Author: Jordi Sierra I Fabra
- Fiction
- Plaza & Janés Editores, S.A
- ISBN: 9788401339998
- Release Date: 10-25-2012
-Reviewed by: Félix Lizárraga
The novel Sombras en el tiempo (Shadows in Time) is Jordi Sierra i Fabra’s latest book. Or perhaps not, because its author (born in Barcelona, 1947), who in July won the Cervantes Award for Young Adult Literature (known as the Cervantes Chico, or the Lesser Cervantes) is an uncommonly prolific writer who has published over four hundred books, so it is hard to keep up with such an avalanche. Given Mr. Sierra’s mind-numbing literary output (something that usually tends to be inversely related to quality), I must confess that I approached Sombras… with a certain amount of skepticism. Contrary to expectations, however, I found it a surprisingly engrossing read.
Sombras… (which received the X Ciudad de Torrevieja Award) follows the life of the Cerón family during the years 1949-51, with a 1964 epilogue. The Ceróns, forced out of their village Murcia countryside by the Civil War and the troubled post-war economy, arrive in Barcelona determined to leave all the ghosts of the past behind and make a clean start. That, of course, is something easier said than done. The father, Antonio, fought on the side of the Republicans during the war –something that could cost him his life in Franco’s Spain. His wife, Carmen, is a woman haunted by a terrible secret, one that increasingly estranges her from her husband.
Their four children are very different from each other. There is Fuensanta, who grows progressively torn between her two suitors –idealist, anti-Franco fighter Rogelio, and Pablo, a sensitive young gentleman from a wealthy Catalonian family—and the divergent futures they offer her. Sweet Ursula dreams of singing and dancing professionally. Salvador, the youngest, seduced by Falangism, harbors a few secrets of his own. And there is of course Ginés, the oldest, a hedonistic, amoral creature for whom his own beauty ends up becoming a curse.
For all its Dickensian twists and turns, the novel is firmly grounded on reality (more specifically, the real lives of the family of Sierra’s own wife), and its depiction of Franco era’s Spain rings true, making the fates of its characters truly affecting. That said, some of those twists and turns go well beyond Dickensian and degenerate into soap opera territory. Mr. Sierra’s style manages to be simultaneously pedestrian and turgid (not an easy feat); his dialogue vacillates between minute realism to unfortunate (and sometimes plainly implausible) attempts at philosophizing; and the overabundant sex scenes are so luridly told that they border on pornography.
All in all, the Cerón saga is not without its satisfactions, and could very well inspire a first-rate movie or TV series. To be frank, I am torn between its many faults and its undeniable virtues.
