Aurora's Motive [Hardcover]

Erich Hackl (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 11, 1989

This novel reconstructs an actual murder case which took place in Spain in 1933, when Aurora Rodriguez felt compelled to kill her daughter. The child was reared to be a trail-blazer for her time, breaking all the conventions which her mother hated, but when she reached 18, her mother, "after careful consideration" shot her. Erich Hackl was winner of the 1987 Aspekte Literatur Preis in Germany with this novel.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"One day Aurora Rodriguez was compelled to kill her daughter," begins this quietly horrifying novel based on the true story of a 1931 Spanish murder. Aurora Rodriguez was a radical product of bourgeois Spanish society who projected her political ideologies onto the daughter she conceived by pre-arrangement with a renegade priest. Hildegart, born in Madrid in 1914, was created in her mother's image and raised according to avant-garde theories. By age 14 she was a prodigy studying law at Madrid University. She appeared to be living out her mother's aspirations as she campaigned for the Spanish Republic, sexual freedom and socialist causes. But at age 17, she began a passionate affair with H. G. Wells. Torn between lust and her political destiny, Hildegart turned to her mother in desperation. "She, Aurora, had created Hildegart; it was up to her now to sacrifice her work that had failed." And so, like Dr. Frankenstein, Aurora does. Hackl, an Austrian journalist and critic, has brought this strange story to a kind of half-life. The deadpan languageperhaps exaggerated in translationpresents a two-dimensional dramatic narrative. Distanced as we are from the characters, there is no frisson of In Cold Blood reality to this fictional accounting.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Austrian critic/journalist Hackl here offers a daring portrait of an unusual personality. First published in Austria in 1987, his novel is based on the true story of Spanish Socialist Aurora Rodrigues, who killed her only daughter, aged 17, in Madrid on April 11, 1931. Painstakingly documenting Aurora's precocious childhood in turn-of-the-century Spain and relentless pursuit of a political vision that leads to personal tragedy, this rich, energetic work raises disturbing questions about violated boundaries between parent and child, between the personal and the political. The translation preserves the energy and ambiguity of the original. Essential for literature and social history collections.
- Ulrike S. Rettig, Wellesley Coll., Mass.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 115 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; First Edition edition (March 11, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394573285
• ISBN-13: 978-0394573281
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,481,736 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars MINE...MINE...ALL MINE..., September 29, 2004

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Lawyeraau (Balmoral Castle) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: AURORA'S MOTIVE (Paperback)

This is a reasonably interesting re-counting of the tragedy that enfolded Aurora Rodriguez, a daughter of Spain, who, born in 1890, grew up in comfort and privilege as a member of the bourgeois, only to renounce the norms of her upbringing in search for a more perfect recognition of self.

After the death of her parents, Aurora was to scandalize her contemporaries, as well as her brother, with her search for a surrogate father for a child, which she would raise herself in accordance with her own philosophical vision. That vision was a liberal, free-thinking one, in which the world would be made into a better, more Utopian one. In this world, the role of women would be equal with men, which philosophy was very avant-garde for her time.

Aurora met a man who represented that he was a priest, albeit an unconventional one, and agreeing to her terms, they entered into a sexual relationship for the purpose of procreation. Aurora's determination bore fruit, when she eventually found herself pregnant. In 1914, Aurora moved to Madrid, where she gave birth to that child, a girl whom she named Hildegart and to whom she was slavishly devoted.

As her daughter grew up, mother and daughter were as one in terms of ideas and philosophies. Aurora was Hildegart's Svengali, and Hildegart was being made in her mother's political image. It was almost as if Aurora were living vicariously through her daughter, who was highly precocious for her age. By the time Hildegart was seventeen, she was a well known public figure and espouser of liberal causes and feminism, as well as an ardent advocate for a Spanish Republic.

As young woman are so often wont to do, however, Hildegart made a brief stab at independence from her mother's intellectual apron strings after she met H. G. Wells. She began thinking of things other than politics and causes. No longer was Aurora the center of Hildegart's world, a fact that caused Aurora much distress. Feeling betrayed by a daughter over whom she exercised less and less control, Aurora had the final say when she put a gun to her sleeping daughter and fired it at point blank range.

This murder was a cause celebre in Spain, where Hildegart in her short life had become a fairly well-known public figure and an impassioned advocate on many issues that were, at the time, viewed as being leftist by nature. The author attempts to reconstruct Aurora's life and paint a portrait of a woman who, born before her time, had sought immortality through her daughter, Hildegart, a child who was raised in the cross-hairs of her mother's singular vision.

Their story is briefly told and is hampered somewhat by a translation that, at times, seems awkward in its construction. Moreover, the portrait that the author paints of his subjects never seems to rise beyond the two-dimensional. Still, for those unfamiliar with these two star-crossed lives, the book provides a tantalizing glimpse into a story of a mother's love gone dangerously awry. It is a tragic reminder that a parent must allow a child to live his or her own dreams and not those of the parent.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unforgetable, December 28, 2002

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Odu "Odu" (Phoenix, AZ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Aurora's Motive (Hardcover)

I read this book in the late 80's. It made a deep impression on me. I have been searching for it again since that time. I dont have an actual copy yet but I am so glad to know the book hasnt been forgotten. It should be required reading....perhaps it already is.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Biography that reads as a well-written novel, October 9, 2002

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M. J. Smith (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Aurora's Motive (Hardcover)

This book begins with a murder - the mother (Aurora) killing her 17-year-old daughter (Hildegart). Hildegart was a political, feminist child-genius in Spain. Her major activity occurred between 1928-1933. She was a planned superwoman of her mother who raised her specifically to fulfill a political mission. The author has done an excellent job of portraying the socialist movement of the period and the roots of Aurora's project. There is the usual gap between words and deeds, the political deals, the self-serving compromises etc. But most of all there is a mother on a mission, ignoring and overriding anything for Hildegart that is outside Aurora's goal.

Beautifully written, this book is very appropriate to our times. It shows in a sympathic way the dangers of fanaticism.