Stone in a Landslide

By Maria Barbal

The Catalan modern classic, first published in 1985, now in its 50th edition, for the first time in English.


The beginning of the 20th century: 13-year-old Conxa leaves her home village in the Pyrenees to work for her childless aunt. After years of hardship she finds love with Jaume - a love that will be thwarted by the Spanish Civil War. Approaching her own death, Conxa looks back on a life in which she has lost everything except her own indomitable spirit.


Why Peirene chose to publish this book: 'I fell in love with Conxa's narrative voice, its stoic calmness and the complete lack of anger and bitterness. It's a timeless voice, down to earth and full of human contradictory nuances. It's the expression of someone who searches for understanding in a changing world but senses that ultimately there may be no such thing.' Meike Ziervogel


'Sparse and haunting.' Katy Guest, Independent


'The compression is so deft, the young narrator's voice so strong, so particular, her straightforward evocation of the hard labour and rare pleasures of mountain life . . . so vibrant, that it makes me want to take scissors to everything else I read.' Richard Lea, Guardian


'A Pyrenean life told in a quietly effective voice.' Daniel Hahn, Independent


'There is an understated power in Barbal's depiction of how the forces of history can shape the life of the powerless.' Adrian Turpin, Financial Times


'A masterpiece of world literature and a shining example of the virtuosity of elegant and concise prose.' Pam Norfolk, Lancashire Evening Post
'Air-tight believability.' Matthew Tree, Times Literary Supplement
​

INDEPENDENT BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2010
FOYLES BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2010

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peirene Press
• Release date: Nov 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781908670007

Book preview

Part One

Anyone could see that there were a lot of us at home. Someone had to go. I was the fifth of six children – Mother used to say I was there because God had wanted me to be there and you have to take what He sends you. The eldest was Maria, who, more than Mother, ran the house. Josep was the son and heir and Joan was going into the church. We three youngest were told a hundred times that we were more of a burden than a blessing. These weren’t years of plenty, there were a lot of mouths to feed and not much land, which of course left a hole. So it was decided that I, who was level-headed and even-tempered, would be sent to help my mother’s sister, Tia. She’d given up hope of having children but wasn’t short of work. She had married a man much older than her who owned land, at least half a dozen cows, poultry and rabbits, as well as a vegetable garden. They got by well enough, but they could do with an extra pair of hands and with the company because they were starting to feel their age. I was thirteen when, with a bundle of clothes in my arms, my father on my left and Maria on my right, I left my family, home, village and mountain. It was just a few kilometres between Ermita and Pallarès, but it meant a day’s walk and losing sight of home. At the time, this hurt me more than anything else. As I walked away, I left the only world I had ever known behind.

We walked in silence to the market at Montsent, where my father and Maria were going to pick up some things for home and hand me over to my aunt and uncle. On the way, all that I could think of were the good things about my village. I had never left except to take the animals up the mountain in spring to graze or to sneak off to the Festa Major held every year by the four houses which made up the next village. There were a lot of people and not much to eat at those festivals.

I remember the three winters I went to school. Unless you had older sisters to do all the work at home, you didn’t go to school if you were a girl. How lucky to be one of the youngest! The teacher made us write in big round letters with little ticks at the end. The r started with a curl on the left that I thought looked like a corkscrew. At school we were never cold because Doña Paquita wasn’t going to bow to the meanness of our families – she insisted on a good pile of wood every week for the classroom because she said letters only go in when they’re warmed up a little, and if anyone wants you to learn anything then they need to show a bit of good will. She said it in Spanish – poner un poco de buena voluntad. The little I know, I learnt in Spanish. I have forgotten most of it. I was amazed the first few times she spoke, this teacher of ours who came from outside. No one understood her. Eventually we did, and she understood us when we talked too, although I don’t know why she pretended not to. Maybe she was ashamed of understanding us, or did it out of spite.

I still remember those winter classes as if I was in one this morning. I always sat with Magdalena. Whenever she was supposed to read aloud I couldn’t help laughing and Magdalena would stop reading. Doña Paquita would then push back her glasses and glare at me like a sergeant major. I’d get a stomach ache from trying not to laugh when Magdalena started to read again and I’d often feel a little warm drop of pee in my knickers.

I liked going to school. It was special and made me feel being small was good. At home you were just a nuisance. If you played in the haystack, you were making a mess. If you went too close to the fire and clattered the saucepans, you’d caused God knows what kind of calamity. If you picked up a stone or piece of wood to play, you were going to hit someone with it. You were only safe if you were helping to do the milking, peeling potatoes, or carrying firewood. That was being grown-up, but you weren’t allowed to have a sip of wine from the porró or any bacon after you’d done your work, because for that you weren’t grown-up enough.

