San Manuel Bueno, Mártir

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San Manuel Bueno, Mártir (1930) is a novella by Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936). It experiments with changes of narrator as well as minimalism of action and of description, and as such has been described as a nivola, a literary genre invented by Unamuno to describe his work. Its plot centers on the life of a parish priest in a small Spanish village.

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[edit] Setting

The events of the novel occur in Valverde de Lucerna, a small village located on the edge of an idyllic lake. Legend tells that submerged beneath that lake exists a hidden city. The physical village and the legendary city serve as symbols of the spiritual and the material.

Both the mountain and lake acquire a human dimension in the character of Don Manuel, evidenced in the quote “Ya toda ella era don Manuel, don Manuel con el lago y la montaña” ("now everything was don Manuel, don Manuel with the lake and the mountain.") The mountain and lake have also been interpreted as symbolizing powerful faith and superficial faith, respectively, due to the frequent appearance of the mountain's reflection in the lake. This reflection does not penetrate the surface of the lake.

The fictional location in San Manuel bueno, mártir was perhaps inspired by a real place, as suggested by the real life lake San Martín de Castañeda, in Sanabria, at the foot of the ruins of a convent to St. Bernard where to this day lives a legend of a submerged city (Valverde de Lucerna) sleeping at the bottom of the lake.

[edit] Plot summary

The narrator is a woman named Ángela Carballino. Her mother is a pious Catholic, who raised her daughter in the faith. She lives in a village in the province of Zamora called Valverde de Lucerna, situated between a beautiful lake and a solitary mountain.

Ángela was educated outside of the village in a larger city. Towards the end of her studies there, the magnetism irradiated by Don Manuel, the village priest, attracts her inexorably to Valverde de Lucerna.

Lázaro, her unbelieving brother, returns from America rich and with a heavy anti-clerical cultural baggage: he seems to dismiss religion and anything associated with it. He is determined to move his family to a larger and, in his mind, more progressive city. However, when his mother dies, he is forced to confront Don Manuel and realizes he is not like other priests. He eventually ends up begging to be baptised, and enters into the orbit of Don Manuel. He never misses a mass, and becomes a disciple of sorts to Don Manuel.

Ángela finally discovers Don Manuel’s dark secret: he is an atheist, despite the fact his entire life has been dedicated to promoting orthodox Catholicism. The philosophy he follows, to which Lázaro has been converted, is that the fact that there is no God, must be hidden at all costs. People need to believe in God, if they are able, like the villagers. Those that cannot, like Lázaro and Don Manuel, have a duty to protect from this truth.

Don Manuel’s physical health gradually worsens, eventually leading to his death. Lázaro dies soon after, following his teacher. Only Ángela is left, and even she is not sure if she retains faith in Christianity. She writes a testament of the events that occurred in the town then hides them. The preceding chapters we discover are that testament. The last few pages are Unamuno’s explanation of how he somehow stumbled upon this text.

San Manuel bueno, mártir can be seen as yet another one of Unamuno’s novelas, a concept he invented to describe his work in order to represent its distance from the realistic novels of his day. The narration drastically shifts at the end, switching from Ángela to a fictionalized Unamuno. Very little action occurs. Instead of a true novel, it can be seen as a vehicle to express various philosophical ideas.

[edit] See also

Generation of 1898, Spanish Literature

[edit] External links

(all in Spanish)