Tiredness and language-learning choices

“We are approaching Madrid, Puerta de Atocha, Almudena Grandes.”

That’s the announcement we hear whenever we travel by train from our home near Valencia to Madrid. That reference to ‘Almudena Grandes’ moves me every time. Not only because it recognises an extraordinary person who deserves it more than many honoured by statues or other tributes, but also because it was by no means a given that she would get the recognition.

I got to know María de la Almudena Grandes mostly while walking through our local woods, usually with our dogs. Well, her books. I sadly didn’t get to meet her in person. That was all part of my long and, so far, only partially successful effort to learn the language of my adopted country, Spain. It’s been nearly four years since we moved here, and I still sound like a tourist.

In language learning, an important threshold is when you can at last read a newspaper or a book with pleasure. Not necessarily with ease or complete accuracy. But without having to look up so many words, or skip over so many you don’t understand, that the whole process becomes unrewarding or a chore.

I learned some Spanish at school, over half a century ago. As a result, with living here and being exposed to the language every day, I was able to get to that important threshold reasonably quickly. And because I like listening to audiobooks, as well as because my worst problem wasn’t so much understanding the written word in Spanish as the spoken, I took to listening to novels in the language.

As in any language, there are different types of novels in Spanish. There are those with a claim to a place in the hall of literary fame, and those that would never get past the turnstile at the entrance. That second type is the kind of book you might buy in an airport terminal, or perhaps to read on a beach. 

I like both types. Within the pulp fiction category, my favourite is thrillers. If they’re reasonably good, they can be compelling, but they use a rather simpler vocabulary than their more literary equivalents, their plots are generally quite simple because they’re essentially predictable, and overall they’re less challenging to the tired mind. 

These days, my mind is easily tired.

Recently I came across a writer called Juan Gómez Jurado. He wrote a three-novel series (it wouldn’t surprise me if more came along later) called Red Queen, Black Wolf and White King. You can maybe see some sort of pattern in the titles. 

I listened to the first two quite quickly. They were fun. I liked the character of the cynical and masterful chief of the Spanish section of the shadowy European crime-fighting organisation at the centre of the plot; I enjoyed the main character, the brilliant but tormented young woman who is the Spanish representative of the shadowy European crime-fighting organisation; I particularly liked the character of the somewhat overweight (“not that he’s fat” is a repeated refrain) middle-aged policeman, in trouble for his repeated breaches of procedure and haunted by the fear that his colleagues will discover he’s gay, who has to look after the young woman. He’s my favourite, because he introduces some moments of humour. 

Overall, the first two books of the series were fun and unchallenging, just what I needed. But then I started on the third book. And suddenly I couldn’t stand it anymore. It was by now becoming clear that though the organisation had come up against various malefactors, they were all really controlled by one great villainous figure, sworn to destroy the brilliant young woman. 

The master criminal is the White King, who provides the title of book 3. With a sinking feeling, I could picture the shape of the book to come. Up against this monster of evil, she would make mistake after mistake, leading to a peak of disaster, perhaps where her very life, or that of people close to her, would be at threat – you, know the equivalent of her or her friends being in a deep well gradually filling with water, or bound to a bomb whose timer is moving with deadly slowness towards zero – and then, by an extraordinary feat of intellect, she would find the one way of defeating the evil genius she’s battling and, metaphorically, with one bound (of hers) everyone would be free.

All just too Marvel comic, too much superhero and supervillain stuff.

I may be wrong, and the whole thing may turn out to be far more subtle than that. When I get back to it. But just then, I found I could go no further and laid it down.

Instead, I needed something a little more stimulating. “What about Almudena Grandes?”, I wondered.

I’d read her five novels (the sixth unfinished because of her tragically early death) on people living through the Spanish civil war and the years of dictatorship that followed, resisting as best they could the terrible oppression of Franco’s far-right authoritarian regime. 

When I add that she identified, not without justification, the Communist Party as the main spearhead of that resistance, you’ll probably understand why getting her the recognition she deserved wasn’t easy. Madrid, although celebrated for its indomitable will and the courage with which it resisted Franco’s fascist onslaught during the war, is today strangely right wing, both within the City itself and in the Autonomous Community around it. It’s those organisations that set the names of squares and streets, and there was no way they were going to give that great Madrid native, the powerful voice of the left Almudena Grandes, one of them. That’s why it’s the station that has been renamed: the great stations are managed by the national government, not the city or region, and the national government is currently led by Pedro Sánchez, a man of the centre-left.

Great book, great writer

This time I turned to Los Besos en el Pan, Kissing the bread. It follows a wide group of people living in an unnamed district of Madrid at the time of the 2008 crisis. The title comes from a custom of an older generation, which demanded of its children that they kiss any piece of bread that fell to the floor before putting it back in the basket. At a time of acute poverty, when hunger was widespread, no food could be wasted. The message is very much that the older people have the experience to cope with the difficulties their kids and grandkids are struggling with. “Crisis? You call this a crisis?” they seem to be saying, “you don’t know what a real crisis looks like.” 

Indeed, some of those characters say it explicitly.

The book abounds with different people, with different concerns and different approaches to making their way despite the difficulties of the time. It’s marked by two of Almudena Grandes’s most striking characteristics: her hatred of the injustices inflicted by the elite on the poor who deserve better – the hardworking individuals thrown onto the scrapheap of unemployment in middle age, the kids who can’t find jobs or afford their studies, the public services including healthcare being starved of funds or even closed down – and its counterpart, her immense love of people. The stories aren’t all happy, and two or three end badly, even tragically. But they’re all ultimately about affection and warmth and kindness. That makes the book a delight to read. Or to listen to.

But it’s a lot more complex than Red Queen. Delightful, lovely, compelling but not easy. In fact, because it was so good, and because I missed some of the details first time through, I read it again this week, having finished it only the week before. 

Because it is compelling. Despite the challenge, far more gripping than something like Red Queen. Perhaps indeed because it’s so challenging.

Rather proving that the best things in life aren’t necessarily easy. They do require effort. But the effort’s worth making.

At least, when I can find the energy deep inside my tired soul.