Joaquín Pérez Azaústre (Córdoba, 1976) was similarly moved by admiration and a sense of justice when he wrote his latest novel. “I think in Spain we are very unfair to Manuel Machado,” he said. “It is easy for us to classify, to label ideologies that are always at one extreme or the other. It is necessary to put his life and work in their due place.” This effort has crystallized into dear brother Galaxia Gutenberg is a novel that, among other things, recreates the writer’s journey from Burgos to Collioure after hearing the news of the death of his brother Antonio Machado .
Simplificationists have long dismissed Manuel Machado as facha poet Because of his insistence on Franco’s regime and his poetry against Franco, Antonio would be red poet For his support of the Republic and his famous sonnet to Enrique Liszt. However, Pérez Azaústre denounced that “it is easier to apply labels than to investigate the reality. Not everyone knows, for example, that Antonio raised the flag of the Republic on the balcony of Segovia City Hall XII Queen Manuel read a hymn to the Republic composed by Oscar Espra at the Ateneo de Madrid.”
“Then the republic is indeed developing or degenerating, Manuel Stops writes in the book free Because everything has become too Soviet for him, and he regrets that the world is torn between the two dictatorships of capital and the proletariat, because he does not agree with either of them,” Pérez Azaoust continued.
poems describing situations
The crucial moment came when he and his wife, Eulalia Cáceres, visited Burgos to face charges that Warm. “At the time,” the author points out, “that meant you could show up on the wall with a bullet in the forehead.”
Jacques Isorel, who has researched the brothers’ lives and work in depth, said Manuel’s hair was completely white when he was released from prison, reflecting the horrors he witnessed during his brief captivity. Pérez Azaústre wonders if this is a metaphor because “he already has gray hair, he is a 62-year-old man, which is not 62 today. And also, he is a man with a certain age.” A man who was punished for living a dissolute life. But what is certain is that he left prison deeply frightened and aware of the seriousness of the situation. Early in the war, a French reporter asked him how he was doing, and he dismissed it with one sentence Got her. Manoleria, I didn’t expect it to last more than a week. But in September 1936, they had killed Lorca and it had happened. Manuel knew the bullying was over and he left prison ready to swear an oath to the principles of the movement. Of course, if we were in his position, we would have the same reaction. “He was not the only one who wrote poems praising one side of the war.”
In Burgos, which had become the capital of Francoism, Manuel Machado deepened his Catholic faith and became friends with the priest Bonifacio Zamora and developed an interest in Saint Augustine . “He was a great guy and party animal who also had a deep connection with Antonio,” the author added.
jealous?
Meanwhile, his mother and his brothers Antonio and José made a dramatic escape to France. When Manuel receives news of the first man’s death, he decides to go and say goodbye to him, across a war-torn country and suffering from bronchitis. “This gesture of his defines not only the character but the personality and the person,” asserts the novelist. “I was touched that he did not leave Collioure Cemetery for two days. “Sometimes we rarely emphasize the human element, the love of these two brothers outweighed any differences. ”
In this regard, the Cordoba author tried to discard the theory that there was some kind of bellicose relationship between the brothers. “In an epistolary conversation, Manuel told Antonio that he was leaving poetry because it was too limited to modernism, and Antonio’s poetry ‘was timeless.’ Antonio responded that if it were true poetry, then any Poetry has no age, “and neither does your poetry. ” Who could see a hint of jealousy in that?
“Everyone has their own greatness, and Manuel’s work, despite its flaws, is very modern,” Pérez Azaústre added. But beyond that, the two of them talked so well that they wrote the script together and challenged their friends to see who wrote which bits and which bits the other wrote. “As a writer, it’s great to have a partner who breathes what you write, reads your books, keeps you company, understands your evolution, and is also your brother!”
Justification and Forgetting
Finally, the author dear brother He emphasized: “I don’t want to redeem Manuel or even exonerate him, because to do that I would have to assume that he was guilty before. I’m a writer and I don’t judge anyone. I think Manuel is right He believed what he said, but I don’t know if his soul knew it. Did Antonio fully identify with the Republic? Of course. But did the situation end up exacerbating it? Maybe. The fact is that here, even up to Nasty has also been politicized, and on the other hand, it is difficult to respect opinions and their context.”
The only certainty, he concludes, is that “a poet’s work belongs to his readers, but the labels we attach to it can do great damage. Of course, for those who miss Manuel Machado because of window-dressing labels People of poetry, all I can say is: you are missing out. I also understand that the left has proven Machado right and what his departure and his death at Collioure entailed, we cannot be fooled Keep your eyes peeled. I’d rather he confirmed it than forget it.”