MERCÈ RODOREDA & EL PREGÓ DE LES FESTES DE LA MERCÈ

Today is a special day in Barcelona. The city celebrates one of its three patron saints, La Mercè.

The city is not having its best moments and we, Barcelonans, miss the cultured, creative, innovative, cheerful, full of life, clean, and safe Barcelona, the city that was proud of being the Catalan capital. 

The city is still under the shadows of the dark power. That is why today, The Grandma has remembered one of the best readings ever made in the city, the one made in 1980 by Mercè Rodoreda, the most universal Catalan writer.

 

Barcelonines, barcelonins

Si em trobo aquí, en aquest històric Saló de Cent, per pronunciar el pregó de les Festes de la Mercè, és perquè el senyor batlle i tot el seu consistori m'ho van demanar. I van demanar-m'ho amb tanta elegància, que hauria estat una gran descortesia per part meva no acceptar. De moment vaig creure que jo no era la persona més indicada, d'altres podrien sortir-se'n més airosament que jo; però, reflexionant, vaig pensar que potser sí. I per tres raons: pel fet de ser barcelonina, per dir-me Mercè i per dur Catalunya dintre meu.

Us puc assegurar que, durant anys, l'allunyament del meu país va aprofundir el meu amor per Barcelona, per la Barcelona catalana de la meva joventut. Amb els seus carrers, amb les seves places, amb la seva càrrega d'història, amb la seva bona gent. El meu barri de Sant Gervasi, tocant a la vila de Gràcia, amb el carrer Elisa, amb la plaça de la Bonanova, amb els Josepets i amb tants camps de flors. La Barcelona d'una determinada claror en una determinada tarda a la Plaça de Catalunya amb el cel ratllat per tropes i tropes d'estornells cridaners; amb una determinada claror a la falda verda del Tibidabo, Passeig de Gràcia amunt, en un acabament de dies amb una determinada claror d'un matí de març amb el sol entaforat a dintre d'una branca a dalt de tot d'una paret. Les petites torres del meu Sant Gervasi, polides i netes, amb els seus jardins assolellats, ventejats i florits.

Lluny del meu país no em feia mal l'enyorament. Em feia mal la tristesa pel destí tan dur dels catalans. Quan havíem aconseguit que la nostra identitat fos acceptada i reconeguda, ens ho van fer tot a miques, ens ho van prendre tot. Vam haver d'enterrar la il·lusió de ser simplement un poble que treballa i viu en català i per Catalunya.

Ha estat llarg el temps de ser tinguts com a ciutadans d'ínfima categoria, amb la nostra llengua prohibida i escarnida. Humiliats. Però enmig de l'enfonsament, no vam cedir. No podíem deixar-nos vèncer per l'adversitat. Ofegats, escampats, vam continuar pensant en el nostre país, treballant pel nostre país. Tant els de dintre com els de fora. Som catalans i jo diria que la tenacitat és la nostra divisa. I l'espera ens ha valgut un miracle. Jo crec en miracles, i el miracle ha començat: tenim un govern de patriotes, de gent profundament catalana i tenaç, amb unes arrels catalanes que ningú ni res no ha pogut arrencar. Tenim, tots, una tasca a emprendre, una tasca difícil i per això apassionant: ajudar. Tots hem desitjat en un moment o altre de la nostra vida una ciutat ideal, una pàtria ideal: la més alta i la més bella. Com diu patriòticament un dels nostres poetes: "Salut a la pàtria en segles de saba crescuda, salut a la Pàtria encara no nascuda com l'hem somniada els seus fills". Aquesta pàtria ideal nosaltres l'hem de fer! Tots els que vindran darrere de nosaltres, generació darrera generació, lligats tots pel mateix desig. De cara, avui, a una nova renaixença.

