Unamunoby Arturo Barea; Ilse Barea. La forja de un rebelde: I.
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Originally published in the late 1940s, and never before available in paperback in the United States, Arturo Barea's astonishing Spanish trilogy is both the autobiography of a man and the biography of a nation during the first four decades of the twentieth century, one of the most crucial periods in Spain's long history. Arturo Barea was born into a poor family in Madrid in Originally published in the late 1940s, and never before available in paperback in the United States, Arturo Barea's astonishing Spanish trilogy is both the autobiography of a man and the biography of a nation during the first four decades of the twentieth century, one of the most crucial periods in Spain's long history. Arturo Barea was born into a poor family in Madrid in 1897 and spent his early years moving between the social and economic worlds of his beloved and widowed mother and a well-to-do aunt. Spain had just lost the last of its rich colonial possessions and was burdened by a sick and corrupt monarchy, and Barea's description of Madrid in The Forge-its slums and boulevards, beggars and children, and conflicting economic and political currents, is as gripping as it is fascinating. As with many of his generation, he developed bourgeois yearnings and became a prosperous businessman; yet he also became deeply concerned about the greed, corruption, and injustice he saw around him. His experience in the Spanish Army in Morocco during the bloody Riff War of the early 1920s, chronicled in The Track, affected him deeply and brought him back to Spain with a new perspective.
The Clash jumps ahead a decade to chronicle the events in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War, from 1935 to 1939, when Barea and his wife, Ilsa, left Spain for good. His descriptions of people rising up to resist their aggressors are unforgettable, and brings home more poignantly and insightfully than any history the underlying conflicts, tensions, and complexities of the Civil War. Individually, each of Barea's books is unforgettable; together they form a literary and historical masterpiece. A unique autobiography and history of early twentieth century Spain. The first of the three volume book, The Forge, covers the Arturo Barea's early life in Spain from 1905-1915. Part history and part biography this volume details life in Spain. In the second volume, The Track, Barea covers his years in the Rif War as Spain tries to hold on to its last colony.
He sees this as the beginning of the fascist movement in Spain. The final volume, The Clash, covers the war in Spain and Barea's exile to A unique autobiography and history of early twentieth century Spain. The first of the three volume book, The Forge, covers the Arturo Barea's early life in Spain from 1905-1915. Part history and part biography this volume details life in Spain. In the second volume, The Track, Barea covers his years in the Rif War as Spain tries to hold on to its last colony. He sees this as the beginning of the fascist movement in Spain.
The final volume, The Clash, covers the war in Spain and Barea's exile to England. Barea was in a unique position during the Spanish Civil War. He fought the fascists but was not a communist which made him suspect on his own side. The third volume, by the way, is also the inspiration for a British punk band in the 1970s. Barea offers details in two wars that are not much covered in the United States.
The Riff War and the Spanish Civil War. The latter is remembered mostly for the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and its famous members. Barea's detailed writing style does seem long-winded at times, but he is chronicling events that would become a historical record and was likely fearful of the truth being suppressed by the Franco regime. It was a period of brutality in both Morocco and Spain and became a prequel for the Second World War. Recommended for history readers with an interest in early 20th-century Spain. Originally three books, 'The Forge', 'The Track', and 'The Clash,' Barea’s memoirs combined become a more sweeping and complete account of the politically legendary Spanish Civil War.
It is first though, an autobiography; a personal account of Spain through the eyes of a child who comes of age as a soldier, an intellectual, a worker, and a man. The writer also tells a story that is both beautiful and informative, poetically weaving the sights, sounds and smells of the lands he was raised, amid t Originally three books, 'The Forge', 'The Track', and 'The Clash,' Barea’s memoirs combined become a more sweeping and complete account of the politically legendary Spanish Civil War. It is first though, an autobiography; a personal account of Spain through the eyes of a child who comes of age as a soldier, an intellectual, a worker, and a man. The writer also tells a story that is both beautiful and informative, poetically weaving the sights, sounds and smells of the lands he was raised, amid the customs and culture of the Spanish people. Beginning in the early 1900s, through the second Moroccan War, to the inevitability of the Republic, with a finale of the Civil War, Forging a Rebel paints an unforgettable account of a country that inspired thousands of women and men from around the world, of different classes and cultures, to rally for its cause for freedom, equality, and opportunity.
