The sleeping voice (Alfaguara, 2002) is a historical novel by the Spanish writer Dulce Chacón. It was recognized by the Booksellers' Guild with the Book of the Year Award in 2002. The film adaptation arrived in 2011 from the filmmaker and screenwriter Benito Zambrano (Soles, Lemon bread with poppy seeds).
It is a story from the Spanish postwar in which the protagonists are women who stepped forward to fight for freedom. Their courage took many of them to prison, which is the main setting of the novel. The sleeping voice tells the story of the defeated.
The sleeping voice: the story of the defeated
Approach to the plots
The story largely takes place in the Ventas women's prison in Madrid. There the protagonists are presented, women who are based on real characters, such as Reme, Tomasa, Elvira or Hortensia. The action of the novel takes place over more than twenty years, between 1939 and 1963.. Decades where we will get to know the characters, their fears, their ideology and cause, their families... in short, is a story dedicated to discovering the feelings and thoughts of retaliated women for the civil war. Either because they took part in it, or because of family members involved in political issues.
The character of Hortensia stands out, as well as that of her sister Pepa.. Hortensia is pregnant and knows that she will be shot. However, her sister does everything possible to prevent the sentence from being carried out before the birth of her niece, Tensi. Pepa is a talkative and strong woman who avoids the Communist Party. and he wants to know little about a matter that has brought endless misfortunes to his family. However, she will fall madly in love with a guerrilla leader and her life will be marked by the death of her sister, the raising of her niece and her relationship with Paulino, or Jaime, as she calls herself. . Likewise, her brother-in-law, Felipe, the husband of her sister Hortensia, will also suffer the consequences of fighting a lost war.
For all this, Pepa is surely the main character of the novel, although others appear in the novel. And also men, as already mentioned, or the doctor Don Fernando who will be a great support for women. Because she is, above all, a story of women who suffered the consequences of being on the side wrong. This is the side of the defeated and the defeated. The majority, nonconformists and idealists, also continued fighting from prison for their values. Others, like Pepa, had family members to support. The pension where Pepa worked will also be another recurring narrative space.
Character of the novel
The novel stands out for the sensitivity that the author pours into it.. There are many feelings and a great knowledge of the characters due to the emotional depth attributed to them. Thus, The sleeping voice It's not just another post-war story.. The fears, shortcomings, love, suffering, courage and dignity that are reflected in the characters allow the reader to learn another perspective of the horrors of war. Through the vicissitudes of real and compact characters, the story will conquer the heart of the reader who wants to travel to that time without being in the hot spot of the battle.
It is an emotional novel, but not stuffed with empty sentimentality. This is a story to get excited about, understand and empathize with from the side of the defeated during the Spanish civil war. Those who continued to suffer the effects of this long after, and in a habitat alien to the rest of society, such as a prison.
The sleeping voice It is divided into three parts. In the first, time progresses slowly and the development of the characters is essential. In this way they are perfectly constructed and the reader approaches them from the beginning. The second part is dedicated to the character of Hortensia and is the shortest narrative fraction. The third spans almost two decades in which the reader witnesses the events that build the action of the story and that mark those characters with whom the reader has had plenty of time to become familiar.
Conclusions
The sleeping voice It is a sensitive novel where the development of the characters will be the most important thing. It is an interesting novel to understand the role that women retaliated by Francoism had in post-war Spain and the following decades.. Dulce Chacón concentrates an intimate perspective on what happened to the leftist sector after the civil war and especially gives voice to those women who, on their own initiative or because they had ties with men who fought on the Republican side, ended up imprisoned or dead. . It is recognized, without a doubt, that this work is committed to human discovery and does not become just another story that talks about the civil war.
About the author
Dulce Chacón was a Spanish author who dedicated herself to composing plays, poetry and novels.. He was born in Zafra (Badajoz) in 1954 and in his work you can see the left-wing ideological projection that he defended. His poems are collected in Four drops (2003), which contains his poems They will want to name it, The words of the stone, Against the discredit of height y Kill the angel. His “Escape Trilogy” stands out (Some love that doesn't kill, Blanca flies tomorrow y Talk to me, muse of that man). As a playwright she wrote Second hand (1998) and Some love that doesn't kill (2002)
His novel Mud skies (2000) made her stand out as a writer and she received the 2000 Azorín Prize. The sleeping voice (2002) is his last novel. Chacón died in 2003 due to the pancreatic cancer he suffered from..