De vós, Mare de Déu de la Mercè, daurada i reposada a dintre de la vostra església amb l'Infant Jesús a la falda, jo n'havia tingut la imatge, de petita i de jove, en el meu dormitori, a dintre d'una vitrina, tota vestida de setí brodat d'or i de perles, de pedres tallades lluents de color de gra de magrana, coronada d'argent. Als vostres peus, agenollats un a cada banda, hi havia dos captius: un amb l'armilla morada i pantalons bombats verd fosc, l'altre amb pantalons bombats morats i armilla verd oliva. Tots dos amb camisa blanca, tots dos amb les mans encadenades, i els ulls alçats cap a Vós implorant la vostra protecció. Mare de Déu de la Mercè, feu que els catalans no hàgim de sentir-nos mai més captius, que la nostra aspiració tan justa i tan humana de néixer i de morir catalans ens sigui reconeguda per sempre de sempre. Depèn de vós i depèn de nosaltres, sobretot d'aquesta joventut treballadora i estudiosa, d'aquestes dones catalanes, valentes i fortes, conscients que una de les coses més nobles del món és pujar una família, que han ensenyat i ensenyen als seus fills a estimar Catalunya, sense estridències, quietament, eficaçment. Catalunya, "terra dels pins iguals, de l'alzinar planyent vessant amunt fins a carena viva", serà el que voldrem que sigui; la força de tantes voluntats pot abatre muralles. El temps no compta. Hem après a esperar. Hem de pensar que tots, cadascú en el seu lloc, som necessaris, som importants. Tan important és una pintura d’Antoni Tàpies o de Joan Miró o una escultura de Subirachs, com un càntir de Breda ben fet o un gerro de la Bisbal ben acabat; tan important és un artista com un obrer, un pescador com un pagès. Gent de totes les nostres comarques, unida per formar un sol poble, Catalunya ens necessita.

Voldria, en aquest dia tan assenyalat, comunicar la meva fe en la meva terra, en la força indestructible de la paciència dels catalans. En la Catalunya que "treballa, pensa, lluita i que creu, espera i ora". Tenim a la porta la Festa Major de la ciutat organitzada pel nostre batlle, pel nostre Ajuntament. Tot nostre. Voldria demanar als barcelonins que celebrin la Festa Major d'aquest any amb esperança, amb el cor content, amb banderes als balcons, amb cobles per places i carrers, amb tot l'esclat de les nostres flors a les Rambles, amb el mar ben blau en aquest mes de setembre dolç de raïms.

A totes les nostres autoritats, ara, per fi, ben legítimes, a totes les barcelonines i barcelonins, a totes les catalanes i catalans, vagi la meva salutació més cordial; i a la Santíssima Verge, en la seva advocació de la Mercè, la meva pregària per mi, per tots nosaltres, per la nostra ciutat i per la nostra pàtria.

Barcelonines, barcelonins, queden obertes les Festes de la Mercè de l'any 1980.

More information: Fundació Mercè Rodoreda

 La vida, perquè sigui vida, s'ha de viure a poc a poc...

Life, for it to be life, must be lived little by little...

Mercè Rodoreda

MERCÈ RODOREDA & EXISTENTIALISM, 'DEATH IN SPRING'

Today, The Grandma has been reading Death in spring, a masterpiece written by Mercè Rodoreda, the Catalan writer, who was born on a day like today in 1902. She has chosen the English version introduced by Colm Tóibin and published by Penguin European Writers.

Rodoreda said that les coses importants són les que no ho semblen (the important things are the ones that don’t seem like it), and The Grandma thinks that it is very important to remember, reread and pass on the literate legacy of one of the best writers in universal literature, who lived a turbulent life (Civil War and exile) and who wrote beautiful masterpieces that talk to us about Existentialism -life, pain, surviving, resilience, death...- and offer to us a particular hard vision about her life and her personal experiences.

More information: The Nation

Before reading Death in spring, The Grandma has been reading an article published by The Modern Novel, whose first English translation was done by Open Letter in 2009. Here you have it:

If you have read any other novels by Mercè Rodoreda, you will find that they tend to have a more urban setting. This one definitely does not. It is set in a remote village and narrated by a fourteen-year old boy. Nature, inevitably, plays a key role. While Nature is not generally horrifying, it is threatening and omnipresent.

The other aspect of this novel which is both threatening and omnipresent are the people or, more particularly, their behaviour, their customs and their rituals.

Our unnamed narrator seems to live a fairly solitary life. His mother is dead, and his father has remarried. His mother had a strange habit (many of the people in this book seem to have strange habits) of howling outside the window of newly-weds. Her mother had done the same. When his father remarried, the narrator claims to have heard his mother howling outside their window. His new stepmother is only sixteen years old and seems to do very little. She also has lost her mother –she hanged herself.

According to the blacksmith (who later claims to be the narrator’s biological father), when you are born in this village you get a ring, a plaque and a tree. However, it is not clear if this is generally known, at least by the young people, as the blacksmith tells him not to tell anyone. We do know that when the older people go to the forest they leave the children locked in the kitchen cupboard and some of them have almost suffocated.

