5 Works by Camilo José Cela to read
Camilo José Cela was a Spanish novelist, editor of literary magazines, essayist, poet, journalist and lecturer, famous for his works on the post-war period and for being part of the Royal Spanish Academy. He is one of the great authors of the Iberian Peninsula, a classic reference awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1989.
His literary merits even surprised King Juan Carlos I, who granted the writer the marquisate of Iria Flavia—Cela's native parish—in 1996. Likewise, There is a house of higher education with the name of the author, of which he was rector of hay.. In fact, he and Felipe Segovia Olmo laid the first stone of the construction. From now on, 5 Works by Camilo José Cela to read and information about the author.
Camilo José Cela: the writer and his work
The writer He is known for his novels inspired by the postwar period and his explanations of why he creates certain scenarios. and makes the characters sometimes express themselves in an eschatological way. However, before world fame he had already written a book of poems, the release of which was stopped due to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.
In 1938, the author made his private debut with a surrealist collection of poems. However, this book did not see the light until 1945. Before that, In 1942, his debut work in the novel genre was published. This work took place in rural Extremadura, before the war that afflicted them at that time. Since then, Camilo José Cela established his versatility, which he promoted in his next works, where he used various narrative styles.
5 Books by Camilo José Cela
Camilo José Cela He used experimentation in each of his titles. He assumed that the writer must have sufficient creative freedom to make use of the different stylistic movements, and this was demonstrated with each novel, collection of poems or essays that was published under his name. These are 5 Books by Camilo José Cela that should be read to understand the work of this author.
La Colmena (1951)
This classic of Spanish literature takes place in post-war Madrid, in the middle of 1942. The novel presents almost three hundred characters in a choral story where the protagonists belong to the lower middle class, whose dreams have been slowly shattered due to the crisis, in an “endless morning.” The other social classes appear only to provide some context, but nothing more.
On the other hand, the narrative alternates between several intertwined stories, giving the appearance of connecting until the whole is seen, in the same way that happens between the cells of a beehive. The structure is made up of six chapters and an epilogue, and, in most cases, Camilo José Cela uses an objectivist technique to show reality.
The Pascual Duarte family (1942)
Included in the list of the 100 best novels in Spanish of the XNUMXth century by the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, This epistolary work was responsible for inaugurating the genre known as “tremendism.” In this current Several tropes are embraced, such as the social novel of the 1930s, 19th century naturalism and the picaresque, all belonging to the Spanish realist tradition.
Pascual Duarte moves in a deterministic world full of misfortunes: social subjugation, poverty, pain and decadence. The protagonist goes on to narrate his life from the general to the particular, while thoroughly describing his surroundings and the situations that led him to the present moment. Likewise, the Kantian ideology of terrifying sublimity is addressed.
The murder of the loser (1994)
The volume tells how A man is forced to commit suicide by a brutal and abrasive society that judges him for his effusive way of loving.. In this sense, the offspring becomes the murderer of an individual whom it transforms, in turn, into a loser. However, this is only the gravitational axis on which the story revolves, which contains a huge festival of tragic characters related to each other.
This was the first novel that Camilo José Cela wrote after being awarded the Nobel Prize, which generated great expectations among critics and readers. Here, the author once again demonstrates his versatility As far as the narrative is concerned, exhibiting characters that come and go depending on the requirements of the plot.
Flirting, flirting and other flirting (1991)
Within the stylistic and gender diversity of Camilo José Cela, Flirting, flirting and other flirting It is presented as a great novelty. This is nothing more and nothing less than a collection of erotic stories, full of suggestive and voluptuous images that did not leave readers of the time indifferent. Extravagant characters abound here who operate freely.
For example, you can see names such as the worthy cuckold, the libidinous deaconess, the casual fuck collector or the dyke lady. They all walk around flaunting their attributes in the strangest and craziest sexual adventures. In addition to these protagonists, There are other elements typical of the various specimens of the peculiar Celian fauna.
Pages of wandering geography (1965)
This is classified as one of the lost books of Camilo José Cela. It is a compilation of the author's first adventures throughout the Iberian Peninsula. It includes stories such as “From the perpetual snows to the sugar cane”, “Excuse the Virgin of Rocío”, “Three pictures from a mining cloud”, “Doña Elvira's cod croquettes” or “Ethnology of Castilla La Old".
Others are also narrated such as “The goat escapes from the mountain”, “The Jewish ship”, “Rediscovery of Barcelona, Badajoz”, “The salt flats of Cádiz”, “Albercan customs”, “Journey to Extremadura”, “La Mancha in the heart and in the eyes”, “La Coruña the day before yesterday” and “Through the lands of Ávila”. Within the pages of the anthology one notices the literary style of the Galician writer and his taste for the rigor of letters.
