as possible the inexorable momentshe will call the investigation off. On this issue, indices and functionscome together, because the main figure of characterization has to dowith another form of escapism, namely: gastronomy and hedonism.

This index type functions to engage dialectically with the functionaladvancement of plot, by delaying it, and therefore increasing ourappreciation of the impending doom. But its employment byMontalbn does not stop at this. One is surely entitled to surmise thatthe protagonists indulgence of the senses underscores his apoliticaland cynical nature.

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For instance, the night before Carvalho visited Alemany forthe first time, he woke up his neighbour in Vallvidrera, el gestorFuster, a Valencian, to eat a salmis de pato at two in the morning.Amidst the nightmare it sometimes seems to Carvalho that the onlyconsolations are small ones: the pleasures of the flesh or an earlymorning walk along the Rambla in the light of the rising sun.Carvalhos insouciance is comically set against Bromuros neurosis,and tragically juxtaposed with Jaums erotomania. Thegastronomical/hedonistic type of index also gives Montalbn ampleroom for the development of an inner tension within the protagonisthimself. It could almost be said that it serves as a way of digesting(quite literally) the wider socio-political theme of the novel. Consider,for example, the poetic ruminations of the protagonists neighbour atVallvidrera, conducted during a late-night sobretaula. At four in themorning, having consumed a young and tender duck washed downwith Montecillo, Fuster complains about missing his sleep. Carvalhoadvises him to vomit in order to sleep well: digerirlo escompletamente accesorio e intil (122). Fuster thanks his friend,quoting the second, third and fourth lines of Ausis Marchs poem Lo

jorn ha por de perdre sa claror which continues:

Quan ve la nit que espandeix ses tenebres,

pocs animals no cloen les palpebres

i los malalts creixen de llur dolor. (Archer 1997 [XXVIII: 1-3])

To which Fuster adds: Mi paisano Ausias March no hubiera escritoestos versos de haber tenido un vecino como t (122). But Carvalhois himself unable to sleep and it is in a state of asphyxiating digestivesleeplessness that Carvalho, at four in the morning, phones his officewhere his personal assistant, Biscuter, is waiting for news of DieterRhomberg. The intertextual reference to Ausis March underscores

the deference of Montalbn to the unity of the culture of the PasosCatalans, intentionally dismantled by the fascist dictatorship. Thescene as a whole also signals the detectives restlessness in thisparticular section of his investigation.

Carvalhos pequeo mundo ramblero is heavy with the samesense of loss and fearful for what the future will bring. The theme of

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the ciudad vencida emerges from the detectives memory (temporalshifts), but also remains grounded in Carvalhos inability to spend thenight in the city, his need to escape to Vallvidrera at sundown (spatialshift). Out of this tension internal to the character, Montalbn opensup the spatio-temporal possibilities of narrative to explore the widercollective memory, as evinced not only through Carvalhosrecollection of the Civil War through his childhood and his father, butthrough the other characters who remember and talk about thesethemes. Examples of this tension will be discussed in the remainder ofthis article.

The picture Montalbn paints of Catalonia is a space ofpotential, frustrated by the ignorance of years of intolerance andmanipulated by the puppet masters of international capital. The policebrutality depicted in journalistic form by Carvalho in the indices ofnightly riots on the Rambla is real enough; but when it moves fromindex to cardinal function it acquires a surreal and at times comicflavour which even humanizes the police, showing them to beignorant victims, the unknowing school bullies of the establishment.Their counterparts, the macarras and macarrones of the Raval arequite as ignorant, and Montalbn places both these character-types

side by side deliberately. A local pimp explains that the police areputting pressure on an associate to concoct a false testimony; butwhen pressed by Carvalho to explain who is behind this, the pimpconfesses he hasnt a clue: Mi territorio termina en la plaza deCatalunya, como quien dice (128). The police who come to pressureCarvalho into leaving the case are the butt of a joke on policebrutality:

Usted cree que arrancamos las confesiones a punta de pistola o a hostia

limpia?

Hay quien solo con entrar en comisara ya se caga en los pantalones y

firma hasta su propia orden de fusilamiento.

