(C) to (J) Sansom's Winter In Madrid goes a long way beyond the habitual territory of the historical novel. Not only does it present fiction alongside documented history, it also reproduction some real people, and not only figureheads such as Generalissimo Franco. On the contrary, the people concerned become real characters in Winter In Madrid. But this book also has its own position to present in relation to the events of the Spanish Civil War and its immediate aftermath, whose horrors form not a residence but an integral part of the novel's plot.
Three boys, Harry, Bernie and Sandy-do time together at an English public school. They are very different characters from different backgrounds equally. Harry is an orphan raised by an aunt and uncle rather distantly. Bernie is the son of a working class London shopkeeper family. He attends the private school by virtue of a scholarship. They has socialist leanings. Sandy is the rebellious son of a bishop. From the start he has the air of a bounder and a cad.
When, later, all three become involved in the Spanish Civil War, they predictably side with different actors in the conflict. Bernie, as you might expect, becomes a communist and joins the International Brigade. Harry, having studied languages and already visited articles in the pre-war Spain, is eventually lured into an apparently establishment position as a translator in the British embassy in Madrid. But alongside his linguistic services, he has another, less communicated job to pursue. Sandy, on the other hand, presents a more complex picture. No, they did not merely join the nationalists and thus oppose the other two: he was always far too driven by individualism to follow such a predictable course of action. Sandy goes into business in Spain, cultivating links with the fascist Falange. At the same time, and with obvious paradox, they also assists Jews fleeing Nazism to find passage from France to Portugal and thus further afield to safety. It may be that his brand of disinterested individualism renders his merely pragmatic business activity. On the other hand ...
And then there are two women, Barbara and Sofia. Barbara is British, a former employee of the Red Cross. Briefly she met Bernie during the war, and then he returned to the front to disappear, presumed dead. After years of change, Barbara met Sandy and, in his own way, did much to boost her damaged confidence. They are also living as man and wife, but-in a country where holding hands in public is outlawed, they are not married. Along with his assistance for fleeing Jews, this second layer of risk provides a flaw in the construction of Sandy's character. Surely he was a sufficiently mercenary operator to have seen these potential pitfalls and taken steps to avoid them? But then it's fiction.
Harry and Barbara met in his earlier visit to Spain, when he also became involved with a family from a poor, a republican area of Madrid. When he revisits the area, he meets another family being supported by the efforts of Sofia, who remains a left-wing sympathiser. Harry and Sofia find their relationship develops. The existence Arion murdered clerical relative provides yet another interesting layer of complication that really does bring home the brutality of the civil war.
As the plot of the novel Winter In Madrid unfolds, provides the reader with a strong desire to uncover its secrets. Sansom is a real story teller and the book works extremely well on the simple level of a thriller. But it also remains a faithful-largely faithful to the events as they happened and the individuals who perpetrated them. And it achieves its end of describing the complexity of relations in Spain-in the political, economic and social, with great success. In addition, it manages to sustain a clear position of its own and without the use of polemic.
Winter In Madrid thus attempts significantly more than most populist fiction dare even try. What is more, Winter In Madrid achieves its aim with remarkable success, even if, on occasions, its plot devices may seem a little artificial. But they what plots, including those that happen in war, are not artificial?
Philip Spires
Author of Mission and A Fool Knoten, African novels set in Kenya
http://www.philipspires.co.uk/
Migwani is a small town in the Kitui District, eastern Kenya. My books examine how social and economic change impact on the lives of ordinary people. They portray characters whose identity is bound up with their home area, but whose futures are determined by the globalized world in which they live.
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