Other books by Camilo José Cela
Novela
- rest pavilion (1943);
- New adventures and misadventures of Lazarillo de Tormes (1944);
- Mrs Caldwell talks to her son (1953);
- La catira, Stories from Venezuela (1955);
- Hungry slide (1962);
- Saint Camillus, 1936 (1969);
- Office of darkness 5 (1973);
- Mazurka for two dead (1983);
- Christ versus Arizona (1988);
- Saint Andrew's cross (1994);
- boxwood (1999)
Short novels, stories, fables and sketchbook notes
- “Those passing clouds” (1945);
- “The beautiful crime of the carabinero and other inventions” (1947);
- “The Galician and his gang and other carpetovetonic notes” (1949);
- “Santa Balbina 37, gas on every floor” (1951);
- “Timothy the misunderstood” (1952);
- “Artists' coffee and other stories” (1953);
- “Deck of inventions” (1953);
- “Dreams and Imaginations” (1954);
- "Windmill" (1955);
- “The windmill and other short novels” (1956);
- “New altarpiece by Don Cristobita. Inventions, figurations and hallucinations” (1957);
- “Stories from Spain. The blind. The fools" (1958);
- “Old friends” (1960);
- “Sheaf of fables without love” (1962);
- “The solitaire and the dreams of Quesada” (1963);
- “Salon bullfighting. Farce accompanied by clamor and murga” (1963);
- “Eleven football stories” (1963);
- “Izas, rabizas and colipoterras. Drama accompanied by jokes and heartache” (1964);
- “The Hero's Family” (1964);
- “New Matritense scenes” (1965);
- “Citizen Iscariot Reclús” (1965);
- “The flock of pigeons” (1970);
- “Five glosses and as many truths of the silhouette that a man drew of himself” (1971);
- “Ballad of the Unlucky Wanderer” (1973);
- “The rusty tacatá. Florilegium of carpetovetonismos and other niceties” (1974);
- “Stories for after bathing” (1974);
- “Cuckold role” (1976);
- “The unusual and glorious feat of the Archidona cock” (1977);
- “The mirror and other stories” (1981);
- “The ears of the boy Raúl” (1985);
- “Delivery man vocation” (1985);
- “The Whims of Francisco de Goya y Lucientes” (1989);
- “The man and the sea” (1990);
- “Bullfighting” (1991);
- “The chasm of penultimate innocence” (1993);
- “The Bird Lady and Other Stories” (1994);
- “Family stories” (1999);
- “Notebook of El Espinar. Twelve women with flowers on their heads (2002)
Articles and essays
- scrambled table (1945);
- Orange is a winter fruit (1951);
- My favorite pages (1956);
- Memory of Don Pío Baroja (1957);
- catchall (1957);
- The literary work of the painter Solana (1957);
- The wheel of leisure (1957);
- Four figures from 98: Unamuno, Valle-Inclán, Baroja and Azorín (1961);
- Hospicians' joint or guirigay of impostures or bombs (1963);
- Convenient companies and other pretenses and blindnesses (1963);
- Ten artists from the Mallorca school (1963);
- Marañón, the man (1963);
- At the service of something (1969);
- The ball of the world. Everyday scenes (1972);
- Up-to-the-minute photographs (1972);
- Back to Spain (1973);
- Vain dreams, curious angels (1979);
- The communicating vessels (1981);
- Turn of the page (1981);
- Reading Don Quixote (1981);
- The strawberry tree game (1983);
- Buridan's donkey (1986);
- Dedications (1986);
- Spanish conversations (1987);
- selected pages (1991);
- From the Hita dovecote (1991);
- The Single Chameleon (1992);
- The Egg of Judgment (1993);
- On the boat soon (1994);
- The color of the morning (1996)
Travel books
- Trip to the Alcarria (1948);
- Ávila (1952);
- From Miño to Bidasoa. Notes from a wandering (1952);
- Guadarrama Notebook (1952);
- Vagabond through Castile (1955);
- Jews, Moors and Christians. Notes from a wandering through Ávila, Segovia and their lands (1956);
- First Andalusian trip. Notes from a wandering through Jaén, Córdoba, Seville, Huelva and their lands (1959);
- Pages of wandering geography (1965);
- Trip to the Lérida Pyrenees (1965);
- Street, maritime and country kaleidoscope by Camilo José Cela for the Kingdom and Overseas (1966);
- Street, maritime and country kaleidoscope by Camilo José Cela for the Kingdom and Overseas (1970);
- New trip to Alcarria (1986);
- Galicia (1990)
Poetry, blind man romances
- Stepping into the dubious light of day. Poems of a cruel adolescence (1945);
- The monastery and the words (1945);
- Songbook of the Alcarria (1948);
- Three Galician poems (1957);
- The true story of Gumersinda Costulluela, a girl who preferred death to dishonor (1959);
- Encarnación Toledano or the downfall of men (1959);
- Travel to the USA or whoever follows her kills her (1965);
- Two blind man romances (1966);
- Hourglass, sundial, blood clock (1989);
- Complete poetry (1996)
Other genres
- The basement (1949);
- La cucaña, I. Memoirs of Camilo José Cela. The Rose (1959);
- Maria Sabina (1967);
- Secret dictionary. Volume 1 (1968);
- Homage to Hieronymus Hieronymus, I. The hay cart or the inventor of the guillotine (1969);
- Secret dictionary. Volume 2 (1971);
- Encyclopedia of eroticism (1976);
- The cucaña, II. Memoirs of Camilo José Cela. Memories, understandings and wills (1993);
- Popular Gazetteer of Spain (1998);
- Homage to Hieronymus Bosch, II. The extraction of the stone of madness or The inventor of the club (1999)