De qu tiempos habla usted? Ahora la polica tiene otra formacin. Yo

mismo he estudiado mtodos cientficos para estudiar la conducta del

delincuente sin brutalizarle. No le niego que antes se iba a hostia limpia,

pero ahora las cosas han cambiado. (130)

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At every level of the narrative, these indices can be seen toexercise a triple effect. In addition to the creation of narrative tensionin terms of plot, their indicial purpose in thematic development isclearly structured in terms of thesis and antithesis, whereby, forexample, petty criminals and uniformed officers mirror the widerpolitical tensions portrayed in the novel, thus also providingtragicomic interludes.

The place of synthesis and focal point of this dialecticstructure is the protagonist himself. Although his tough persona maygive the impression of his being removed and at times disinterested inthe events that unfold around him, he is in fact the main locus of thenovel for digesting the socio-political buffet. A telling example iswhen Carvalho gets annoyed with a German woman, who accuses himof possessing a stereotypically Spanish temperament:

Me parece que usted tiene un temperamento muy espaol. Muy trgico.

To which Carvalho replies:

Mi temperamento es el de un solista de arpa y no me he puesto unas

castauelas en las manos en toda la vida. Las alusiones a una supuestacomplicidad con los tpicos patriticos le sacaban de quicio. (133)

This character index is of peculiar relevance to the present discussion.Given the fact that tpicos patriticos are part of the socio-politicaldialectic under examination, the protagonists distancing from either apro- or an anti-nationalist position of whatever denomination issuggestive of his synthesizing function in the novel.

Like Agatha Christies The Body in the Library (1942), thebook gets darker as it progresses. Carvalho describes his experience ofthe police station as: Como antes y despus de la primera vez que te

violan (148). The police in charge of the inquiry have framed an ex-chicken thief from Andaluca to take the rap and describe the case asclosed: Todo est atado y bien atado (151). This mimicry ofFrancos famous phrase betrays the darkness of Montalbns ironywhereby plot becomes a reflection of theme. But it is neither thepolitical foresight of the dead dictator nor the praeternatural abilities

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of detection displayed by the uniformed gendarmeriewhich explain,respectively, the Catalonia of 1977, or the nature of the enigmasurrounding Jaums murder. On the one hand the left-wing stands by,impotent, while the power of capital extends its influence and infectsthe Catalan bourgeoisie with the promise of new-found Europeanprosperity.

Por las Ramblas viejos y jvenes se gastaron el miedo que les quedaba el

mismo da en que muri el dictador. Alegra en el cerebro y en el

corazn, silencio en los labios. En las tiendas se agotaban las botellas de

champn barato, calles y terrazas llenas de gentes en busca del placer de

estar juntos sin la gran sombra aplastante, pero en silencio, todava la

prudencia como virtud garantizadora de mediocres supervivencias,

ltimos resultados de la educacin del terror. Mas aquel pasado le

perteneca de alguna manera. Saba su lenguaje. En cambio el futuro

abierto por la muerte de Franco le pareca ajeno, como agua de ro que ni

has de beber, ni te apetece beber. Gausachs, Fontanillas, los mangantes

de la nueva situacin.

Si volviera a armarse otra Guerra civil [sic], los dos se iran a Burgos.

Y Argem? A Tahit va Suiza.

Y t, Pepe Carvalho, dnde coo iras? A Vallvidrera, a hacerme unaespalda de cordero a la Prigord o una escudella i carn dolla. (113)

The detectives feigned or real weariness, his desengaoor cynicism,are not enough to encapsulate adequately his character. Gastronomy isnot, in spite of his frequent insinuations to this effect, his panacea.Carvalhos actions and reflections go further in this regard to develophis characterization as a matter of substantial importance to thenovels overall impact. An example of the depth afforded byMontalbn to his detective is provided when, in sober mood, Carvalhothinks about Dieter Rhombergs orphaned child who reminds him of

his own childhood amid the generalized misery of the disastrouseconomic situation of Spain in the long post-war period:

La solidaridad con Jaum era profesional, en cambio la solidaridad con el

desconocido nio alemn la llevaba en la sangre, le sala del pozo de los

terrores infantiles hacia la orfandad, del espectculo de la miseria de los

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nios del barrio despadrados por la Guerra o por las crceles,

fusilamientos, tuberculosis de la posguerra. La fragilidad de aquellos

hurfanos que asomaban su cabeza rapada entre los geranios de balcones

tan oxidados como el alma colectiva del barrio, le haca nacer en el

estmago la interesada congoja del animalito que descubre en la

desgracia ajena la posibilidad de su propia desgracia. (166)

And this leads him to the memory of his father, don EvaristoCarvalho, who felt the guilt of bringing a child into this world ofinjustice. The confluence of autobiography and fiction is peculiarlystrong in these nostalgic sections of the novel, as the authors ownfather was also called Evaristo (Saval 2004):

Fjate. La del nmero siete ha tenido otro hijo. Ay, seor. Qu falta de

cabeza. Traer vctimas a este mundo.

Carvalho se qued con las ganas de preguntar a su padre si hubiera

pensado lo mismo en caso de no haber perdido la Guerra civil [sic].

(167)

If nostalgia is the right word to use to describe these reminiscences,

Carvalho is certainly not characterized as a sentimental researcher ofpast times, but as a man of action. Therefore the poignancy ofreminiscence cannot be simply written off as an autobiographicaltangent. Its indicial function, rather, is one that has been calculated toproduce a more politically meaningful space of dialogue. Theboldness of such a move in 1977 can only be fully comprehended withthe benefit of hindsight.

The Carvalho that emerges fully formed in La soledad delmanager is a man living not on the fringes of society, but at theintersection of two worlds. On the one hand this interstitial space isrepresented physically as the detectives location in El Raval and the

Rambla during the day, with his night-time escapades to Vallvidrera.On the other hand, his self-imposed exile in the world of theunderclass of the Barrio Chino, represents a paradisiacal return tothe land of the fictional detectives (and the real authors) childhoodlandscape (Saval 2004). Superimposed upon this world of anti-bourgeois freedom are the childhood demons of autarky, not in terms

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this time of actual material hardship and suffering, but in the conflictproduced by the dismantling of the old order (Francos dictatorship)and its replacement with a new taskmaster (international capital, withlinks to the old regime). The key to the novels negotiation of culturalidentities, therefore, is provided by a complex interweaving of

juxtapositions that this article has attempted to delineate and explicatein terms of a dialectic, described with reference to narratology.

The result is a novel that revels in the carnivalesque. The realhierarchy of power is upturned as in the Feast of Fools, but the moststriking outcome of this comes in the type of hero that we have inCarvalho: down to earth and close to the people in a way that goesback not only to the origins of the novel, but to the great novelisticheroes, from Tirant lo Blanc onwards. To what extent, one wonders, isMikhail Bakhtins concept of the carnivalesque hero not alsoapplicable to Carvalho?

Carnivalesque legends in general are profoundly differentfrom traditional heroicizing epic legends: carnivalistic ends debase thehero and bring him down to earth, they make him familiar, bring himclose, humanize him; ambivalent carnivalesque laughter burns awayall that is stilted and stiff, but in no way destroys the heroic core of the

image. (Bakhtin 1984 [1963]: 130)If there is a Bakhtinian aspect to the characterization of

Carvalho in La soledad del manager, then it may have beenappropriate to the uncertain time in which the novel was written.Perhaps Carvalho provided, in his own escapism, a fantasy of release.According to this view, the social pressures and anxieties representedin the novel achieve their catharsis in the creation of a fictionaluniverse in which the real losers, societys underclass, findthemselves, at least, represented (after having suffered the Francoistdeletion from the symbolic imaginary). Carvalho becomes, in thisreading, an antithesis either to the pseudo-revolutionary (Pedro Parra)

or the angst-ridden executive (Jaum). Both of these opposites riseand fall at the expense of personal fealties and wider historicalinterests, figured in the novel in terms of ethnicity, political andnational allegiances. Not so in the case of Carvalho, who ridesbetween both worlds, accepting neither. Sentinel of El Raval from hislookout post and hideout in Vallvidrera, the detective almost seems to

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defeat for Catalonia in the long term was the symbolic death of itsidea of nationhood, then it was indeed crushed by the nationalistforces. While its geographical space was re-designed and given newnames, its imaginary space was manipulated in a darker fashion.