But what is most extraordinary about this brilliant memoir is the passion in which it is written. It is a book that the reader can relate to, despite its being written half a century ago. Timeless tales of the tyrannies of hierarchy, abuses of labor, innocence of childhood, struggles for freedom, and the corruption of power, are woven throughout this trilogy, enabling the reader connect to his story and the stories of his people. When you read Barea's book you feel as though you are in Madrid and Morocco, drinking the wine, eating the food, and hanging out the endless mosaic of people that make up Spain. While it has been recommended by Orwell, has been compared to Tolstoy's War and Peace, and made into a television mini-series in Spain, this remarkable book has been largely neglected.
For anyone interested in Spain, the Spanish Civil War or just brilliant literature, buy this book, it deserves to be read. The Forging of a Rebel was always imagined by its Spanish author as a single ambitious work.
However, it was first published in England, where Barea was living in exile, as three separate volumes: The Forge (1941), The Track (1943) and The Clash (1946). Arturo Barea’s hope was to present for European and American readers a personal, but pointedly Spanish view of the Spanish Civil War. Franco, a fascist on the Mussolini model and a ruthlessly competent military leader, accepted critical aid from The Forging of a Rebel was always imagined by its Spanish author as a single ambitious work. However, it was first published in England, where Barea was living in exile, as three separate volumes: The Forge (1941), The Track (1943) and The Clash (1946).
Arturo Barea’s hope was to present for European and American readers a personal, but pointedly Spanish view of the Spanish Civil War. Franco, a fascist on the Mussolini model and a ruthlessly competent military leader, accepted critical aid from Hitler and Mussolini, weapons, advisors, and some combatants. When western democracies took a non-interventionist stance that was fatally damaging to the republican side, anti-fascists from throughout Europe and the Americas stepped up, creating a motley army of amateurs and forging a fragile coalition of political interests that would soon be unbalanced by the Soviet Union’s agreeing to supply planes, tanks, ammunition, and officers to the Spanish government.
Stalin’s minions brought some badly needed order and discipline but they also brought politically motivated purges, organized for “safekeeping” the removal of the government’s gold from its treasury, and quickly substituted its interests for Spain’s. In short, a civil war became two wars, one belonging to Spain where there was no alternative to victory for either side and a proxy war, a prelude to the World War II, where international participants knew they could fight another day. During and after the war, the international angle dominated books, films, and articles, a fact that bothered Barea as much as it did when he worked in besieged Madrid during the war as a censor. The Forging of a Rebel is Barea’s superb attempt to re-direct the world’s attention to the true origins and nature of the Spanish Civil War. Barea, the son of a washerwoman, was raised by a strict aunt and a kindly uncle and held apart from his still living mother. The aunt discouraged visits from the mother and displays of affection between mother and son.
Barea, a capable student, was bright and curious, instinctively independent, resistant to authority, and determined to free his mother from the grim life of a laundrywoman. His aunt’s support raised his status in the family but at a cost of periodic humiliations and angry jealousy from siblings and cousins. Spain was a dying aristocracy. Its countryside still remarkably feudal. The Church, institutionally and in most instances at the parish and school level, worked hard and harshly with the wealthy landowners. Even its generosity, which Barea experiences and acknowledges, came, as it did with his aunt, at a price of conformity and acceptance of one’s inferiority.
Anti-clericalism among the Spanish poor was deep and rooted in support of a status quo that left many brutally exploited, working long hours on starvation diets and frequently underemployed. Attempts at reform were repressed. The Forge tells the story of Barea’s family life, education, and experiences in city and rural village, including an influential uncle who was a blacksmith—hence the double-duty of the first’s volume’s title. The first volume concludes with Barea’s career in a bank, which began with an exploitive apprenticeship (a year’s worth of free labor as one of scores of apprentices working in competition for three low-paying jobs) and continued with a slow rise in the business world. The second volume tells of Barea’s time in the Spanish army in Morocco—where we encounter Franco for the first time—and the corruption, callousness and violence in the Spanish colony. The third volume covers the Spanish Civil War.