From the kitchen window the roof of the Sarals’ house looked like a high bell tower and the slates sparkled like little mirrors. The rain had stopped and while Mother prepared a thick sheet with ash to do the washing, drops plunged off our roof and hurled themselves at the glass of the window. I watched the channels they made and listened to my mother telling the same story but from a different angle. Tia would have loved to have a daughter like you but God has not granted her wish. And you look more like her than Maria or Nuri, with that long red hair. Don’t forget she was the prettiest of us four sisters, and that’s why she’s made such a good match. You and I, we have the same eyes, like your grandmother’s, may she rest in peace, and Tia Encarnació’s eyes are very similar too.

But that’s not all – here Mother’s hands piled the wood to light the fire – they need someone. Who better than one of the family to benefit from this blessing of work…

I couldn’t get a single word out even though there was lots I wanted to say. But when she fell silent, I felt a knot in my throat as if a rope around my neck were being pulled from both ends. It began to hurt until the first sob rose in my chest and burst open the knot and then a river of furious tears escaped me, because the last thing I wanted to do was cry. There was no need to say anything. I knew if my mother was spending a morning working quietly at home and talking to me, in no hurry, without interrupting herself all the time with Do this, Where’s that? or Have you tidied upstairs yet? it meant this was a solemn occasion. And at home there was little time for solemnity. She brought me a handkerchief and gave me more explanations. They all ended in tears too. Between first my sobs and then hers the scrap of white cotton became a bluish rag, until there was silence. I fixed my eyes on the ground. The fire had started to get hot. It gave me a headache and an irresistible desire to sleep.

The next time I became aware of my mother speaking, she must have been going for a while. As I listened to her, my throat began to tighten again. And so before I choked, I said in a small voice that I would go and live with Tia Encarnació, and when would they come for me? They’re going to

Reviews for Stone in a Landslide

[kidzdoc_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This novella is set in a small Catalonian town in the early 20th century, narrated by a young woman in a farm town who is sent to live with her childless maternal aunt and her husband as a 13 year old girl. She works hard for them, marries the love of her life, and lives contentedly with her husband, children and her aunt and uncle until tragedy befalls them during the Spanish Civil War.I found Stone in a Landslide to be an evocative description of life in a small Spanish town, which was well written and mildly interesting but ultimately forgettable.

[beamis12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Though short in pages, the content is large in meaning. A Catalan peasant woman's life in the early 1900's, a life of hard work, sorrow but many joys, until the Spanish uprising. There will be a before and a after and has one of the most poignant expressions of grief for the death of a loved one that I have ever read. The story is told simply, words are used to their best effect, and some of the sentences are just beautiful. Also wonderful descriptions of what a life's memory contains and how terrible that is to loose.Profound and memorable.

[writestuff_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I was thirteen when, with a bundle of clothes in my arms, my father on my left and Maria on my right, I left my family, home, village and mountain. It was just a few kilometers between Ermita and Pallares, but it meant a day’s walk and losing sight of home. At the time, this hurt me more than anything else. As I walked away, I left the only world I had ever known behind. – from Stone in a Landslide, page 10 -I feel like a stone after a landslide. If someone or something stirs it, I’ll come tumbling down with the others. If nothing comes near, I’ll be here, still, for days and days … - from Stone in a Landslide, page 89 -Maria Barbal’s classic literary novella takes place in Spain at the beginning of the 20th century. It begins with thirteen year old Conxa leaving her family and village to go live with her childless aunt and uncle. Conxa is at first fearful and sad about being displaced from her family, but she grows to love her aunt and does not mind the hard work of living on a farm. The years slip by and eventually Conxa meets the charming Jaume, marries him and begins a family of her own. But the Spanish Civil War blights their lives and in the end, it is only Conxa’s steadfast will and unflinching spirit which keeps her moving forward.Conxa’s voice is compelling and resolute as she relates the significant events of her life in a small village. It is the simpleness of her story which drives the narrative. With stark, yet poetic language, Maria Barbal captures the life of a young girl growing into adulthood and finally entering the waning years of her life. It is a quiet story, but one which captures the patient reader. When Conxa must face the loss of Jaume, her pain is described like the unraveling of a skein of wool:No need to open your mouth, just find a bit of the pain and pull at it gently like wool from a skein, let it unravel, unravel … until you can’t see colours any more because your eyes have flooded but it’s not tears that fall from your eyes. The wool you were unraveling has turned into a sheet of water slipping down your cheek, and just as you were going to let out a sob, you realize you are not alone. A knot forms in your throat, causing such a strong pain but you swallow and swallow, until slowly you untangle the knot and you’re left with the skein. A fragment of sorrow, knot and all, has gone down directly to your stomach. – from Stone in a Landslide, page 101 -It was moments like this which drew me to the story and made me feel as though I knew Conxa. Beautifully crafted, this book manages to say more in 126 pages than most longer novels are able to do. A story about coming of age, love, loss, and the connectivity of family, Stone in a Landslide is an amazing work of fiction.Highly recommended to those readers who enjoy literary fiction.