Carvalho may be described as a patriot who cannot believe inpatriotism, but can he believe in Catalonia? As an imaginary space inthe novel, Catalonia barely exists except as a negation. It is fitting,therefore, that Carvalho himself denies everything but that which hasbeen negated. According to the reading presented above, this mightlead one to conclude that his own indicial function becomes morewidely symbolic of Catalonia, as he is also a denizen of a nationwithout citizens.11 However, the subtlety of Montalbns socialcritique is perhaps most notable for its almost complete evasion of thenational question,12 i.e. the binary opposition of the Catalan to theCastilian imaginary. In this regard, it can be said that the overallstructure of Montalbns oeuvre does not result in a directconfrontation between nationalistic ideologies. But this outcome is ofitself relevant to the books structural cohesion. There is no overtlypro-Catalan voice in the novel, with the singular exception of theelderly and rather unsympathetic accountant, Alemany. And yet, the

structure I have attempted to describe produces a discourse of a ratherdifferent calibre.

in the pay of the House of Bourbon (1714). The subsequent Europe-wide fall of theAncienRgime led, in the Peninsula, to the series of Carlist wars that found theirbloody dnouementin the Spanish Civil War, the scars of which continue to be felt inPeninsular politics at the present time. In the post-colonial status quoas it now standsthe nation that chose (in its great majority) the losing side in the 1936-39 war was adifferent nation from the nation that kept backing the wrong horse in the wars of theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Generalitat of the Middle Ages is not theGeneralitat of the twenty-first century. No doubt Catalonia will continue to reinventherself (Payne 2004: 320).11

In terms of constitutional law, Catalans living on Catalan territory may only becitizens of Spain, France or Italy; their territories defined legally as belonging to oneof the three states.12Lenin corrected Marxist internationalism vis--vis the national question; so, froma Leninist perspective, Carvalho is truly a disenchanted patriot: the proletariat mustdemand the right of political secession for the colonies and for the nations that its ownnation oppresses (Lenin 1970: 7-8).

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Narrative structures tend to persuade us in more powerfulways because they are covert, because they create an organic wholethat seems cohesive; more than the sum of its parts. Certain features ofCarvalhos characterization, such as his cynicism and apparent world-weariness, his embodiment of the carnivalesque man of the people,may be put down to the authors desire to create a necessary sense ofestrangement (ostranenie) or defamiliarization (Shklovsky 1965[1917]), so crucial to the development of the detective genre. And itmay be this feature that narratologists would want to have recourse toin order to explain the novels tendency to depend heavily for itseffect upon indicial over functional components, thus reconfiguringthe world in new and strange ways. It might even be said thatCarvalho is most effective as an embodiment of the novels thematictension, the novels very self-reflexivity as discourse becoming notonly an aesthetic, but a political act. If so, the question of theconfiguration of Catalonia as a negated space within the texture of thenovelistic discourse is one that cannot be ignored. Carvalho, theunderclass anti-hero, makes his awareness of Catalonias frustratednationhood and its fate compellingly relevant to the sociology of thetext. Catalonias resistance or acquiescence to the destructive forces of

central state oppression is inscribed within Carvalhos thinly-veiledhatred for the state apparatus: any association with official notions ofnational identity Carvalho treats with contempt. Such types ofreasoning embedded within the novelistic discourse make the indicesof the novel all the more compelling. I can only conclude byobserving that it is, almost without exception, upon the emotionalresponses of Carvalhos character that Montalbn in La soledad delmanagerconstructed a complete work of fictional escapism, in whichthe character himself is unstable, prone to spontaneous action andlargely dismissive of the constructions of texts and institutions.Carvalho as a metafiction, as a bond between reality and imagined

spaces of political negotiation, is configured within a symbolic spaceyet to be reconstituted, but which survived in the certain knowledgethat it had been negated by Francoism.

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