Cinco Horas Con Mario: Miguel Delibes (1966)

Notes on second half

XVI

“Una mujer es un ser indefenso, Mario. Necesita que la dirijan….” (repeats stereotypes of women needing a tall, strong, directive man)

“No eres normal” –He is liberal, seems to want to help people and she is not happy with that.

“Nunca hubieras hecho un trabajo tan bonito como el de papá porque papá es buenísimo”

(maybe she cheated on him, but he’d slept with her sister… “que vosotros por meteros con la guerra sois capaces hasta de negar la luz del día.”

XVII

(General structure is to start each chapter with one of the Bible verses he had underlined)

She talks about a guy who flirts with her. “A ti parece como que te costara decirme una palabra amabe.” Talks about wanting a car (the 600, the car everyone had). Also, wanted a white wedding dress porque “para una mujer, la pureza es la prenda más preciada.” (consumerism + social mores)

“Que las tontas son nosotras por vivir pendientes de los maridos y de los hijos” (seems to contradict her previous statement)

XVIII

When your mom died, Mario. you didn’t cry and I told you to because that’s the normal thing to do.

Note about “crazy” people: “Si están en el manicomio es porque están locos…no se enteran…ni sienten ni padecen.” (she doesn’t believe in his support of manicomios (THE SUBALTERN CAN’T SPEAK!)

XIX

Es que tú te crees, Mario, y si Cristo volviera a la tierra se iba a preocupar de los locos? Mario, you write about paletos, but paletos can’t read!

She is also furios that he thinks the church should’ve supported the French Revolution.

XX

“Yo lo pasé bien bien en la guerra”

Las chicas con principios, las honradas, las que somos como se debe de ser, gozamos excitándole en los hombres pero sin llegar a mayores, mientras las fulanas se van a la cama con el primero que pillan.”

XXI

Mad at Mario, even for mundane things like not tanning at the beach. She talks about being a child, paying the servants and leaving a little food for them to try. (“también había solidaridad”…blah!)

XXII

“A medida que pasan los años, más me convenzo de que el hombre no es un animal monógamo, de qe la monogamia para vosotros una antigualla. Not saying you’re a Don Juan, I don’t think you were a virgin when we got married. Little boy, “I hope papa dies every day so I don’t have to go to school. And when I was his age, when I was 6, I venerated my dad!” And you’ve always had money for books, but not for my car.

XXIII

If you’d have dedicated yourself to the bank instead of your books, we’d be in a better place. Barks at him for being a sloppy literary critic-“So why don’t you write a better book?”

You would’ve never been hit by such and such if you would have been dressed well. Every class should dress accordingly, you know.

XXIV

You were afraid to work. Don’t tell me writing is working (repeating some of her ideas, stream of consciousness).

XXV

“I agree with my dad. Black and white, we’re all equal in God’s eyes. That said, blacks with blacks and whites with whites.” Her racist racial musings (blacks are made for X jobs, like boxing and sugar cane harvesting) Muses on the law, how it can be applied unequally (which doesn’t seem to bother her…)

XXVI

“si el talento no sirve para ganar dinero ya no es talento.” 

XXVII

More about how she doesn’t have a car. Telling about how Armando, wounded in the war, started kissing her. “It’s like I’m confessing to you. He kissed me, but nothing more.” “Come on! Aren’t you listening? Look at me!” (irony) (She is insistently swearing to him that nothing else happened with Armando, as if he were arguing back with her.)

Last chapter:

Her son enters the room. Says “It seems like you were talking to yourself”. He makes her a coffee. Some visitors show up because they saw his obit in the paper.