[blacksheepdances · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Translated from the Catalan by Laura McGloughlin and Paul Mitchell“I feel like a stone after a landslide. If someone or something stirs it, I’ll come tumbling down with the others. If nothing comes near, I’ll be here still, for days and days…”Maria Barbal’s novella, Stone in a Landslide, is unique because it covers so much history in just a few pages. The fictional memoir begins in the Catalan region of Spain, when a young woman, just thirteen, is forced to leave her home because there are too many mouths to feed. The poverty in this time left many with few choices, and so her family sends her to live with a barren aunt and her husband. This quiet little girl, Conxa, leaves quietly, and without much fuss. A personality trait that becomes a description of her life, her quiet acceptance of what befalls her is what makes her story so intriguing.In first-person, she recounts her adjustment to a new home, where she has to learn to navigate around her controlling aunt and the new chores put upon her. She works extremely hard both in their home as well as in the maintenance of their fields and animals. But this is no Cinderella story, her relatives are not cruel. They come to love her as a daughter, and the skills she learns help her as she becomes a woman with a family of her own. The novel covers the milestones of marriage and motherhood and loss, all against the backdrop of the famine and the violence of the Spanish Civil War. Despite all she could say, she is actually quiet brief. It’s clear that being forced to leave her home as a child took something from her, possibly her sense of security or belonging. Because throughout the story, though she never directly states it, it’s clear that she felt like a burden, and that she should never speak up or contradict others. She raises her own children with loving attention but a sense of distance, always looking at them through the eyes of possibly losing them. “Perhaps deep down I was afraid of losing what I’d learnt to own.” Her insecurity combined with fear leave her mute in the face of problems, such as the menacing priest that threatens her family’s safety. It’s only when her worst fears are realized that she becomes more aware and invested in her own life. In the case of the Catalan villagers, their very lives were impacted by decisions and actions far away in Barcelona-so far that even their oppressors didn’t quite know who they were. It would be easy to say these were simple people, but that implies that they were ignorant. These people were intelligent and wise, but their commitment to the land for basic sustenance gave them little time to dwell on the political happenings far from them. When the rebellion came close to home, she realizes that the rural villagers throughout most of Spain were like her, simple people as insignificant as stones found on the Catalonian mountainsides.“There were those who wanted us not only to suffer but to feel guilty as well. Why do hundreds of stones always fall at once?” This is a quiet book, filled with thoughts to contemplate. The slow pace of the village life and the tremendous hard work is unimaginable. After I finished the book, I found myself returning to it for the simple prose and the way she can say so much in so few words.

[teresa1953_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a beautiful little book, kindly sent to me by the publisher. It's simplicity is what made it shine for me. The story begins in Catalonia just after the turn of the twentieth century and it spans several generations. The fact that so much detail is packed in to such a small book (126 pages in total) is a testament to the genius of the author. I very much enjoy the work of writers who can conjure up pictures in your mind without going to the "nth" degree. This is such a book. Told in snapshots, some of the memories of Conxa, the main character, are every day and ordinary, but they give a true picture of much larger events......in particular the background of the Spanish Civil War. Conxa's story involves her early childhood memories and being sent to live with her childless Aunt and Uncle to help in the home and on the land. Then comes courtship, marriage, children, the death of close relatives. In other words, the lives of mostly all of us. However, her precious husband is closely involved with the anti Royalists and pain and grief is inevitable. I particularly loved the final chapter, where Conxa has to leave her beloved home and the land that has sustained her. None of her children want the hardship of working that land or inheriting the farmhouse. Her son finds a little flat in Barcelona close to the doctors where "we won't have to worry about the land". So Conxa's life will end in the same way as many of us. She is waiting to die in the confines of a home in Barcelona and her final words still keep coming back to me....."Barcelona,for me, is something very beautiful. It is the last step before the cemetery." We are not just "stones in a landslide" but just as pebbles on the beach. So many of us, one hardly distinguishable from another, and we know not which way the tide will take us.

