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  • 标题:Mientras la tierra gira.
  • 作者:Gerling, David Ross
  • 期刊名称:World Literature Today
  • 印刷版ISSN:0196-3570
  • 出版年度:1994
  • 期号:June
  • 语种:English
  • 出版社:University of Oklahoma
  • 摘要:Some of the early stories in the collection that have Castilla la Vieja--or, as the new map of Spain calls it, Castilla-Leon--as their setting ("El agostero," for example) evoke the same love of the land as Antonio Machado's poems, and when Sampedro shifts to an urban setting such as Madrid (in "Un dia feliz"), we have the very best of nuevo costumbrismo. The pieces from the intermediate period (1950-70) tend to be epigrammatic and didactic ("Sabiduria sufi"), and while they have a central focus, they lack the elements of crescendo and surprise ending usually associated with a good short story.
  • 关键词:Book reviews;Books

Mientras la tierra gira.


Gerling, David Ross


Jose Luis Sampedro's latest collection of short stories spans approximately a half-century of writing (1945-91) and relates events in the lives of ordinary people "as the world turns" ("mientras la tierra gira"). Sampedro obviously took the title for his book from that of the famous American television soap opera (1956 to the present) in order to point out that stories about everyday people and things can be extraordinarily fascinating. Although the subject matter may be commonplace, however, Sampedro's writing is anything but ordinary. As anyone who has read him knows, Sampedro's literary style makes us feel that we are listening to a master storyteller rather than reading a book.

Some of the early stories in the collection that have Castilla la Vieja--or, as the new map of Spain calls it, Castilla-Leon--as their setting ("El agostero," for example) evoke the same love of the land as Antonio Machado's poems, and when Sampedro shifts to an urban setting such as Madrid (in "Un dia feliz"), we have the very best of nuevo costumbrismo. The pieces from the intermediate period (1950-70) tend to be epigrammatic and didactic ("Sabiduria sufi"), and while they have a central focus, they lack the elements of crescendo and surprise ending usually associated with a good short story.

The latter third of the collection is as good as if not better than most of the fiction that is being published in Spain today. The spectrum of plots ranges from the nostalgically humorous "Ebenezer," about the author-protagonist's years as a visiting professor at Bryn Mawr, to the sarcastic "La Mortitecnia, industria de Occidente," about funeral-home rip-offs. In between are a couple of salacious stories infused with a joyfulness and playfulness that is woefully lacking in much of contemporary erotic literature. "Divino divan," whose title might best be translated as "The Autobiography of a Sofa," is a good example of the author's erotica, which springs from a nonpuritanical tradition where sex is more a wonderful natural girl than a legacy of original sin. The sofa's monologue takes us through some one hundred years of history, from the moment of its inception in an obscure carpentry shop to its present status in the London Wax Museum, where it is part of the display depicting the psychoanalysis of a reclining Fraulein Anna O. by Dr. Freud. When Sampedro lies down next to Anna and gently caresses her wax thigh, the sofa begins to talk and tells him to forget his fantasy and to listen to the stories of the real people whose bodies it has had the pleasure of feeling before ending up in the wax museum. Considering the sofa's first-person narration together with the variety of ambiences and amas and amos it has known and served, it would not be an exaggeration to say that this piece is a truly unique offshoot of the picaresque novel.

Sampedro's carefully prepared tales, some spicier than others, but always intellectually delicious, will delight the epicurean reader and the student of contemporary Spanish literature alike.

David Ross Gerling Sam Houston State University
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