Early on in the book, the narrator sees a man seemingly preparing a tree and then going into it. Only later does he tell us that this man is his father, and he is about to follow a death ritual, customary in this village. A crowd of people appear, and a strange ceremony takes place. A man, whom the narrator does not know, whispers to him that he enjoys watching people die.

After his father’s death, the narrator becomes closer to his stepmother, and they seem to do things together (though none of it seems to involve earning money or obtaining food). They travel in the area, visiting the cemetery and the cave we have seen at the beginning of the book, where the inhabitants obtaining a red powder which they use to colour the paint for painting their houses.

The strange ways of Nature are a large part of the fascination of this book. The village itself was born from the earth’s terrible unrest. The mountain was cleaved, and it collapsed into the river, scattering the water through the fields. The river flows under the village and the villagers are always concerned that it will undermine the village. Every year, some man has to swim (naked) under the village to see whether there is a blockage. Some come out unscathed, others are hurt, and some lose their face. They are known as the faceless and seem to be like untouchables. Later in the book there is a drought which also causes much concern.

The strange (to us) behaviour of the villagers also has its fascination, from their habit of eating pregnant mares at their funeral Festa to the feral children who run around naked and attack passers-by, including our narrator. They only punish thieves, and they punished them by taking away their humanity. There is one prisoner, and he is locked in a small cage just large enough for a person to sit in, but not lie down. He is fed but abused.

Time also seems irrelevant. The blacksmith creates a sundial, but A year later someone had stolen the pin, but no one cared; no one wanted time in their lives. However, his stepmother stands in the sun and her shadow moves. She comments Time is me -and you.

The village has a Senyor, a lord, who is crippled and dying, but he does not want to die in the conventional way, like the other villagers. However, the choice is not his, despite his position. The villagers are more afraid of the Caramens, a ghostly people who are like shadows and whom no-one has ever seen, but who attack the village.

This really is a thoroughly original work. Nature, the customs, rituals and behaviour of the villagers and their enemies are like nothing in the real world but are beautifully if often frighteningly portrayed. Rodoreda was somewhat obsessed with this book, and she clearly put a lot into it.

Rodoreda wrote this book at the same time as she was writing La plaça del Diamant (UK: The Pigeon Girl; US: The Time of the Doves). However, she never really finished it, and it was only published after her death. Given that at least part of its intent is to damn totalitarian rule, it is easy to see why it was not published in her lifetime. It definitely confirms her as one of the foremost Catalan and, indeed, Spanish writers.

First published 1986 by El Club Editor.

First English translation, 2009 by Open Letter.

More information: Institut Ramon Llull

 I, sobretot, vull escriure, necessito escriure;
res no m'ha fet tant de plaer d'ençà que sóc al món,
com un llibre meu acabat d'editar i amb olor de tinta fresca.

And most of all, I want to write, I need to write;
nothing has given me so much pleasure since I have been in the world,
as a book of mine just edited and smelling of fresh ink.

Mercè Rodoreda

THE JONES MEET ÉDITH PIAF, L'HYMNE À L'AMOUR

Memories of Merche Jones in Ponferrada, El Bierzo

Today, The Jones have revised some English Grammar like Future Simple, Present Simple vs. Continuous, Relative Pronouns, the Comparative and the Superlative. The family has talked about some women who were the best in their professions: Édith Piaf, the best French singer; Audrey Hepburn, the best Belgian actress and Mercè Rodoreda, the best Catalan writer.

More information: Future Simple vs. Future Continuous

Merche Jones has talked about Ponferrada and its wonderful Templar castle and The Grandma has taken profit to talk about the Templar Order and its influence in all the Mediterranean, from Malta to Aragon, from Rhodes to Jerusalem, from Catalonia to Syria, from Campania to Sicily firstly and other lands in the Atlantic like France, England or Scotland later.

More information: Present Simple vs. Present Continuous I, II & III

Templar Knights helped all the pilgrims who need protection to escape or to exile until Friday, October 13, 1307 when French Templars were simultaneously arrested by agents of King Philip, following the order of the Pope Clement, later to be tortured into admitting heresy and other sacrilegious offenses in the Order and killed. It has been a terrific story that has explained the origins of the legend of Friday, 13 as a day plenty of misfortune.

More information: Comparative vs. Superlative I & II

This afternoon, The Jones are going shopping in the best and the most luxurious Parisian shops in Avenue Montaigne before travelling to Euro Disney to spend this next weekend.

More information: Templar History & Real Mof History

In tough times, we all hope for knights in shining armor, 

or the cavalry, to show up and effect change. 

