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A review by herbieridesagain
In Diamond Square by Mercè Rodoreda
4.0
Natalia begins by recalling the time Joe first asked her to dance at a fiesta in Diamond Square, and how the romance grew from there to marriage and children, their own place, pigeons and, eventually, civil war and the impact it had on her life.
At first, I’ll be honest, I disagreed with the courtship. Joe seems overbearing and slightly crazy, referring to Mary all the time, making demands on Natalia that to her credit, she questions or stands her ground against. But he wins her round, and I had a dark feeling where the book would go. They get a place together and Joe’s laziness again had me on guard (what for I couldn’t really tell you) but maybe at that time, this is what men were like. They have children and Natalia works hard to give them little. By the time Joe heads off to the front, they are breeding pigeons which everyone enjoys, but which Natalia has to take care of.
There is no embellishment, Natalia describes things in the simple harsh terms that they deserved. As the war drags on, she sees Joe intermittantly and then not at all, and eventually has to accept the unbelievable, that he is never coming home. She works to keep her family fed and together, and as the war continues without Joe, or the friends he had signed up with, Natalia contemplates the unthinkable when she sees no way to provide for her and her children. But then an unexpected chance arrives, and Natalia has to make a choice for herself and her children in a world that has much changed since she was a young girl dancing in Diamond Square.
This is a book about Natalia ultimately, Barcelona is there, the war is there, albeit in the background, but this is about survival, a time of peace, with the clouds of war gathring on the horizon, and then a time of struggle and conflict. At the end Natalia has secured a future for herself and her children, although not in a way that should would picked naturally, and she struggles to deal with everything that she has gone through, I can imagine, very much like that generation from Barcelona, or anywhere else where civil war has laid it’s violent paw.
Rodoreda weaves an evocative story from a bleak time period in history, and does it from a woman’s point of view with class and no small amount of style. I picked this up from an article in the Guardian on books about Spain to read during the lock down, and it was a good shout, I very much enjoyed it.
(blog review here)
At first, I’ll be honest, I disagreed with the courtship. Joe seems overbearing and slightly crazy, referring to Mary all the time, making demands on Natalia that to her credit, she questions or stands her ground against. But he wins her round, and I had a dark feeling where the book would go. They get a place together and Joe’s laziness again had me on guard (what for I couldn’t really tell you) but maybe at that time, this is what men were like. They have children and Natalia works hard to give them little. By the time Joe heads off to the front, they are breeding pigeons which everyone enjoys, but which Natalia has to take care of.
There is no embellishment, Natalia describes things in the simple harsh terms that they deserved. As the war drags on, she sees Joe intermittantly and then not at all, and eventually has to accept the unbelievable, that he is never coming home. She works to keep her family fed and together, and as the war continues without Joe, or the friends he had signed up with, Natalia contemplates the unthinkable when she sees no way to provide for her and her children. But then an unexpected chance arrives, and Natalia has to make a choice for herself and her children in a world that has much changed since she was a young girl dancing in Diamond Square.
This is a book about Natalia ultimately, Barcelona is there, the war is there, albeit in the background, but this is about survival, a time of peace, with the clouds of war gathring on the horizon, and then a time of struggle and conflict. At the end Natalia has secured a future for herself and her children, although not in a way that should would picked naturally, and she struggles to deal with everything that she has gone through, I can imagine, very much like that generation from Barcelona, or anywhere else where civil war has laid it’s violent paw.
Rodoreda weaves an evocative story from a bleak time period in history, and does it from a woman’s point of view with class and no small amount of style. I picked this up from an article in the Guardian on books about Spain to read during the lock down, and it was a good shout, I very much enjoyed it.
(blog review here)