GatesyRead

The City of Marvels has the form of historical fiction and the light touch of magical realism. The fact that it was recommended to me by a Spanish professor made me read it with an ear for higher meaning – this is so well disguised in the novel that it may not actually exist at all. And yet I think it’s there in spades. The story – a picaresque tale – begins in Barcelona in 1888, and it is the two Barcelona world trade fairs of 1888 and 1929 that situate the story most concretely in time. Early in the narrative, there are, indeed, explanations of Catalan history that might come out of Robert Hughes’ Barcelona --  readable pleas for the uniqueness of the culture and for Barcelona’s status from pre-Roman times. This sets up the background narrator, a shy historian, perhaps. At the foreground is a young, mysterious stranger whose deeds we soon see are unscrupulous, as Onofre Bouvila sets about moving from poverty to power and riches. In the City of Bombs, he begins his jour