The Family of Pascual Duarte (Spanish Literature Series) [Paperback]

Camilo José Cela (Author), Anthony Kerrigan (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2004 | Series: Spanish Literature Series

Cela was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in October 1989, and this novel is considered by many to be his masterpiece. It is the story of an ignorant Castillian peasant and multiple murderer, and it tells of the savage impulses behind his crimes and his redeeming characteristics.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"After Don Quixote, probably the most widely read novel in Spanish." --New York Times

"A most memorable book . . . The Family of Pascual Duarte sets its author in place as a contemporary of Celine and Malaparte and a follower of the Spanish picaresque tradition." --New York Times Book Review

"Cela prefers the weird, the apparently meaningless and amorphous. The world of his novels has been likened to that of Hieronymus Bosch and Brueghel; he sees man as a prisoner in a forbidding universe where chaos and imperfection always defeat the idealist." --Paul West

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Spanish --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 166 pages
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Pr (March 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564783596
• ISBN-13: 978-1564783592
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #278,482 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars sounds a cautionary note, November 18, 2000

By 

Orrin C. Judd "brothersjudddotcom" (Hanover, NH USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Family of Pascual Duarte (Paperback)

Second only to the inestimable Don Quixote in the pantheon of Spanish Literature, Cela's Family of Pascual Duarte was published in the same year as The Stranger (Albert Camus) and, treating the same themes, is its superior. Cela was for many years denied the recognition he deserved due to his membership in the Falangist party and his service on Franco's side in the Spanish Civil War, but finally, in 1989, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Pascual Duarte is a brutal Spanish peasant, shaped by poverty, ignorance and hatred. The book recounts his mounting depravity as he goes from killing his dog to knifing a romantic rival to final horrific matricide. Duarte falls prey to the type of alienation and world weariness described by the Existentialists. He describes himself prior to killing his mother:

The day I decided I would have to use my knife on her, I was so weary of it all, so convinced in my bones that bloodletting was the only cure, that the thought of her dying didn't even quicken my pulse. It was something fated, it had to be and would be.

And even as he writes this account of his life as he sits in prison, awaiting death, he acknowledges:

...there are moments when the telling of my own story gives me the most honest of honest pleasures, perhaps because I feel so far removed from what I am telling that I seem to be repeating a story from hearsay about some unknown person.

But Cela, unlike Camus, seems to trace Duarte's pathologies to his environment, to the circumstances of his life, rather than trying to make a universal statement about the human condition. Duarte is a distinct type, but one that has been all too familiar in the Century. His alienation, amorality and brutality are summed up in a chilling assertion of his own inhumanity:

...I'm not made to philosophize, I don't have the heart for it. My heart is more like a machine for making blood to be spilt in a knife fight....

Nor does Cela offer much philosophical elaboration, neither to explain Duarte nor to offer a cure for the world's Duartes. Instead, what is really noticeable here is the absence of any institutions to inculcate values or venues in which to express individual aspirations. Missing are the Church, an open economy and participatory democratic structures, the triune basis of modern Western civil society. In this sense, the novel sounds a cautionary note about the sorts of men that arise in this kind of moral vacuum.

The novel is raw and powerful and compulsively readable. It's outrageous that it is not currently in print in English translation, but it is available through used booksellers and many libraries may stock copies from when he won the Nobel. Either way, it is well worth your effort to track it down.

GRADE: A-

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shortest giant you'll ever encounter, May 31, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Family of Pascual Duarte (Paperback)

This is a fabulous book. It is a grim but fast-paced tale with the kind of tongue-in-cheek humor I have come to love Cela for. It may seem dimimutive, and the writing style is spare enough to be deceiving in that it hardly seems likely that within so few pages, a monument could emerge. The scope of this book is staggering; only a master like Cela could have pulled it off. Go to a used bookstore to find it.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping, June 8, 2000

By 

Jonathan Loschi (boise, idaho) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Family of Pascual Duarte (Paperback)

This book was riveting. The plot is dark, and the main character nothing to be admired. But there is a struggle between his irredeemable, murderous ways, and an occasionally bulging (at best) conscience, and (at worst) paranoia that gives him a hint or whiff of something better than he is. The writing style is very vivid. Cela has a great command of expression, yet you can almost imagine this story being told to you orally on the front porch of a house in the evening. I highly recommend it.