A Manuscript of Ashes

There's something hypnotic about the long, languid sentences that make up this book and that force the reader to pay attention to every nuance and every metaphor because within the serpentine alleys of the writer's prose lurk all kinds of mysteries and clues, which may or may not be true. The book is set in Franco-era Spain and tells the story of a young university student, Minaya, who retreats to his uncle Manuel's mansion in an ancient city called Magina to write the biography of Jacinto Solana, a neglected poet the old man once knew. He quickly finds himself delving into a curious love triangle, while falling under the spell of a mysterious serving girl who works in the mansion. The book darts back and forth in time from the years before the war to the the war itself to its bitter aftermath, sometimes changing time within the same paragraph. The effect is to produce a dreamlike narrative where nothing is quite what is seems and nobody can be trusted. The cast of characters also includes a pro-fascist sculptor who mass produces saints, the bitter old Dona of the household, a gay artist, Solana's stern father, a proud peasant farmer, his Communist lover and other assorted types. I wish I knew more about the Civil War because I take this book partly as an allegory about the fate of Spain during those tragic years. Clearly the author has no sympathies with the fascists but he is equally stern about the Republicans. In one scene, a suspected Falangist spy is lynched in the town's main square. The message seems to be that whereas the right was bathed in butchery, the left also suffered a grievous moral failing. Minaya uncovers a startling secret and the story becomes a weird mystery story. How exactly did the beautiful, yet elusive Mariana die on her wedding night? The answer is surprising -- and yet the plot and its resolution is secondary. Days after I finished this book, its peculiar beauty stayed with me, a little like Spain itself -- fascinating, languid and with a dark edge of violence.

(4.5 stars) The Spanish Civil War (1936 - 1939) and the subsequent dictatorship of General Francisco Franco form the underpinning of this hypnotic novel, which is simultaneously a love story, a story about political and personal aspirations, and a story about writing and the creative process. In a narrative that swirls through time and place, often turning in upon itself and revisiting earlier events from different points of view, life during the tumultuous Civil War unfolds and is carried forward for more than thirty years of Franco's harsh dictatorship. When the book opens in 1969, Minaya, a university student, has just been released from detention for his part in a student demonstration. Seeking refuge in Magina, where his elderly uncle lives, Minaya intends to search for the missing masterwork of a little known poet named Jacinto Solana and to write his doctoral thesis on Solana in the seclusion of the countryside. His uncle Manuel and Solana were childhood friends, and both had been in love with the same woman, Mariana Rios, an artist's model. As the story flashes back to 1936 - 37, the complex relationship of Manuel, Solana, and Mariana unfolds. Mariana, we learn at the beginning of the novel, was shot to death, supposedly by a stray bullet fired through the window on her wedding night, during the earliest days of the Spanish Civil War. Manuel never recovered, closing their nuptial bedroom and living as a recluse. Solana, a Communist, endured ten years of political detention and torture before returning to Manuel's house in Magina. When Minaya arrives to stay with his uncle, Solana is already dead, according to his friends, shot by government troops, his papers burned, and his masterpiece, Beatus Ille, missing. With the help of Inez, who works for his uncle, Minaya searches for the manuscript, determined to restore this poet to the place he deserves as a revolutionary Spanish writer. The intense, kaleidoscopic narrative, filled with lyrical and sensual descriptions, gradually reveals the whole story of Manuel and Mariana, at the same time that it also details the much later death of Solana. Details of the civil war, its tumult, and its aftermath broaden as the communists, anarchists, and supporters of the status quo contend for the future of Spain. As the narrative swirls, multiple points of view add depth and intensity to the narrative. The style is hypnotic, catching up the reader in the mood and weaving a spell, despite the fact that this unusual novel moves obliquely and lacks the usual beginning, middle, and end. It is not unusual for some sentences to be one hundred fifty words long and for paragraphs to go on for pages, yet the narrative speeds along on the strength of its spell and the intensity of its mood. A novel that will appeal to readers willing to succumb to its mood and not worry about its complex style and swirling chronology, A Manuscript of Ashes is an intriguing early novel by an author who is one o