Good things come in threes
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, for example
I am sputtering about here and there, trying to attack an epic trilogy of novels by Spanish novelist José María Gironella. Really, the series has a total of four books, but only the first three of them available in English.
The Cypresses Believe in God (Los cipreses creen en Dios). Published in English in 1955.
One Million Dead (Un millón de muertos). English publication 1963.
Peace after War (Ha estallado la paz) English publication 1969.
Men cry alone (Los hombres lloran solos) not available in English
The first book, The Cypresses Believe in God (Los cipreses), is set in Girona, Spain prior to the breakout of the Spanish Civil War.
Gironella wrote in his 1954 Author’s Note for the American Edition:
Spain is an unknown country. Experience proves that it is hard to view my country impartially. Even writers of high order succumb to the temptation to adulterate the truth, to treat our customs and our psychology as though everything about them were of a piece, of a single color. Legends and labels pile up: black Spain, inquisitorial Spain, beautiful Spain, tragic Spain, folkloric Spain, unhappy Spain, a projection of Africa into the map of Europe.
I defend the complexity of Spain. If this book attempts to demonstrate anything it is this: that there are in this land thousands of possible ways of life. Through a Spanish family of the middle class–the Alvears–and the day-by-day living of a provincial capital–Gerona–I have tried to capture the everyday traits, the mentality, the inner ambiance of my compatriots in all their pettiness and all their grandeur. In Spain the reaction to this novel has been that it is "implacable". Nothing could satisfy me more.
This book spans a period of five years, five years in the private and public life of the nation: those which preceded the last civil war, which speeded its inevitable coming. The explosion of that war, its scope, and its significance are described in minute detail.
A single warning to the American reader: Spain is a peculiar country and its institutions therefore take on unique coloration. Certain constants of the Spanish temperament operate under any circumstance.
The book’s American publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, won the 1955 Thomas More Association medal for “the year's most distinguished contribution to Catholic publishing.”
Gerald Brenan, a New York Times reviewer and noted Spanish literature expert, wrote this about Los ciprises:
“The sane and the moderate, caught helplessly in a dilemma they did not ask for, must throw in their lot with one violent party or another till mercifully the passions of the war submerge them and confirm their decision. It is this tragic unfolding of events which concerns this novel.”
Michael Eaude of The Guardian noted: “No book in the Franco era was so widely discussed.”
The trilogy has been on my shelf for several years now. Admittedly, I more than dabble in Spanish Civil War history and I thought the Gironella novels might be a good break from consuming predominantly academic literature on the subject.
Sure, you have the communist propaganda in literature and film on one side that continues even into the present, but it is blatant and pitiful.
For instance, one of the reasons I don’t respect Ernest Hemingway—the man—despite his overwhelming effect on the English language and style in the first part of the 20th Century and notwithstanding my vast collection of his catalog including several biographies, is that he was an active participant in the communist propaganda.
He takes the communist side in his novels and journalism, but a little-known feather in his leftist hat was writing the Joris Ivens film, The Spanish Earth.
Hemingway wrote the film with then-pal John Dos Passos—a fellow who eventually recanted his leftist and communist inclinations.
Hemingway never did.
The friendship ended under rather tragic circumstances.
On the back cover of The Breaking Point by Stephen Koch, we get a glimpse as to why. A tease of what the book entails:
When American authors John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway went to Spain in 1937 to witness the Spanish Civil War firsthand, the devastation they encountered was far from impersonal: As Spain was unraveling thread by thread, so was the relationship between these two literary titans. They had arrived in Spain as comrades, leftist writers-in-arms. But a real-life literary mystery unfolded when Dos Passos’s friend José Robles—a Spanish-born Johns Hopkins professor—disappeared.
It is disturbing what History™ has done to and with these men. Hemingway became legendary. Dos Passos largely faded into obscurity.
In other words, they teach Hemingway in schools. Dos Passos is someone you find out about after college.
Uncredited writers of The Spanish Earth included avowed Communist and blacklisted screenwriter Lillian Hellman along with Archibald Macleish, the poet and fellow traveller of the communists in America and abroad.
Hemingway narrated the first cut of the movie, because Orson Welles was not originally available. Welles narrates the film in its most enduring cut. Good actor, great voice, bad guy.
As for the disinformation the “cultural elite” were peddling at the time, even The New York Times called Hemingway’s narrative “a definitely propagandist effort.”
Having seen the film years ago and with no desire to rewatch it, I do have to say that the black and white cinematography by Ivens and his crew was quite good.
Communist fellow traveler Bosley Crowther wrote in The New York Times in 1947 that the “best film we’ve yet seen on the Spanish tragedy is still Joris Ivens’ long-released The Spanish Earth.”
As for Los cipreses, Ignatius Press, the publisher of the version I have at my desk here, says:
Considered by many critics to be the greatest novel about the Spanish Civil War, this classic work by Spaniard José Maria Gironella is an unbiased account of the complicated events, movements and personalities that led up to the war.
Ignatius Press offers Chapter One of The Cypresses Believe in God: Spain On The Eve Of the Civil War for free on its website.
