Sitting among trees and pines in an environment with the smell of green countryside, I prepared to read the emblematic Planeta Prize awarded to Sonsoles Ónega with The maid's daughters. Emblematic for the prestige it enjoys, but increasingly diminished by the distrust of those who make its activity possible. It is surprising how the jury has awarded a novel that, without a doubt, does not enjoy the prevailing quality of literary narrative. I don't blame its writer. Possibly, Ónega has captured her humanistic knowledge in the paper of the almost 500 pages that the story occupies. Knowledge is nothing in vain and loaded with experience. I have no doubt that Sonsoles deserves a Planeta Award. But certainly not with The Servant's Daughters. Perhaps the award is due to exhaustive recognition of the figure and her contribution to the written discipline. He deserves it for having forged a career full of effort. But The maid's daughters It left a bittersweet feeling in my imagination.
The novel tells the parallel biography of two girls born one night in 1900 in Punta do Bico (Pontevedra, Galicia) and coming from the same father. A biography that covers the differences that exist in the trajectories of both due to their condition of being the daughter of a maid or a lady.
The pages, in turn, allude to the complicated experiences of women in the 20th century, and the 'enduring' they must overcome. Her mission is relegated to the sidelines of a spouse – 'drunk or absent' – and to the care of her children, under an authentic reference to feminist egocentrism.
One of the mothers (maid) decides to make the switch between the babies to grant a life 'without hunger' to her first-born, condemning the lady's daughter without choice to a life full of suffering, poverty and helplessness. Forty-two years later, the two meet again to discover the truth that changed the course of their lives. The maid's real daughter fled to Argentina to marry and enjoy a prosperous life, while the other, her father's sister and the lady's true daughter, was welcomed as one more in the manor, where she developed an unusual knowledge of the time to bring the family canning factory to splendor and a state of absolute well-being.
Ridden with contradictions
While the plot falls short and, therefore, the reader's disorientation is reflected in the writings, another son joins the story without a common thread. A son on whom falls the allegory of training, culture, art and recognition of the most important literary figures of the Spanish novel. Suddenly and without prior notice, the melodrama includes allusions to the political, literary and artistic history of the country, but without any coherence. What's more, there are numerous 'strange' things that jump from page to page, or even from paragraph to paragraph. In fact, there are included phrases that are contradictory or incoherent by their nature. When Inés becomes pregnant again she announces herself like this: “Detect demonstrations of love.” A love that never shone in her pages and that was critical regarding her husband's disregard for Inés. She even relegated it to Cuba for years as another allusion to the sorrow and pain that women suffered at that time. We will agree that, in the past, they did not enjoy the same rights as they do now. They had no say in business or other matters. But if there was something in the 20th century that today's society misses, it is that commitment to romance and love loaded with flowers and details. I do not understand the constant lynching of the lack of manly love that the serial talks about, nor the countless tears of women that soak up its pages. Because if there's one thing they do in this novel, it's cry as if there were no tomorrow. I am not against recognition of the pain and sorrow that women harbored at that time. In fact, it seems deserving and fair to me that the suffering to which they were condemned due to their gender status shines, but it is not to capture an exaggeration that limits female performance solely to the task of crying: “That day Clara's years passed by. until turning her gaze into that of a widow without a husband to mourn on the anniversaries that would remember that that love was true.”
In the same way, I also do not see any sense in Doña Inés's attitudes and in her undefined character. A lady who, with her husband, Don Gustavo, takes heart in the face of any event with the “risk of ending up suffering from heartburn,” while her first son was “spanked four times” when he pronounced the impossibility of Catalina shared his same blood. And, in the same way, I do not understand the multiple sentences inserted 'a capon' to enrich her language and narrative: “Without shadows on its paths or on its shores”; “With no other reflection than that of the crescent on the dull tide of the night.” Sentences that reflect nothing more than a forced style to anchor the serial to the surface. I'm not saying that they are not sentences typical of melodramas, but you have to have skill to include symbolism between the lines.
Galicia, the soul of the work
The novel can be classified as historical due to the date on which the plot begins. The plot makes visible the milestones of the 20th century and the negative and positive consequences of this on the Galician land. In fact, that allegorical image of a poor Galicia dedicated to the sea is probably the best part of the melodrama. An image of overcoming the adversities of international politics in the industrial sector. Because, of course, what is dazzling about this story is not the characters, whose actions are incongruous on numerous occasions. Perhaps due to their impoverished construction or poor management in their approach. This is the example of Don Gustavo, whose obstinacy in the face of incorrect acts is not evident in the paragraphs, nor does he convey any feeling when it comes to the emotional ladder. And all of this is reflected in a plot that is implausible, acts that do not evoke emotionality or credibility and that, in addition, cause disappointment in a novel whose premise was to make its readers cry. Perhaps due to the misleading approach to the facts or the strange way of solving them, the result of which is nothing more than accepted obstacles to the understanding of the argument. What's more, many of them that are unimportant are explained in great detail, while the most relevant ones barely receive a small mention. It is the example of the information about “the sin of the flesh” that Don Gustavo committed with the maid, which is only discovered through a key letter found by Clara and which is not spoken of again until 21 years later, once father died. Or events like Celso's journey, Clara's unconsummated love, which remains nothing and confirms neither her death nor her survival.
All of this results in a novel, largely incoherent in its narratives, which follow one another as if it were a supply chain. The sentences typical of prestigious literature appear quickly and without meaning. The same with the countless unclear plot twists that cause loss of understanding. Perhaps the plot does not provide enough hook for these aspects to disappear unconsciously and involuntarily.