All three volumes are intriguing and very well written (and ably translated by Barea’s wife) and Barea was successful in using his life story to reveal the long roots of the civil war and the personal, political, and occasional indifference that contributed to his horrible violence. Barea intercedes to save a fascist priest and a wealthy business owner, both because they were men of good character who helped others, regardless of political views or status, but there are many others on both sides who are executed on suspicion or by accident or out of malice or revenge for past crimes real and imagined. On both sides. Franco’s partisans kill union men and women or anyone with a moderate republican or leftist affiliation. Barea soon becomes suspect by the Communists, as does Ilsa, thought to be a Trotskyite, and the couple is forced to flee Spain to avoid arrest and likely execution by their own side. It is a compelling story of the war and an engaging, provocative and very personal memoir of one man’s life in Spain in the first third of the 20th century. A valuable book for what it has to say about 20th century Spain and their Civil War, but very long.
And not quick-long, like a typically bloated Stephen King novel, but LONG-long. Very plodding. Did I mention it's long and takes a while to read?
Arturo Barea was a Spaniard born to a low-class washerwoman around the turn of the 20th century, yet raised by a well-off uncle in a bourgeois Madrid environment, setting him up for a unique role as an outsider to both castes: too snobby fo A valuable book for what it has to say about 20th century Spain and their Civil War, but very long. And not quick-long, like a typically bloated Stephen King novel, but LONG-long. Very plodding. Did I mention it's long and takes a while to read? Arturo Barea was a Spaniard born to a low-class washerwoman around the turn of the 20th century, yet raised by a well-off uncle in a bourgeois Madrid environment, setting him up for a unique role as an outsider to both castes: too snobby for his lower class siblings and cousins but forever the 'son of a washerwoman' in his elite Catholic schools and office jobs.
Though he doesn't explicitly state it, these circumstances undoubtedly shaped Barea's worldview and his socialist leanings; they made him hyper-sensitive to injustice and allowed him an outsider's perspective on both the lower and upper classes, one he would exploit in this tome with an impressive gift for both observation and translation into prose. His view is truly that of a half-caste or outsider and perhaps epitomizes the awkward exclusion that many hybrid humans feel even today, whether mixed race, mixed religion, mixed sexuality/gender. Most people raised outside of the mainstream - ANY 'mainstream' - benefit from an ability to view that stream more clearly than those that swim in it. The book itself is separated into three volumes that correspond respectively with Barea's childhood/emergence into the workforce, his service in the Spanish Army during the Rif (Spanish-Moroccan) War of 1921-26, and then his activities as an anti-fascist press censor during the Spanish Civil War. The first book, 'The Forge,' was a slog - the 1st half of it had flashes of beauty but was largely a painstaking depiction of the minutiae of his childhood setting. Emphasis on 'pain.'
The 2nd half was much better - it actually chronicled formative events of his youth and documented the beginnings of his preoccupation with justice and equality (and socialism). The 2nd book, 'The Track,' continued the better pacing of the 2nd half of the 1st book and did well to depict the corruption and hypocrisy plaguing the Spanish military and government, in addition to Barea's growing disillusionment with the status quo. This was the quickest read out of the three books (and also the shortest, a coincidence I'm sure). The 3rd book, 'The Clash,' I sort of viewed as the main event.
I came to this book after all from Orwell's, or perhaps it was from - in any case I've read and loved two books about the Spanish Civil War and was eager to read a depiction from an actual Spaniard. And buried amidst all of the many thousands of words he wrote about it there is certainly a fascinating portrayal. The problems were the extraneous tangents and descriptions, and the scattershot manner in which he narrated events.
There was an unfortunate lack of context for the inter-party squabbling that was occurring, or regarding certain important political and military figures. You could certainly glean the gist of the problem: the Anarchists, Communists and Socialists of the left couldn't cease their juvenile bickering and mistrust long enough to unite against the Fascist block, dooming their effort to failure. But Barea assumes too much background knowledge of the events.
