Life Embitters

by Josep Pla, Peter Bush (Translator)

Overview

A book of stories, or "narrations," by the finest Catalan writer of his generation. In this beautiful work, translated into English for the first time, Pla transcribes his witnessings of basic truths: the waves of the sea, the hardness of rolled tobacco. The reader feels tangibly the pleasure with which Pla puts the sensual and real on paper.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780914671145
Publisher:	New York Review Books
Publication date:	05/05/2015
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	600
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Josep Pla (1897-1981) was a Catalan writer and journalist who lived in Spain, France, Italy, England, Germany, and Russia. He was awarded The Gold Medal of the Autonomous Government of Catalonia for his contribution to Catalan literature. His complete works are published in thirty-eight volumes. 

Peter Roland Bush is an English literary translator. He has translated works from Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan to English, including the work of Juan Carlos Onetti, Juan Goytisolo, and Fernando de Rojas.

Editorial Reviews

"Moving around the capitals of Europe in a time of depression and unremitting melancholy, Pla often serves up small moments of perhaps unintentional brilliance [...] Students of Orwell's journalism and of Kapuscinski will be glad to discover Pla, whose melancholy resembles that of his contemporary Stefan Zweig—and for some of the same reasons." — Kirkus Reviews


"This new translation of Josep Pla is an unclassifiable, happy mix of stories, memoir, essays, anecdotes and travel pieces, all brought together by Pla's wonderfully direct, ironic style... Combining general comment and the immediacy of close observation, he helps us see the world afresh." — Michael Eaude, Catalonia Today

"Josep Pla was a great noticer of things and places; his gaze was alert and dry; he wrote in a style which registered both the smallest detail and the large picture. His relationship to Catalan identity and Spanish history was complex, often ambiguous. His relationship, however, to the scene in front of him, or the days in which he lived, remains fascinating for its clarity, its sharpness, its originality and its wit. On display in his work is a glittering and sparkling sensibility." — Colm Tóibín

"Pla’s book of “narrations” shows us why this Catalan writer is considered the “finest…of his generation.” Each narrative piece is like a still-life, focusing on the tangible and memorable things of this world. Pla invites us to share his perspective on the complexity and sensuality of our surroundings." — Book Riot

"Pla is [...] one of Catalonia’s greatest authors." — Three Percent

"Pla has often been compared with the great Joseph Roth – they were both astute witnesses of their respective worlds... Outstanding." — Eileen Battersby, The Irish TImes

"Considered one of the most influential Catalan authors of the twentieth century, [Pla] was born and raised in the Empordà, and over the course of his life wrote over 30,000 pages of prose in which he diligently catalogued the landscape and the life and habits of the people of the region. His complete works, published and republished over the years, contain marvelous descriptive passages that capture the landscape's history and its complex topography at once." — Words Without Borders

"An excellent translation by Bush… delightful. Pla loves people and honest conversation. His ear for dialogue is faultless, his snatches of overheard conversation are meticulously realistic… The tone of the stories is often a bubbling good humor..." — Nick DiMartino

"Life Embitters, probably the best book in Josep Pla's vast body of work, is a literary feast which combines all his best qualities at once: the sharpness of the journalist, the modern style of the novelist, and the insight and lucidity of the autobiographer. Through these stories, Pla distills the experiences of a young man traveling around a dramatically changing Europe. This is the book I recommend whenever someone asks me about Catalan literature." — Jordi Punti, translator and author of Lost Luggage

From the Publisher

2015-03-21
Pla (The Gray Notebook, 2014, etc.), the late Catalan pessimist, is given another airing in English thanks to the efforts of his dogged translator, Bush. Gone 35-odd years now, Pla gave Romain Rolland a run for the money in the prolific department: when he died, he left behind more than 30,000 pages of published work and many more unfinished and uncollected pages as well. The present work, published as La vida amarga in 1967, continues Pla's long project of creating a literature of real-world description, blending history, travelogue, memoir, and journalism. Pla as narrator is ever present, but if he's a moody and brooding sort, his gaze is seldom trained inward and is certainly not self-pitying; he's busy looking across the table at the bistro or, more often, the boardinghouse and wondering who those strange people are and why they think and act as they do: "Two words and he'd already slipped up and, trembling and blushing, he sputtered out strange drivel. The landlady would silence him with a withering look. The others dared not laugh or speak. They lowered their eyes in dismay, as if suffering a great calamity." "The waiter had thought profoundly about tourism, and the conclusions he'd drawn had led him to admire artists boundlessly." Moving around the capitals of Europe in a time of depression and unremitting melancholy, Pla often serves up small moments of perhaps unintentional brilliance, as when he puts felines to work for political ends: "In this household, Frau Behrends and the cat represent the past, tradition, and order; Roby and the kitten, the future, revolution and instability." About all that's missing from this sprawling narrative of vignettes and sharp aperçus is a sense of the author, who sometimes remains hidden; a circumstantial introduction, especially addressing Pla's politics in that most political of times, would have been very useful. Students of Orwell's journalism and of Kapuscinski will be glad to discover Pla, whose melancholy resembles that of his contemporary Stefan Zweig—and for some of the same reasons.

Kirkus Reviews