Stone in a Landslide [Paperback]

Translated from the Catalan by Laura McGloughlin and Paul Mitchell

"I feel like a stone after a landslide. If someone or something stirs it, I'll come tumbling down with the others. If nothing comes near, I'll be here still, for days and days..."

Maria Barbal's novella, Stone in a Landslide, is unique because it covers so much history in just a few pages. The fictional memoir begins in the Catalan region of Spain, when a young woman, just thirteen, is forced to leave her home because there are too many mouths to feed. The poverty in this time left many with few choices, and so her family sends her to live with a barren aunt and her husband. This quiet little girl, Conxa, leaves quietly, and without much fuss. A personality trait that becomes a description of her life, her quiet acceptance of what befalls her is what makes her story so intriguing.

In first-person, she recounts her adjustment to a new home, where she has to learn to navigate around her controlling aunt and the new chores put upon her. She works extremely hard both in their home as well as in the maintenance of their fields and animals. But this is no Cinderella story, her relatives are not cruel. They come to love her as a daughter, and the skills she learns help her as she becomes a woman with a family of her own. The novel covers the milestones of marriage and motherhood and loss, all against the backdrop of the famine and the violence of the Spanish Civil War.

Despite all she could say, she is actually quiet brief. It's clear that being forced to leave her home as a child took something from her, possibly her sense of security or belonging. Because throughout the story, though she never directly states it, it's clear that she felt like a burden, and that she should never speak up or contradict others. She raises her own children with loving attention but a sense of distance, always looking at them through the eyes of possibly losing them. "Perhaps deep down I was afraid of losing what I'd learnt to own." Her insecurity combined with fear leave her mute in the face of problems, such as the menacing priest that threatens her family's safety. It's only when her worst fears are realized that she becomes more aware and invested in her own life.

In the case of the Catalan villagers, their very lives were impacted by decisions and actions far away in Barcelona-so far that even their oppressors didn't quite know who they were. It would be easy to say these were simple people, but that implies that they were ignorant. These people were intelligent and wise, but their commitment to the land for basic sustenance gave them little time to dwell on the political happenings far from them. When the rebellion came close to home, she realizes that the rural villagers throughout most of Spain were like her, simple people as insignificant as stones found on the Catalonian mountainsides.

"There were those who wanted us not only to suffer but to feel guilty as well. Why do hundreds of stones always fall at once?"

This is a quiet book, filled with thoughts to contemplate. The slow pace of the village life and the tremendous hard work is unimaginable. After I finished the book, I found myself returning to it for the simple prose and the way she can say so much in so few words.

Maria Barbal, author of eight novels, is widely acclaimed as the most influential living Catalan writer. First published in 1985, her seminal work "Pedra de Tartera" ("Stones in a Landslide") has since gone through fifty editions and sold over 50,000 copies in Germany alone.

"Stones in a Landslide" covers the complete lifetime of Conxa (short for Concepció) among the isolated farming villages of Catalonia. The book opens at the beginning of the twentieth century, when 13-year-old Conxa was sent to live with her childless aunt and uncle. She eventually marries Jaume, a builder and carpenter whose work takes him away for long stretches of time. Although Conxa remains tied to farm and family, Jaume's travels expose him to new ideas regarding government and citizens' rights which will land him on the wrong side of the Spanish Civil War. But it is his widow who will live with the subsequent tragedy for decades afterward.

There are essentially two distinct narratives here: the chronicle of a traditional rural culture and an emerging story of revolution and modernity which will eventually overtake it. Both strands are personified in the characters of Conxa and Jaume, whose marriage, though happy, comes to represent the difficult union of past and rapidly-changing present. Of the political turmoil that will ultimately consume them, Conxa is uncomprehending. "When we talked about such matters the same thing always happened to me," she explains. "A thick fog came over my brain and from there it passed to my heart. It left me frozen and in the dark. . . At moments like this, Jaume and I were as different as night and day, and that difference made me tremble more than when he left to go away for a whole week's work." To Conxa, the female role is the very foundation of agricultural life, and her entire being is consequently bound to the timeless rhythms of planting, harvesting, livestock, and family. She is accustomed, above all, to perpetual labor broken only by the occasional festival. Barbal's prose is the clear and unadorned voice of a woman who may lack sophistication, but not insight and acuity. "No, I didn't say anything to the girls. They needed to move on," Conxa says later. "What happened was a huge blow to them but there was no point in thinking about it. You have to keep going." She had learned long ago that too much depends on her to be paralyzed by death and upheaval.

In the end, however, it is not the war but the inevitable march of progress that threatens to leave Conxa behind. Farming is no longer viable in a world that has come to value novelty, speed, technology, and the city. Although Conxa modestly denies being any real source of history, the story of her life nevertheless reflects the growth of Catalan society - indeed, of many societies - in the twentieth century. And that, I believe, is the main reason "Stones in a Landslide" enjoys such strong international resonance. There is a universality to Conxa that is beautifully highlighted by Maria Barbal's vivid writing and I can see "Stones in a Landslide" appealing to a wide variety of readers. Recommended.

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