{"id":1330,"date":"2017-04-05T13:58:48","date_gmt":"2017-04-05T11:58:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/?p=1330"},"modified":"2017-04-05T13:58:48","modified_gmt":"2017-04-05T11:58:48","slug":"gurb-still-at-large-revisiting-eduardo-mendozas-quirky-barcelona-tale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/2017\/04\/05\/gurb-still-at-large-revisiting-eduardo-mendozas-quirky-barcelona-tale\/","title":{"rendered":"GURB, STILL AT LARGE: REVISITING EDUARDO MENDOZA\u2019S QUIRKY BARCELONA TALE <\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sin noticias de Gurb<\/em> (1990, English translation No Word from Gurb<\/em> [2007]), is a short novel by Eduardo Mendoza (b. 1943, Barcelona; Premio Cervantes 2016), which was originally serialised in El Pa\u00eds<\/em>, back in 1989. It belongs to the science-fiction subgenre of the \u2018stranded alien tale\u2019, popularized, above all, by Steven Spielberg\u2019s family film E.T.<\/em> (1982, written by the late Melissa Mathison). In Mendoza\u2019s novel a pair of extraterrestrials land in Cerdanyola, next door to my own university, on a Christian\/anthropological mission to explore Earth. Both are pure intellects capable of metamorphic embodiment, though they don\u2019t particularly enjoy being human. Tired of the monotonous company of his crewmate and boss, the fearless Gurb soon transforms into a woman, is picked up by one of my colleagues at the Universitat Aut\u00f2noma de Barcelona in his car, and vanishes. The other alien\u2013whose name we never learn\u2013starts then an anxious search for his lost mate. Throughout this chase, the alien narrator tries to make sense of the city of Barcelona, then getting ready for the Olympic Games of 1992. His bizarre nature and the no less bizarre city clash, which is why Sin noticias de Gurb<\/em> is often read not as science-fiction (which it definitely is) but as a satire of Barcelona\u2019s Olympic aspirations. An extremely funny satire.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m thinking of this book today because, to my immense pleasure, it was the centre of this week\u2019s episode of David Guzm\u00e1n\u2019s Rius de Tinta<\/em> (http:\/\/beteve.cat\/programa\/rius-de-tinta\/<\/a>). This is a series on Literature and the city of Barcelona, and I have become frankly addicted to it. I believe that we\u2019re extremely lucky to be offered this kind of cultured television in what appears to be a total international dearth. There had already been an episode on Barcelona and science-fiction (with, among others, Antoni Munn\u00e9-Jord\u00e0 and Marc Pastor), which is why I never expected Gurb<\/em> to be the subject of another one. But, then, David Guzm\u00e1n and his team decided to explore Mendoza\u2019s very popular work as, possibly, the best-known novel about Barcelona. I absolutely admire what Mendoza did in La ciudad de los prodigios<\/em> (1986) and I personally believe that this is the most relevant work about the city (sorry Juan Mars\u00e9). Sin noticias de Gurb<\/em> captures very well a particular moment in recent times and although I do recommend it, even Mendoza himself is surprised that this particular work has so many fans of so many different types.<\/p>\n

Right after watching the interview with Mendoza, I picked up the book and read its 139 pages again, in one sitting. That was possibly my fifth reading and I still laughed hard. I remember carrying the novel to read on the train as a post-grad student, and having to stop because I was in tears, trying to suppress my out-of-control hilarity. What\u2019s so funny about Gurb<\/em>? Mendoza speculates that readers find the narrator \u2018entra\u00f1able\u2019, which has no exact equivalent in English (\u2018cute\u2019, not in the sense of \u2018pretty\u2019, seems to be as close as we can get). An academic article by Benjamin Fraser (there seem to be only three\u2026 in English, Spanish, and Italian), focuses on the \u2018costumbrismo espacial espa\u00f1ol\u2019 of Mendoza\u2019s novel, connecting it with Alex de la Iglesia\u2019s appallingly bad TV series Pluton BRB Nero<\/em>, which is an insult. <\/p>\n

There is \u2018costumbrismo\u2019 in Gurb<\/em>, and a great deal of the comedy is no doubt generated by the contrast between the common people of Barcelona and its outskirts, and the befuddled alien narrator\u2013equipped, poor thing, with very defective information about what humans are. Yet, this is not enough to explain the success of the novel. What is so funny is how deadpan everyone\u2019s reactions are: no human shows surprise at the alien metamorph, not even when he chooses the most absurd shapes, from pop singer Marta S\u00e1nchez to historical figures like Conde Duque de Olivares. As for the satire, I was amused to discover yesterday that though part of it is dated \u2013Up & Down is no longer the reference club for the glitterati, but a gym, and so on\u2013, another part still works very well, particularly as a critique of the specific life of the city of Barcelona. Every reader of Gurb<\/em> remembers for ever that in our city \u201cit rains as the Town Council acts: very little but brutally\u201d. As for other matters, such as Gurb\u2019s transpecies fondness for being a woman, what can be more up-to-date?<\/p>\n

The most interesting part of the interview, and the challenge to any local Barcelona writer, were Mendoza\u2019s comments on another kind of transition, that of the city from boring backwater to touristic world icon. As he explained very well, Barcelona \u201cmakes no sense\u201d since it lacks a major river, its harbour is too shallow and it is not at all a communications hub to other places in Europe. Mendoza noted that the accounts of foreign visitors from the remotest past up to 1992 show mostly disappointment. Then he explained that, for reasons he fails to understand, particular buildings that were considered just an ugly, inconvenient feature of the city have been re-read as unmissable attractions. Casa Batll\u00f3, he recalled, used to be known as Iberia House, for this is where the airline\u2019s only agency in Barcelona used to sell the tickets. There was a lab for blood analysis in one of the tops floors. <\/p>\n