I imagine this is because he was writing for an audience that was less than a decade removed from the War (and just coming out of WWII), and consequently would have known explicitly or intuitively what he was talking about. Still, the lack of forethought in explaining things for a more ignorant future audience renders the book not necessarily dated, but certainly not timeless. Also, a common complaint of mine for books over 500 pages: too long. His flowery descriptions of his youth in the first nearly-200 pages were pretty, sure, and mildly informative even, but they could have been greatly condensed. Likewise, the last half of the last book is weighed down by pages of his teeth-gnashing over his nerves from the bombing.
It's poignant the first few times but quickly gets old and only serves to lower my esteem of Barea in the end, reinforcing the stereotype of a fragile, cowardly intellectual during wartime. Likewise, the last 40-odd pages of their time in Paris could have been excised completely. Basically, the book would have been much better had it been edited to under 600 pages. Ultimately I'm glad I read this - it now feels wrong that my entire knowledge of the Spanish Civil War used to come from a Brit, a North-American and 'Pan's Labyrinth' (fantastic film, BTW).
Barea also does a great job of exposing the hypocrisy and corruption of the Spanish elite, and then the tragic infighting and bureaucracy that undid the anti-fascist effort. But overall I can't fully recommend this to anyone who is not already highly interested in the Spanish Civil War (as I was), or in Spain from a century ago, or in socialism at its most elemental.
If you're only mildly interested in any of those things I unfortunately must advise you to instead try Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, a shorter, better-structured account of the same period. If you love it as much as I did you very well may want to move onto Barea's version. I read this slowly- at special collections at u, three times a week, but it is easy to get into each time. Someone claims this is like a proletarian version of war and peace: maybe i will try again reading that. The first book is recollection of his youth, the second of his time in the army, the third on events of the Spanish civil war in the 1930s.
All are portrayal of Spanish culture and world as recorded in direct, clear, efficient prose. My knowledge of this time is entirely through literatu i read this slowly- at special collections at u, three times a week, but it is easy to get into each time. Someone claims this is like a proletarian version of war and peace: maybe i will try again reading that. The first book is recollection of his youth, the second of his time in the army, the third on events of the Spanish civil war in the 1930s. All are portrayal of Spanish culture and world as recorded in direct, clear, efficient prose. My knowledge of this time is entirely through literature and some film. My sympathy is on the loyalist side, that is against the fascists of Franco, against the nonintervention policies of major powers.
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This book suggests i should read some work again, and again the five is more for the history than for poetic values. This makes me think of course of Hemingway but also Orwell and of the idealism of the international brigades, and living in a time when clarity of struggle and politics could be embodied and fought for, then the reality of war is presaged by civil war becoming a preview of world war. This is a brilliant book for anybody who is interested in the Spanish Civil war.
It's seen from a personal point of view and I personally wish I'd read it years ago. We meet Barea as a child, his beloved mother is a poor washer woman but he lives with his wealthy relatives and this creates in him a feeling of not belonging anywhere. We follow him through his life, army, marriage and political actions until we get to the outbreak of war and the horrors that came with that. His work as a censor at This is a brilliant book for anybody who is interested in the Spanish Civil war.
It's seen from a personal point of view and I personally wish I'd read it years ago. We meet Barea as a child, his beloved mother is a poor washer woman but he lives with his wealthy relatives and this creates in him a feeling of not belonging anywhere. We follow him through his life, army, marriage and political actions until we get to the outbreak of war and the horrors that came with that.
His work as a censor at the Telefonica is mentioned in other peoples books too and I believe he was a bit of a legend. His inability to sleep due to the bombing and the resulting nervous breakdown felt almost too real and I found myself holding my breath in parts.
All in all, I think this is an important book not only because the Spanish Civil war didn't end until the death of Franco but also because it relates to so many conflicts in the world today. Compelling, efficient, poignant prose; Barea strips his language of inessentials, rids it of all traces of verbosity, embellishment and sentimentality, blatantly striving to be as honest as possible. He describes actions by using short, simple sentences with as little emotional rhetoric as possible; the resulting prose is concentrated, concrete and capable of conveying emotion and irony.
