Written in Galician
at a time when the language, like so many aspects of life in Spain,
was under the repression of the Franco regime.
The story is told
through one side of a conversation, or more specifically an
interview/interrogation.
This style is not
always easy to follow, and I had in mind Waiting for Godot for the
overall feel.
Cipriano Canedo, or
the Boar, has been on the “Bender” with two others, and there
would seem to have been a trail of destruction left in their wake.
He maintains his repeated intention to go home and blames everything
on his fellow drinker.
It ends with
Canedo’s death, beaten to death by the Police. A clear message that
Authority is brutal and oppressive. But your thoughts about Canedo
and his fellow drinkers are less clear – nothing they do warrants a
violent death but are we to read their drunkenness as another
function of oppression – excluded from society life is hard,
miserable, drink is some relief? Characterising the poor/the masses
as lawless in an animalistic way finds its way into various literary
sources, both from positive and negative perspectives – but I feel
it needs to be treated with extreme care.
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