Dean Devlin

Édith Piaf (1915-1963), nee Édith Giovanna Gassion, was a French singer, songwriter, cabaret performer and film actress noted as France's national chanteuse and one of the country's widely known international stars.

Piaf's music was often autobiographical and she specialized in chanson and torch ballads about love, loss and sorrow. Her most widely known songs include La Vie en rose, Non, je ne regrette rien, Hymne à l'amour, Milord, La Foule, L'Accordéoniste and Padam, padam.

Édith Piaf

Much of Piaf's life is unknown. She was born Édith Giovanna Gassion in Belleville, Paris. Legend has it that she was born on the pavement of Rue de Belleville 72, but her birth certificate cites that she was born on 19 December 1915 at the Hôpital Tenon, a hospital located at the 20th arrondissement.

She was named Édith after the World War I British nurse Edith Cavell, who was executed for helping French soldiers escape from German captivity. Piaf –slang for sparrow– was a nickname she received 20 years later.

In 1935, Piaf was discovered in the Pigalle area of Paris by nightclub owner Louis Leplée, whose club Le Gerny's off the Champs-Élysées was frequented by the upper and lower classes alike.

More information: Biography

Piaf's career and fame gained momentum during the German occupation of France. She performed in various nightclubs and brothels, which flourished during the 1940–1945 Années Erotiques. She lived above the L'Étoile de Kléber, a famous nightclub and bordello close to the Paris Gestapo headquarters.

Piaf was deemed to have been a traitor and collaboratrice. She had to testify before a purge panel, as there were plans to ban her from appearing on radio transmissions. However, her secretary Andrée Bigard, a member of the Résistance, spoke in her favour after the Liberation. Piaf was quickly back in the singing business and then, in December 1944, she went on stage for the Allied forces together with Montand in Marseille.

Edith Piaf's Homebirth

Although she was denied a funeral Mass by Cardinal Maurice Feltin because of her lifestyle, her funeral procession drew tens of thousands of mourners onto the streets of Paris and the ceremony at the cemetery was attended by more than 100,000 fans.  

Charles Aznavour recalled that Piaf's funeral procession was the only time since the end of World War II that he saw Parisian traffic come to a complete stop.

In 1973 the Association of the Friends of Édith Piaf was formed followed by the inauguration of the Place Édith Piaf in Belleville in 1981. Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina named a small planet, 3772 Piaf, in her honor.

In Paris, a two-room museum is dedicated to her, the Musée Édith Piaf. On 10 October 2013, fifty years after her death, the Roman Catholic Church gave her a memorial Mass in the St. Jean-Baptiste Church in Belleville the parish into which she was born.

More information: History Today

Singing is a way of escaping. It's another world. 

I'm no longer on earth. 

Édith Piaf

Mercè Rodoreda i Gurguí (1908-1983) was a Catalan novelist, who wrote in Catalan. She is considered by many to be the most important Catalan novelist of the postwar period. Her novel La plaça del diamant, translated as The Time of the Doves (1962) has become the most acclaimed Catalan novel of all time and has been translated into over 30 languages.

She was born at 340 carrer de Balmes, Barcelona, in 1908. In 1928, just 20 years old, she married her uncle Joan Gurguí, 14 years her senior, and in 1929 she had her only child, Jordi. 

Grandma's memories with Mercè Rodoreda

She began her writing career with short stories in magazines, as an escape from her unhappy marriage. 

She then wrote psychological novels, including Aloma which won the Crexells Prize, but even with the success this novel enjoyed, Rodoreda decided to remake and republish it some years later since she was not fully satisfied with this period of her life and her works at that time.

At the start of the Spanish Civil War, she worked for the Generalitat de Catalunya, the autonomous Government of Catalonia. She was exiled in France and later Switzerland, where in 1957 she broke her silence with the publication of her book Twenty-Two short stories, which earned her the Víctor Català Prize.

 More information: Fundació Mercè Rodoreda (IEC)

With El Carrer de les Camèlies (1966) she won several prizes. In the 1970s, she returned to Romanyà de la Selva in Catalonia and finished the novel Mirall trencat in 1974.

Amongst other works came Viatges i flors and Quanta, quanta guerra in 1980, which was also the year in which she won the Premi d'Honor de les Lletres Catalanes. During the last period of her lifetime, her works developed from her usual psychologic style to become more akin to symbolism in its more cryptic form.

In 1998 a literature prize was instituted in her name: the Mercè Rodoreda prize for short stories and narratives. She was made a Member of Honour of the Associació d'Escriptors en Llengua Catalana, the Association of Writers in Catalan Language. 