A captivating coming-of-age novel, ideal to anyone who is interested in the Spanish Civil War. This copy was ki Compelling, efficient, poignant prose; Barea strips his language of inessentials, rids it of all traces of verbosity, embellishment and sentimentality, blatantly striving to be as honest as possible. He describes actions by using short, simple sentences with as little emotional rhetoric as possible; the resulting prose is concentrated, concrete and capable of conveying emotion and irony. A captivating coming-of-age novel, ideal to anyone who is interested in the Spanish Civil War. This copy was kindly provided to me in exchange for an honest review by the publisher via NetGalley. This is the beginning of a life-long impulse to pimp this book on everyone I meet. Barea is compared with Tolstoi, a comparison warranted if only because of the lenght of both The Forge and War and Peace, but more so because they share the wonderful ability of reflecting a country and its people, and the struggle to find the causes of the historical events that shook them.
I remember Tolstoi as outright irritating in his insistence that history was moved by small concatenations of events and not b This is the beginning of a life-long impulse to pimp this book on everyone I meet. Barea is compared with Tolstoi, a comparison warranted if only because of the lenght of both The Forge and War and Peace, but more so because they share the wonderful ability of reflecting a country and its people, and the struggle to find the causes of the historical events that shook them. I remember Tolstoi as outright irritating in his insistence that history was moved by small concatenations of events and not by the actions of great men. It's obvious to us, but it mustn't have been for a time where students were taught with heaps of Julius Caesar's feats, plates of Napoleon's battles, etc. His theory blew his mind. Arturo Barea, instead, is reconciled with the notion. It will take you 100 pages of unrelenting description of life in the villages of Castille to see how it connects with anything greater than that, but it does.
Will you be bored? It helped to know the streets and to have met the people -my people, after all- to keep me into it. As an example of the accuracy of what he writes, take his mental state from the beginning of the siege of Madrid and onwards: it's PTSD, lacking only the name. The term was coined for DSM-III in the 80s and has gained name recognition with returning veterans. Barea describes the re-experiencing, the flashbacks, the nightmares, the angry outburst, the avoidance, the hyper-vigilance, and thinks that he's going mad because he doesn't have anybody to assure him that he is suffering from a described stress reaction.
In the end he deals with it by recognising similar conditions in his entourage and deducing that it's common to men. And the love story with its corresponding civil war background is at least twice as romantic as the one in For Whom the bell tolls. I mean, this guy looooves his mother, but he had waited his whole life for Ilse. One is tempted to deduce that he latched onto an Austrian because he was sick of his country, and the guy who wrote the introduction of my edition does. But any self-respecting Spanish woman will tell you that he probably did because intelligent, intellectual, socialist, well-educated women, capable of matching Barea, who was used to be the most intelligent man in the room, were few and far between.
It is also properly spanish to bash oneself a little bit. Let's stop for a footnote on his style: it's straightforward; 'brutal', it has been called.
His main remark about it is that Ilse told him to do away with rhetorical flourishes. And yet he manages to spend the first third of the Forge in bucolic descriptions using his own voice as a child, so it grows as he does. And he never does give up on the poetry of an image. I have many things to say about this wonderful book.
I grabbed what turned out to be a first edition book from a popular second hand bookstore in Sydney owned by a Marxist who passed away some years now. The title immediately pulled me in, and I grabbed it and purchased it without knowing who the author was or its specific contents. If you are looking at understanding the mechanics of the Spanish Civil War then this book will come in handy only if you supplement it with other literature. On its ow I have many things to say about this wonderful book.
I grabbed what turned out to be a first edition book from a popular second hand bookstore in Sydney owned by a Marxist who passed away some years now. The title immediately pulled me in, and I grabbed it and purchased it without knowing who the author was or its specific contents.
If you are looking at understanding the mechanics of the Spanish Civil War then this book will come in handy only if you supplement it with other literature. On its own there are many things that the reader would have to know prior in order to better comprehend the war even if Barea does paint an informative picture of the turn of events. You will also need a detailed map of Spain, otherwise the geography will be entirely lost on you. Each of the volumes were enjoyable to read, but by far the 3rd in the series is where the real struggle occurs. What really sets this book apart is that it is an epic struggle of how you come to terms with those that have a different politics from you. This is an essential question which having the right tools to approach it will help in how you decide to pursue your politics and how you pursue that Truth.
