Published in 1961, this book, although within the Spanish realist movement, initiated a new way of telling stories by incorporating writing techniques and configuration already tested in the foreign novel. However, in the 20th century, the renewal of the Spanish novel begins with the publications of Benet, Torrente Ballester, Marsé, etc.
It is a novel with a wonderful melodramatic touch, easy in plot, but complex in form; So the plot is nothing more than a story of failure in a pessimistic tone in the face of a closed Spain (“This is a time of silence. The most effective machine is the one that makes no noise”), p.292). As a reader, I am reunited with the scientist Pedro, a living reflection of science in the Spain of his time. I witness Pedro’s involvement in abortion due to the unavailability of mice for cancer research; this paints an excellent portrait of the sociopolitical situation of Madrid during the hunger years, through the contrast between the world of saloons, hostels and slums. characters built with a fragmented humanity as a whole.
In my re-reading this week (based on an interview with the author’s son by my compatriot Pepa Blanes, cultural director of the Ser channel, who reprinted the new edition of the novel with a foreword by Enrique Vila-Matas), I read Tiempo de Silencio (Seix Barral, 1961) by Luis Martín-Santos. 17 I once again enjoyed this literary gem in this 1981 edition, filled with my own notes from my readings. Although it cannot be said that it is structured towards emotion, it is a novel that does not leave the reader indifferent as the reading progresses and above all with its ending. This has always been difficult for me to explain as I understand it so well because I never wanted to trivialize it by reducing it to its argument. And at my first reading at my CHU, along with the final Literature exam, which luckily always had only one work from those studying in the course, I realized what I could do about it. My turn is B, it’s Quiet Time. My classmate soon told me to bend the paper because even if he got an A, he too would be taking the same exam. And so he did. I was writing by heart, like a man with pages and pages of notes that I had learned while looking at Pedro, here and there, with digressions, with the Spain of the moment, with Dorita, with El Muecas… and so on. as much as he can; I was worried he might get caught, or worse, drag me down with him into the abyss of tension and public ridicule. He passed and then (for irony!) he studied Pedagogy in Murcia. Of course he got a much lower grade than me.Poetic justice! Because of pride.
In this novel, the reader is faced with a very interesting formal structure and development through the inclusion of abundant digressions, the use of narrative perspectivism; here the narrator/character sometimes ceases to be one, and with it always a difficult internal monologue (the final sequence is unforgettable); All this occurs through the distribution of narrative material into 63 sequences separated by only two blank lines; This gives it the feel of a colorful novel; This feeling is at times intensified by the use of very detailed language. does not comply with poetic etiquette; and this, on the contrary, accumulates a great baroque and cultured bloat, which assumes, on the one hand, that the language of the Spanish novel has become richer, and on the other, that it has become more difficult to read.
So why should you read this novel? Because it is a turning point in the 20th century Spanish novel, a reflection of the society in which it was published; because many of its features were later used in important works by many great writers. And of course, because it is a novel of great failure with no resolution in the future. But still, as I told you, it was a passport to success for a budding pedagogue. The rivals are always very close.