"[A] satirical, multigenerational saga about the intricate relationship between Barcelona's fading aristocracy and the city's sordid demimonde... Expect murder, revenge, and fallings in and out of love ... The novel comes most alive when the author digresses from his plot: in his characters' back stories, his ruminations on Spain's socioeconomics, his cleverly vicious bons mots and descriptions ... and in some surprisingly graphic sex... In this casual, colloquial translation, Barcelona between the wars is full of tawdry vitality, much like the novel itself." — Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
"Sagarra’s evocation of the crumbling upperclass Barcelonan milieu is intricate and panoramic, and the reader views the plot in perspective, as a single sequence of occurrences among many others in this social history masquerading as a novel... this book makes a much-needed contribution to contemporary letters." — Rain Taxi Review of Books
"One might compare Sagarra’s Private Life to Hemingway, Camus, Flaubert, or Proust, whose wealthy, bourgeois, narcissistic characters illustrate moral ineptitude. Newman’s choices in language for this translation indeed direct the English-speaking literary world to view the upper classes of the early twentieth century as the character Frederic is described, possessing 'all his banality and moral inconsistency.' Sagarra’s novel deserves a position in the literary canon of twentieth-century Europe, and Newman’s new translation will certainly boost its chances." — World Literature Today
"Sagarra achieves a striking contrast between this rich prose and his sordid content. Mary Ann Newman has translated a difficult book with finesse and imagination... Private Life bubbles over with insight and malice. Some time after its publication, Sagarra said wickedly, ‘Compared with reality, it’s just a mild romantic novel.’ It is not a kindly book, but a flawed classic with wonderful energy and memorable characters… and did that parasite class deserve kindness?" — The Literary Review (UK)
"Sagarra plays with the reader, never going where he seems to be heading, presenting a huge, sprawling patchwork fitted together into a mosaic of the end of the aristocratic age. In lusciously exact language, Sagarra painstakingly charts the misunderstandings and crossed signals of privileged human beings greedily, selfishly determined to be happy." — Nick DiMartino, University Book Store, in Shelf Awareness
A "graphic and viciously funny Catalan social satire... This is a risqué novel, sustained by humor and a sleazy elegance, all steeped in ironies... [A] human comedy in the style of Balzac... far racier than Dickens, although Sagarra certainly has the Victorian’s flair for creating characters... a sprawling soap opera writ large [that] has a contemporary feel." — The Irish Times
"[F]unny and ridiculous, de Sagarra paints a meticulous portrait of the dawn of modernity in Catalonia." — Publishers Weekly
"A rich tapestry... What really makes Private Life a compelling read are Sagarra’s vivid details of this crumbling society and his keen observations about it... thanks to Mary Ann Newman and her sparkling translation, Sagarra’s masterpiece is finally available in English." — Open Letter, Three Percent
"[Vida Privada] is a portrait of the "great world" of Barcelona and its loyalties in the years that preceded the Republic and in the early days of the new regime. Rigorous contemporaneity, stylistic effective
★ 2015-06-30
First published in 1932 and newly translated into English, this is a satirical, multigenerational saga about the intricate relationship between Barcelona's fading aristocracy and the city's sordid demimonde. "Aristocratic cynicism" and "decadence" are the subject matter. Digging deep into the crevices of the highborn Lloberola family while following its moral and financial disintegration, Catalan Sagarra displays none of his American contemporary Hemingway's romanticism in his depiction of Spanish life. Frederic de Lloberola must be one of the least likable protagonists in fiction. As the novel opens, he's already regretting having had sex again with his former mistress Rosa, whom he dumped years ago to marry his rich wife. A hypocritical prig with little wit, imagination, or capacity to care about anyone, Frederic has already pawned his wife's jewels and is less concerned with Rosa than with a note he can't pay back to his wealthy acquaintance Antoni Mates. Fortunately for Frederic, Mates has a very dark sexual secret shared only by Frederic's charming but amoral younger brother, Guillem, who blackmails the debt away with unexpected repercussions. Jump ahead five years, after the great crash, to the start of Republican rule. While Barcelona aristocracy is politically divided, society has become more heterogeneous. Frederic's daughter Maria Lluisa works as a secretary. Unfortunately, her experiment in living as an independent woman doesn't work out the way she—or the sympathetic reader—hopes. Expect murder, revenge, and fallings in and out of love as Sagarra tightens the initially loose connections among his characters. The novel comes most alive when the author digresses from his plot: in his characters' back stories, his ruminations on Spain's socioeconomics, his cleverly vicious bons mots and descriptions (including men as black truffles among pink party dresses), and in some surprisingly graphic sex. Whether Sagarra is anti-Semitic and homophobic or commenting on those tendencies in his characters is troubling but unclear. In this casual, colloquial translation, Barcelona between the wars is full of tawdry vitality, much like the novel itself.
