University of Oklahoma, and Boston University, today Ana María Matute is one of the most personal voices in contemporary literature.
THE ACORN
THE TORTURE OF DOCTOR JOHNSON
In my work the fantastic has all the intentionality of reality. The core of Olvidado Rey Gudú is when his mother, while he’s still a boy, removes his capacity to love. She has been a victim of love, because in her lifetime she has only tried it with an old man. How does a thirteen-year-old girl fall in love with an old man? It turns out that what attracts her is a man with experience. And she pays dearly because the old man doesn’t fall in love with her, she’s the one who falls in love. And he treats her badly. She asks for it a little, it must be said, but in any case he treats her very badly. And so the only thing she wants is power. She hasn’t been able to get it, but her son will become King. Why does the mother take away his capacity to love? Lust for power. Because she has already renounced everything. Then Prince Almíbar crosses her path and satisfies her physically but doesn’t fill her spirit, her soul, because she has become a very ambitious person. That’s why she does what she does to her son, so he’ll never love. Because for her, love has been the source of everything bad. And her son must be a great king, a powerful man, what she had aspired to but failed at herself. To never love anyone. And she thinks she’s doing him a favor because obviously, like most mothers, she loves her son. But it’s a favor done for herself too, for her wounded pride, for her desires, her ambitions. It’s a gift she gives herself. As I once said: “Love is a wonderful mistake.”
IN CONVERSATION WITH THE DEAD
It’s very difficult to explain, I’d need an entire book for that. The book I’m writing now is called Diablos familiares. That says it all. My dead are my family demons. I belong to a generation in which “good” girls generally weren’t allowed to study. I was forbidden to go to university, but now I have an honorary doctorate. I got revenge! And so I have been very much an autodidact. I’ve also had the great fortune of meeting many people who have taught me and from whom I’ve learned a great deal throughout my life. I’ve also been shaped by my reading, my passion for literature. But I would have loved to be able to study Philosophy and Letters. And now I’d like to study Mathematics because I see some very interesting connections to poetry and music and those are two things I like a lot. Poetry has always influenced me and I read it now more than ever. Although I also must confess that I love crime novels [she laughs]. And I’m passionate about history, especially the history of the Middle Ages. I’ve immersed myself in the Arthurian sagas, living absorbed in that period for years.
CODA
You refer to your generation as the “shadow children” and you explain how important fairy tales were for them, and the phrase “once upon a time.” You started out writing social realism but over time you’ve shifted to the fantasy novel. Why?
Some women began to make significant inroads in literature in the postwar era. Carmen Laforet was the first, and although I’m often included in the same generation as her and Cela, she was older—I’m from the generation of the fifties. But it’s not entirely true to say that I’ve switched from realism to fantasy. It is, but not entirely. My intended style of writing forms part of the magic, you understand, of the magic of literature, of literature as invention. So that has always existed in my books and stories. But you have to take into account the time in which I had to live and develop as a writer. It was the Francoist era. First, when I was eleven years old the civil war broke out right in front of me and after I was fourteen, in my adolescence, I lived through a very long postwar period. And that left a mark on all of us, marked us decisively. This explains why I had to find a lung to breathe and to fight this man and his system. Pequeño tentro or Primaria memoria are realist, but not entirely. There is always a more poetic part. I think that social realism really killed Spanish literature for a while and I wanted to get away from it. I didn’t renounce my rebelliousness or my strong social criticism by writing literature instead of social reporting. I haven’t limited myself to telling, to narrating. I imagine. I invent. In any case, I have traveled a lot and I’ve seen how women are treated in the world and I’ve come to the realization that it’s not solely the heritage of Spain. But in a country like ours and at that time there were strong inherited prejudices.
Did this generation of “shadow children” lose their innocence because of what they saw so young?
I’ve known many people for whom it’s not that they’ve lost it, it’s that they never had it. But childhood is something that’s never lost. Childhood leaves a mark. I’ve often stressed that childhood, the boy or girl that we were, is something we have inside forever and it’s a very rich place for imagination and invention.
A THOUSAND FORESTS
FROM OLFIDADO REY GUDÚ
[A NOVEL]
CHAPTER VIII: GUDÚ, KING
1.
Queen Ardid was not a timid woman. Since celebrating her spectacular and unusual marriage to the late King Volodioso at the age of seven, she proved that this virtue had not diminished during the six years of her confinement in the East Tower. On the contrary, she confirmed the resolve of her character and the cunning of her methods. She enjoyed the unconditional support of Almíbar and his small army led by Randal. The soldiers of Olar were willing to act on her behalf, even though the treatment they received was by no means equal to that given to Almíbar’s men.
While the nobility were generally quite mortified by Volodioso’s behavior—although they never dared openly express this mortification—they felt their hopes for war revive when they surmised that the future King Gudú was still very young and that, if they played their cards right, his mother’s regency could be beneficial to them. And from the start Ardid did not waver for even a moment in showing herself to be benevolent and generous with them, and even went so far as to reinstate certain privileges and rights, which Volodioso had seized from them all at once. And so, the new stance, proclaimed with great solemnity by the interim Queen—which she would defend during the years of her rule as though it were as important as keeping the country at peace, without engaging in costly and senseless wars that would benefit no one—filled every spirit with a warm hope of well-being.
And while the seed of intrigue blossomed in many hearts—this was inevitable and normal—the development of this seed required years of contemplation, observation, and patience, which were essential for all. In turn, the Queen did not dismiss the Counselor in any capacity—thus playing an important card in her favor, for in addition to being brave and not in the least bit timid, cunning was one of her primary characteristics. She showed herself to be full of amity for that figure who, deep down, was repulsive and ridiculous in equal measure. But she knew, as much from her Master’s teachings as from personal experience, that an alliance with the enemy, if it did not solve the root of the problem, at least brought about a truce that was clearly both beneficial and necessary. So to everyone’s surprise, she did not make Prince Almíbar her official Counselor or her husband—she had bitter experiences with marriage. Instead she simply gave him distinctions and absolute power over such dealings as the exchange of goods in neighboring countries. Similarly, she announced a friendlier relationship with the opulent Kingdom of Leonia. She appointed Almíbar something akin to ambassador of the Realm, since he was without a doubt a refined and charming man, and women always—or almost always—tend to be vulnerable in negotiations with people possessing such qualities. With that they all remained, for the time being, happy and relieved, and, understandably, Count Tuso and his protégé Ancio most of all. Their hopes of continuing their machinations were renewed, and although Ancio was initially consumed