How do you come to terms with those who are great people but have opposite views? How are you to wring their necks in hope they see truth, when they equally seemingly have justification for their beliefs, this is what Barea seemed to struggle with sincerely, because the war that split Spain in two also split him, ultimately he narrowed it down to two wars, a war of Bureaucracy, Politicians and ideology while what everyone missed was that the war was one for equality and freedom. He also does not give credit where it is due to the Anarchist struggle. His account of the Moors during the war could perhaps be contrived - i've yet to verify this over different sources but it was an attack on Hemmingway and his assessment of Spanish Republican soldiers which would have been far less biased, this is a shame because it smears what seemed like an honest account of history. I am no Historian, and neither is Barea, though I think soldiers of all creeds have the capacity to rape. These Racist and Orientalist accusatory attitudes here become the trough of an otherwise epic novel. Thank you Ilsa and Arturo for sharing your story.
Author by: Maureen Ihrie Language: en Publisher by: ABC-CLIO Format Available: PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read: 13 Total Download: 209 File Size: 51,6 Mb Description: Containing roughly 850 entries about Spanish-language literature throughout the world, this expansive work provides coverage of the varied countries, ethnicities, time periods, literary movements, and genres of these writings. Author by: Sarah Leggott Language: en Publisher by: Bucknell University Press Format Available: PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read: 23 Total Download: 356 File Size: 46,9 Mb Description: This book proposes a new direction for the study of Spanish literature of the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s, arguing that novels of this period merit a fresh critical approach that enriches existing perspectives on the Spanish novel during the first two decades of the Franco dictatorship. Essays take an interdisciplinary approach to reveal how contemporary cultural theory relating to memory and trauma can enhance our understanding of the postwar Spanish novel. Author by: Adolfo Campoy-Cubillo Language: en Publisher by: Springer Format Available: PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read: 29 Total Download: 363 File Size: 41,7 Mb Description: Using a cultural studies approach, this book explores how the Spanish colonization of North Africa continues to haunt Spain's efforts to articulate a national identity that can accommodate both the country's diversity, brought about by immigration from its old colonies, and the postnational demands of its integration in the European Union. Author by: Pablo Campos Calvo-Sotelo Language: en Publisher by: Nova Publishers Format Available: PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read: 89 Total Download: 775 File Size: 50,6 Mb Description: In 1927, a group of advisors of King Alfonso XIII of Spain set off a journey to the United States. Their aim was to study the American University as a model for the design of the new University City in Madrid.
Using the reconstruction of this cultural event as a guiding thread metaphor, the purpose of the Research Project is to study the roots and historical transformations that the University Space has experimented since its origins, under the impulse of Utopia, making special emphasis in its relation to the City. It will focus on the evolution of essential architectural models, beginning from its medieval germ in Europe: the exodus of the 'seed' of its embodied soul (the quadrangle) to the New World, the birth and diversification of the new model (campus) and, finally, in the early twentieth century, the 'return trip' to Europe of the modern idea, and the prolific heritage that it has generated in the contemporary University since then, from the point of view of the cultural connection between the Unites States and Europe. Author by: Paul Preston Language: en Publisher by: Harpercollins Pub Limited Format Available: PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read: 34 Total Download: 466 File Size: 50,9 Mb Description: This is a bravura new interpretation of the course, causes and characters of the Spanish Civil War, which remains the twentieth century's bloodiest internal conflict. Any analysis of the war has always focused on victors and vanquished, but what of those who eschewed the struggle, those who stood apart from the carnage and chaos? Starting at the extreme right of chaos?
Starting at the extreme right of the political-spectrum and moving across it to the extreme left, using the emblematic lives of nine key individuals, Preston builds up an astonishingly vivid picture of how the war came to pass, and how those who started, suffered and stopped it were coloured by the experience. Here are brilliant psychological profiles of the communist firebrand La Pasionaria, of the canny falangist Primo de Rivera, of the aloof intellectual Salvador de Madariaga, and of the enigma himself, Generalissimo Franco.