Original title: the hammer
Idioma original: Catalan
Year of publication: 1956
Valuation: recommendable
the hammera novel by Jordi Sarsanedas, is at the same time a character study, a love story, political literature and essay-fiction.
It takes place in an imaginary city called Novoconstança. I take this opportunity to say that the setting is masterfully drawn by Sarsanedas; the author not only describes in detail the places where the action most frequently takes place (Caius Deva’s garden house, the company where the protagonist works, the elitist Panathlon sports club…), but also accurately evokes the political situation of the entire country, the psychology of its citizens, the differences between the rural and urban world, etc.
Deva is not only well drawn, but fascinatingly ambivalent. We never know for sure whether he is involved in the murder of his uncle (the event that triggers the plot of the novel) or whether he is innocent. Nor is it clear whether his insistence on displaying his goodness is honest or a masquerade; on page 209 he himself realizes that “My uncle is a man who … light up it appeared to me, from above, as a form (…) of low egoism (…), a convenient alibi that had allowed me to act in the falsehood of an unreal world created by my fantasy.”
Among the many elements to highlight of the hammer (beyond the already mentioned setting and protagonist), I would list the following:
- Its ingenious first chapter, which opens the story with a premise, character and narrator different from those that it will end up choosing.
- Its stimulating dream sequences.
- The symbolism of the scenes in which Deva senses things shaped like a hammer, discovers that there is a pigeon walled up in the pension where she is staying or establishes a parallel between Sabina and a bonsai.
- The delicious lyrical outbursts of Sarsanedas’ prose (who was a poet).
On the other hand, I would criticize Sarsanedas’ novel for:
- Despite being a fluent read, the pace of the plot bogs down in some sections and its prose is at times excessively detailed.
- The elements introduced take a long time to come together, which is why the first half of the novel seems scattered.
In summary: the hammer It is an interesting novel. In addition to the quality of its production and the soundness of its content, it also has a certain conceptual audacity and originality.
Source: https://unlibroaldia.blogspot.com/2024/07/jordi-sarsanedas-el-martell.html