[andrewblackman · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the things I have always loved about a good book is the way it takes you into places and times you'd never otherwise have a chance to experience. This book conveys utterly convincingly the experience of growing up in a small mountain village in early 20th century Catalonia. I really felt as if I was there with Conxa and Jaume and their children and the aunt and uncle.This is a historical novel that spans several generations and takes in major historical events like the Spanish Civil War. Yet it is only 126 pages. And yet it doesn't feel rushed. In fact, most of the time is spent embroiled in the details of everyday life, describing the buzzing of flies looking for food, the walnut trees turning green, and exactly how the meadows looked as the characters went picking mushrooms. Births and deaths are skipped over, decades pass, wars and revolutions come and go, but more importantly it's time to take the animals to pasture and the poplar trees are waving in the wind.It's a slightly strange way to tell a story, but it made me realise that memories do really work this way. If I think back over my life, I don't form an orderly, logical chronology - I see pictures and scenes, some of important events but also some that just happened to lodge in my mind because I was particularly happy or sad at the time, or it was a particularly warm or cold day, etc. There are gaps of years where I can't remember much at all, and then a particular day I remember in great detail.That's pretty much the way this book is put together, and it works very well. It feels like what it is, the remembrances of an old woman looking back on her life, and the accumulation of details allowed me to feel part of the story much more than in many much longer books I've read. The passage of time is marked very clearly, and although the story covers a lifetime in 126 pages, the fast-forwarding never feels abrupt.Conxa's outlook is very limited. Her husband Jaume is interested in politics and wants to improve things, a chance he thinks he has got with the declaration of the Republic. But Conxa has no interest in these things, or in anything beyond the next village. Even Barcelona seems so far away that it has no meaning for her. She does care deeply about things close to her, though, the family and the house and the farm. It's the changes that take place in these things, as time moves on and the next generation have different ideas about the lives they want to live, that shock her much more than the wars and political upheavals she lives through.The title of the book provides a good insight into Conxa's character. Here's the context of it:"I feel like a stone after a landslide. If someone or something stirs it, I'll come tumbling down with the others. If nothing comes near, I'll be here still, for days and days..."This is uttered in a moment of extreme stress, when Conxa is in shock. But it also typifies the rest of her life, in which none of the major things that happen are under her control. She lives where she does because her parents sent her there as a child. She wants to marry Jaume, but when her aunt and uncle refuse, the limit of her rebellion is to cry and then be quiet and unhappy until they change their minds. Later on, when she and her children are arrested because of Jaume's political activities, it is her daughter who finds out information and tries to get them out, while Conxa sits there like the proverbial stone. It's a fascinating character depiction. It never feels like weakness: Conxa is, in her way, a very strong woman. But because of the way she was brought up, in that place and time, she just doesn't try to change her fate. Things happen, and she seems to accept them all, good or bad.I was left wanting more at the end, but in a good way. It wasn't that anything remained unresolved. The novel had reached a satisfying conclusion, but I still wanted to hear more of Conxa's voice, more about a fascinating life in a different world. The book is in its 50th edition in Catalan but this is the first English translation, and I would strongly recommend reading it.

[gaskella_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Maria Barbal is one of the most influential Catalan authors. This successful short novel was published in 1985, and has only now been translated into English. It is the story of one woman’s life and love.Conxa is a Catalan peasant. At the age of thirteen, she leaves her family to live with her aunt who has no children. She works hard and earns her place in their family yet still knows no life outside of the cluster of villages, and only sees her own family at the festivals. A few years later she meets Jaume, a builder rather than farmer, and they fall in love. They remain living with her aunt, for Jaume works mostly away, but soon start raising their own family. The years pass, lives continue then the Spanish Civil War intervenes leading to tragedy. Conxa survives it all into old age and is able to rejoice in her children’s own families.Despite being a mere 126 pages, this is a masterful portrait of a rural life in the Pyrenees. It’s subsistence living, each family struggling to get by with their few fields, but it’s a good life for those that are lucky enough to find a soul-mate like Conxa. This is a story of strong characters, dominated by Conxa and Jaume of course whose love story shines through the hardships. The passage of time just flows by without any unnecessary explanations, and all too soon I reached the last page. A hugely enjoyable read. (9/10) Book kindly supplied by the publisher – thank you.