Chapter One of The Cypresses Believe in God: Spain On The Eve Of the Civil War (A Novel)
Leaving Spain, and moving to the former New Spain—Mexico, New Mexico, and Texas—I am reminded of another trilogy of which I am most fond. The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy.
All the Pretty Horses (1992)
The Crossing (1994)
Cities of the Plain (1998)
Two major things will surprise and even turn off some readers of these books.
Spanish is sprinkled in, untranslated.
No quotation marks. Anywhere.
If you can get by those hang-ups and if you appreciate the American Southwest and the Mexican borderlands, hang on. You’ve got a bumpy—yet beautiful—and often tragic ride ahead of you.
The trilogy is nowhere near as dark as Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West, the 1985 epic novel by McCarthy that directly preceded All the Pretty Horses. There is discussion out there in “literary circles” that Blood Meridian is one of the greatest American novels ever. Perhaps, and I have no qualms with that take, but I enjoyed All the Pretty Horses more.
I sped through All the Pretty Horses when I first read it. I’ve since gone through the novel several more times, both reading it and in audiobook format.
It took me years to muster up the courage to finish the entire trilogy—I didn’t want it to end.
Newsflash: after Book 3, the trilogy ends. Forever.
I ultimately marshaled my will to read the totality of the triptych and by now I’ve gone through the whole collection more than once.
I have mixed feelings about doing so.
All the books were great. Cities of the Plain brings together the main characters, John Grady Cole and Billy Parham, from the first two novels.
Folks may be somewhat—or more—familiar with All the Pretty Horses since it was made into a motion picture, a 2000 film by the same name starring Matt Damon and Penélope Cruz and directed by Billy Bob Thornton—who we briefly discussed earlier in the week.
The film was largely panned. It grossed $18 million worldwide on a $57 million budget. Not successful.
However there were a number of problems with the production—primarily in the post-production—that caused the movie to become known as such a stinker.
Miramax, a studio then run by the Weinstein brothers Bob and Harvey, produced the movie in concert with Columbia Pictures. In those days, the Weinstein brothers could do no wrong by the movie industry. Especially Harvey.
Fast forward a couple of decades and Harvey Weinstein is now in prison, having been convicted of two felonies related to rape and sexual assault. More than 80 women made allegations against Weinstein on the spectrum from untoward behavior to rape. His earliest possible release date is in 2039.
Weinstein has been expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and singlehandedly sparked the #MeToo social media campaign because of his evil and boorish behavior.
It is my position that Weinstein should have another sentence tacked on to his term for what he did to the film version of All the Pretty Horses. He did no favors for the reputation of the novel or author Cormac McCarthy either.
It was a classic case of ego in Hollywood ruining something that had the potential to be great.
Director Billy Bob Thornton presented his cut of the movie to Weinstein and Miramax. It approached 4 hours in length, but Weinstein demanded that Thornton cut the film nearly in half. Matt Damon, who played John Grady in the film, said that at least 35% of Thornton’s cut was excised.
There is some speculation in Hollywood—and not entirely unfounded—that Weinstein did this in retribution toward Thornton for refusing to cut the length of the 1996 film Sling Blade, which Thornton wrote, starred in, and directed, earning Billy an Academy Award for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay. Thornton was also nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role.
Weinstein and his Jabba the Hut-like ego (and visage) won out. The movie was released with a run-time of 117 minutes.
Under two hours as demanded.
Frequent Thornton collaborator Daniel Lanois, who wrote the original score to the film, ultimately pulled the rights to his music from the movie because of the hatchet job that Weinstein did to it.
For what it’s worth, Damon remains bitter.
“Billy had a heart problem at that time, and it was because his heart [f***ing] broke from fighting for that film. It really [f***ed] him up. It still bothers me to this day.”
We could have had a four-hour cinematic epic with a score that Damon says was “spare” and “haunting.”
Instead, we have a movie that is still rather good on its own—heck, Roger Ebert gave it 3.5 out of 4 stars—but doesn’t live up to the vast potential it had in store.
Sad.
Finally, I’ll tell you what isn’t sad. Listening to The Tom Woods Show each and every day (well at least 5 times per week if Tom lets us).
Earlier this week, Tom interviewed Connor Boyack of the Tuttle Twins series that we are so fond of here.
Connor and his team, including illustrator Elijah Stanfield just launched America’s History: A Tuttle Twins Series of Stories, “a 240-page storybook that teaches inspiring stories and powerful ideas from our nation’s past, to help empower your children to live their best lives today.”
Recommended for children ages 7 to 13.
If you order the launch bundle, you’ll get:
the hardcover of America’s History
a 200-page companion curriculum and activity book
over 6 hours of audiobooks that will help the stories “come alive” for children
and over 4 more hours in a set of fun videos where children (and everyone) will learn the powerful ideas that history has to offer.
All of the content listed above would normally cost you $216, but during this launch period, the entire bundle is just $74.99.
The fully-illustrated and inspiring America’s History hardcover book itself is normally $99!
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http://olearyreview.com/twins/
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Furthermore, Connor reports that this is book is hopefully the first one of …
A trilogy.
Brian O’Leary