There have been a number of novels in Spanish and Catalan about post-Olympic Barcelona\u2013Miqui Otero\u2019s Rayos<\/em> was named in the programme\u2013but not just one that has managed to capture the zeitgeist as Gurb<\/em> did in 1989\/1990. And the question is that we, Barcelona\u2019s disheartened citizens, need to understand (like Mendoza) why we\u2019re losing our city to the swarm of tourists that are so actively pushing us out\u2013to the alien invasion. A friend once told me that Parisians are not nice at all because they are sick of tourists\u2013well, we\u2019re going that way. One Gurb and his mate are welcome indeed; millions are just an impossible burden.<\/p>\n

Going back to Sin noticias de Gurb<\/em>, then, reminds us of how fast the change has been. The only tourists mentioned are the Japanese, harbingers of the later hordes, who, perhaps even more than the Olympics, put us on the world-map by declaring Antoni Gaud\u00ed a genius. Surprisingly, there is actually very little about the Games in Gurb<\/em>, whereas in La ciudad de los prodigios<\/em> Mendoza shows a unique awareness of how hosting major international events transforms a city. In that novel the protagonist of the unlikely name\u2013Onofre Bouvila\u2013is direct witness and participant in the two events that frame the action: the International Exhibitions of 1888 (which gave us the Ciutadella park and buildings) and 1929 (the excuse for Montju\u00efch\u2019s regeneration). In interview with Guzm\u00e1n, Mendoza noted that the 1929 exhibition was actually a failure, as it came at quite a bad moment in world affairs\u2013the start of the Depression\u2013and in national History (the second Republic was established in 1931, the Civil War started in 1936). Though things were not as dramatic, the 2004 Forum de les Cultures also failed to galvanize the city, perhaps because we had already started the decline into our current status as a theme park. There has even been an attempt, better forgotten, to stage the Winter Olympics here, in association with the ski resorts in the Pyrenees. Our imagination is not only stagnant but positively flagging. And without it, any city dies.<\/p>\n

Mendoza stressed that he will not write again about Gurb, still at large somewhere on Earth, nor about his nameless lonely mate, still seeking Gurb\u2019s whereabouts. My guess is that whereas Gurb is possibly in Tahiti, his mate is not very far from where he landed; maybe one day he\u2019ll even visit my office\u2026 The readers\u2019 insistence that Mendoza writes a sequel of Sin noticias de Gurb<\/em>, I guess, is not motivated by the need for some humour\u2013though I can tell you that we do need this in our city\u2013but by his key role as interpreter of the changes Barcelona has gone through. We are somehow asking Mendoza whether he can write not quite a sequel of Gurb<\/em>, but a sequel of La ciudad de los prodigios<\/em>, with our favourite stranded alien as observer\/narrator. Perhaps because only an alien can begin to grasp how we have managed to become alienated from our own city, while believing that we were finally fulfilling the cosmopolitan dream that would show rival Madrid one thing or two. Now in Madrid they are beginning to talk of the negative impact of tourism as \u2018Barcelonification\u2019\u2026<\/p>\n

I am these days giving the finishing touches to a monographic issue for Science Fiction Studies<\/em> on Spanish sf. To my chagrin, I realized this morning that I had neglected to include Sin noticias de Gurb<\/em> in the bibliography\/filmography, an error I have quickly repaired. I am certainly dismayed by my own omission, particularly because the list (in special the films) suggest that comedy is a fundamental ingredient of Spanish sf. In the introduction to the issue, I explain that comedy compensates for our low self-esteem as a nation. I have already written here, just one year ago, a post on this issue (12 April 2016, \u201cPresident Rajoy and the Starship that Failed to Land on Nou Camp\u201d). I did discuss there Gurb<\/em> as an example of Valle Incl\u00e1n\u2019s \u2018esperpento\u2019 (or the bizarre), though funnily some of the plot details I gave were wrong\u2026 Gurb and his mate, however, land here in Barcelona at a moment when self-esteem was at its highest (hey! We got the Olympics!), and yet, still the raucous comedy is needed. Why? Most likely, Mendoza already had an intuition that the Games would change the city for ever but also reveal that behind Gaud\u00ed\u2019s gaudy buildings, there is nothing much\u2013even less than there used to be.<\/p>\n

Gurb, wherever you are on the planet, go on having fun. The other one: my office doors are open, and I specialise in science-fiction\u2026 We could have a very nice conversation (and there will be lots of those \u2018churros\u2019 you love so much, promise\u2026).<\/p>\n

I publish a new post every Tuesday. Comments are very welcome! (Thanks!) Just be warned that I check them for spam; it might take a few days for yours to be online. Follow the blog updates on Twitter: @SaraMartinUAB and download the yearly volumes from http:\/\/ddd.uab.cat\/record\/116328. See also: http:\/\/gent.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sin noticias de Gurb (1990, English translation No Word from Gurb [2007]), is a short novel by Eduardo Mendoza (b. 1943, Barcelona; Premio Cervantes 2016), which was originally serialised in El Pa\u00eds, back in 1989. It belongs to the science-fiction subgenre of the \u2018stranded alien tale\u2019, popularized, above all, by Steven Spielberg\u2019s family film E.T. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,18,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-studies","category-general","category-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1330\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}