Without trying, I came across an interesting subgenre of Spanish literature. These are books by mediocre female writers who experience something upsetting and this motivates them finally to write a talented text. One such book is A la puta calle by Cristina Fallarás which is a tour de force even though she never wrote a word worth reading before or since.
Another book in this subgenre is Anna Grau’s account of her short affair with the famous Spanish writer Fernando Sánchez Dragó. He died several years ago and Grau, who spent her whole life trying to be a writer and never producing anything worthwhile, suddenly got awakened by the humiliation of having been one of Sánchez Dragó’s enormous harem of interchangeable, faceless mistresses and came out with this pretty talented book.
It must be harsh to have been so unimportant to the flamboyant and famous Sánchez Dragó that, even during their affair, he had trouble distinguishing Anna from any other woman. She tells of how once they were together in a lobby of a hotel and Sánchez Dragó went to the bathroom. On his way back, he plonked himself at a table with a completely random woman instead of Anna Grau because they were kind of all the same to him. Grau spends the entire book trying to convince herself that she mattered to the much older writer, and her efforts are painful to observe. The rage she feels, however, results in pretty great writing, so it’s all good.
Sánchez Dragó is considered far-right in Spain because he said something vaguely opposed to political correctness and was friendly with the leader of Vox. Grau was an MP in Catalonia, and is also considered kind of to the right in Spain, although she’s a huge fan of Hillary Clinton and painfully woke on every subject in existence. But Spanish politics is so far to the left of ours that their right-wingers are the equivalent of Kamala Harris.
What I like in the book aside from the good quality of the writing is that Grau is honest about many things that women often conceal. For instance, she goes into excruciating detail (which I, honestly, could have done without) about how much she detested sex with the elderly Dragó. It’s very tiresome when women who get involved with rich and famous men 30 years their senior try to convince you that it was extreme sexual joy that attracted them to the relationship. Of course, it’s not impossible to feel sexual attraction to somebody much older. However, if the person in question just happens to be mega successful in the field in which you desperately want to achieve success, it’s probably not sex that you are looking for by their side.
Anna Grau lacks self-awareness to the point where it becomes comical. All of the men in her life of whom there were very large numbers are absolute bastards and evildoers. Grau attributes this to sexism and never wonders why she ends up being such a magnet for these horrible dudes.
But what could you have possibly enjoyed in a book by a discarded, resentful, woke mistress? you might ask. I don’t care about any of it, though, as long as the writing is good. My enjoyment of a text is, first and foremost, aesthetic. I couldn’t care less about writers’ ideology or politics. Or their personal qualities. I only care if a book is aesthetically accomplished.
Anna Grau’s En la boca del dragón is the best I’ve read this year so far. And for this, I am grateful to the author.
P.S. Anna Grau and Sánchez Dragó are in the picture. It’s a bad picture of hers. She isn’t hideous looking at all in RL. But in this photo it’s hard to see much of an age difference between the two lovers.
Here is a link to another post I wrote about Cristina Fallarás and the erasure of men.
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