She died in Girona and interred in the cemetery of Romanyà de la Selva.

More information: Visat

I write because I like to write. If I did not look exaggerated 
I would say that I write to please me.

Mercè Rodoreda

THE BONDS & ENVIRONMENT: TRAVELS AND FLOWERS

The Bonds enjoying Tenerife and butterflies

Today, The Bonds have had an intensive day in Tenerife Island. They have climbed Teide Mountain and they’re now resting in a hut, on the top of the mountain, which is only reserved for special guests.

Before climbing Teide, they had revised some English grammar like Demonstratives and Past Participle and they have read a new chapter of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

MJ has offered two new presents to our family: a book to prepare B2 Exam and one of the greatest novels of Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist.

More information: Demonstratives (This, These, That, Those)

Next, Eli Bond has offered some interesting information about the importance of colours in our lives, something that this family knows perfectly because there is one of its members, Jaume Bond, who is a professional painter.

More information: Past Participle

The Grandma has talked about colours, flowers and travels remembering two incredible writers, Mercè Rodoreda and Blai Bonet. Both of them are considered excellent writers and both of them had difficult lives full of disasters, sadness and terrible personal conditions.

The Bonds have participated in the Carnival last weekend wearing some butterflies costumes and thanks to this, they’ve won another prize. Jaume, Joanjo and Pedro Bond have joined to David Bond who has been declared the Queen and all of them have won the festival.

The family is very happy for this prize because David has been in Paris, working in a new James Bond’s film, and he has seen how the family has missed him during these days. David’s returning has been the best present for this unforgettable family.

After this moment of glory, the family has talked about environment and recycling using some modal verbs like Must, Have to and Should and they have shared different experiences in Tenerife, a special place for Irene Bond, who used to spend long seasons in the island after working in her secret and dangerous missions and for Pedro Bond who has remembered his ancestors and who has talked about one of the most beautiful European cultures: the Guanches.

Finally, The Grandma has decided to buy some islands. They name Wild Islands and are situated between Canary Islands and Green Cape. It has been a present for celebrating M. José Bond’s new goal.

If we intend to provide a better life, and a better world, 

for future generations, we can't ignore the quality of the environment we leave them. 

John Kasich

MERCÈ RODOREDA i GURGUÍ, 'WAR SO MUCH WAR'

Mercè Rodoreda i Gurguí

Mercè Rodoreda i Gurguí (October 10, 1908 – April 13, 1983) was a Catalan novelist, who wrote in Catalan.

She is considered by many to be the most important novelist of the postwar period. Her novel La plaça del diamant translated as The Time of the Doves, 1962 has become the most acclaimed Catalan novel of all time and since the year it was published for the first time, it has been translated into over 30 languages.

She was born at 340 carrer de Balmes, Barcelona, in 1908. In 1928, just 20 years old, she married her uncle Joan Gurguí, 14 years her senior, and in 1929 she had her only child, Jordi. She began her writing career with short stories in magazines, as an escape from her unhappy marriage.

Download Mercè Rodoreda. The fruits of exile

She then wrote psychological novels, but even with the success this novel enjoyed, Rodoreda decided to remake and republish it some years later since she was not fully satisfied with this period of her life and her works at that time.

At the start of the Spanish Civil War, she worked for the Generalitat de Catalunya, the autonomous Government of Catalonia.

More information: Any Rodoreda (1908-2008) & Virtual Exhibition

Rodoreda in La Plaça del Diamant

She was exiled in France and later Switzerland, where in 1957 she broke her silence with the publication of her book Vint-i-dos històries curtes (Twenty-Two short stories) and El Carrer de les Camèlies (Camelia Street) in  1966.

In the 1970s, she returned to Romanyà de la Selva in Girona and finished the novel Mirall trencat (Broken Mirror) in 1974.

Amongst other works came Viatges i flors (Travels and flowers) and Quanta, quanta guerra (How much War) in 1980, which was also the year in which she won the Premi d'Honor de les Lletres Catalanes. During the last period of her lifetime, her works developed from her usual psychologic style to become more akin to symbolism in its more cryptic form.

She died in Girona and was buried in the cemetery of Romanyà.

My Dear, These Things are Life: a Hundred Years of Mercè Rodoreda

The time that rolls on and on in people's hearts and makes them roll along with it and gradually changes us inside and out and makes us what we'll be on our dying day.

 

Mercè Rodoreda