Rodoreda: The Time of Misogyny

Quimet couldn’t have died fast enough. What an absolutely despicable good for nothing worthless man! While this novel was an easy read on the brain and for my understanding, it was also difficult to read because it was akin to watching a trainwreck in slow motion. I could tell where their relationship was going, and I recognized the patterns in Quimet’s actions and words (actually, he didn’t even try to hide it), and all I could do was watch Natalia fall into his trap and live a married life of despair. Even from the beginning, I didn’t like him all that much – I hadn’t despised him, because he seemed to have swept Natalia off her feet, but he was still incredibly pushy, talking about how Natalia would definitely be his wife by the end of the night and whatnot, despite her engagement to Pere. And then, he only continued to become even more annoying and misogynistic. Every day, he can say “Poor Maria” without explanation, but when it comes to Natalia, he’s pestering her every day about whether she’s still engaged to him or not, and gaslighting her into apologizing about meeting Pere (when she hadn’t even seen him since the break up)? The double standards are insane.

There was just nothing likeable about him. I hated everything he said. One dialogue that especially stood out to me was near the beginning of their relationship, when he said something about how Natalia would have to like everything he likes, and when she initially fought back, he basically said it didn’t matter and that she would have to like it anyways. Then, there was the whole issue of calling her Colometa – which, was cute the first two or three times maybe, but the entire novel? I don’t recall him saying her name even once, and to even extend the “Colometa” title to the dove business was like inflicting even more trauma on her. The passage that started around page ~100 where Natalia was complaining about the dove business was absolutely heartbreaking. Where Quimet was talking about how buying more and more doves was no problem because they cost nothing and were “no work” to take care of, Natalia was breaking her back and going crazy over caring for the doves, even trying to purposely mess with them so Quimet would stop seeing the benefit of keeping the doves. This shows his continuous pattern of pushing everything onto the women in his life, while either claiming no work for himself, or complaining about and amplifying what he is experiencing while disregarding the pain of women (case in point with his tuberculosis). Natalia was offered practically no relief even during her pregnancy, because Quimet would complain about his leg day in and day out, while also torturing his own mother about something as little as salt.

Something that deeply saddened me was that even the women in Natalia’s life didn’t seem to have her back. Senyora Enriqueta was encouraging the marriage and told her to ignore the “Poor Maria” issue, stating that marrying Quimet is better than marrying Pere. Therefore, this enabled Quimet’s terrible behaviour, and Natalia just stuck with her decision. I’m glad that Antoni gave her a chance of healing, but the aftereffects from the war and Natalia’s own trauma affecting her to the point where she came sparingly close to killing her own children with hydrochloric acid made me feel heavy and sad. There’s a lot more issues with Quimet that I could complain about, but alas…