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The City of Marvels
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Wikipedia article
'The City of Marvels' is a historical fiction Spanish novel written by Eduardo Mendoza Garriga in 1986 about the city of Barcelona and its cultural evolution during the turn of the 20th century. Its central character, Onofre Bouvila, represents a lower class character and their collective ideology.
Plot
The protagonist of the story is Onofre Bouvila, a man who grows up in a small rural town in Catalonia. As a child, he sees his father leave the town for Cuba to become rich. Although he sends letters on his voyage, the letters soon stop. Many years later his father returns and appears to have accumulated great wealth. Soon, the family learns that he was unsuccessful and borrowed money from the mafia in Barcelona to purchase a suit.
Years later, Onofre travels to Barcelona in order to find a job. He finds an inn that is run by a father along with his daughter Delfina. As Onofre finds himself unable to get work, Delfina helps him by introducing him to a group of anarchists. His job becomes the distribution of anarchist pamphlets which puts him at odds with the city officials and the guards.
Onofre distributes these pamphlets for a while at the world trade fair construction site, however he soon realises he isn't being adequately rewarded for his efforts so he begins to sell hair restorer to tradesmen from the fair. Here he meets his right hand man Efren who provides the muscle. After this Onofre becomes a gangster working for one of the bosses of Barcelona, through a clever plan he successfully takes over the gang and kicks out the other gangs in town.
After this chapter in his Onofre's dealings become less violent but arguably no more legitimate. Barcelona's expansion plan is in full swing and with these plots of land on the outskirts of town are rapidly changing value depending on the rumours of where metro lines will be created. Through sly dealings and misguiding buyers Onofre makes his fortune here.
After this Onofre invests in the silent movie business, before having to go into exile when Primo de Rivera comes to power. After this he is forced into retirement however by this stage he is one of the most power and rich men in Spain, he obsessively renovates his Mansion while ignoring his family and spending the majority of his nights in brothels.
As the book draws to a close, Onofre becomes more pensive and meets another woman who takes his fancy whose father is an inventor who he had met many years ago, he agrees to support his project to build a form of blimp. He falls for this woman and has one night with her before the unveiling of their project and the next world trade fair in 1929.
Finally Onofre dies when their Blimp crashes into the sea at the world trade fair.
Film adaptation
The novel was adapted into a 1999 Spanish film of the same name, with Olivier Martinez as Onofre Bouvila and Emma Surez as Delfina.
References
Category:20th-century Spanish novels
Category:Spanish-language novels
Category:1986 novels
Category:Novels set in Barcelona
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