Jaume Clotet (Barcelona, 1974) had written two historical novels – in 2012 Lliures o morts, a four-hander with David de Montserrat, and in 2016 El càtar proscrit, Nèstor Luján award –, but with La Germandat de l'Àngel Caigut (Destino, winner of the Josep Pla award) has taken a step towards current fiction, with historical elements, yes, but also religious and fantasy elements in a thriller that raises the relationship between good and evil throughout the history of humanity, with a plot that begins with the fall of Acre, the last capital of the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem, in 1291, but the bulk of the events happen in an undetermined near future, in two settings prone to mystery and spirituality such as Montserrat and the Vatican.
Clotet is very clear about the motivation that led him to write it: “It is a novel that I thought I would not be able to do, but in life we have to do what we do not know how to do, otherwise, we would still be up in the trees” . To succeed, it uses, on the one hand, everyday elements for the Catalan reader, be it the Montserrat Abbey as various identifying elements of Barcelona, “places where readers may have passed, and which they can easily locate”, and on the other, a series of “historical references to completely link this aioli. What is not real has a historical basis that is familiar to everyone: Pope Borja, the Templars or the Nazis in Montserrat. Even the fantastic or magical elements that appear are real myths, everything has a cultural base that facilitates the transition from reality to fiction.”
The main characters of this fiction are a young monk from Montserrat and a mossa d'esquadra who, due to various circumstances, find themselves immersed in a mission of the Church, directly commissioned by the Pope, which has to do with the true protagonist of the book: the evil. “I care very little about good, I care much more about evil, knowing that any of us would be capable of doing atrocities, either because they threaten you or yours or because there are bad people, and being a good person has a point of militancy". Of course, the author is convinced that “evil reaches everywhere and evidently also to organizations that apparently keep the essence of values: the more power, the more options there are for evil to spread. A person who has no power can be very bad, but he will not do anything. If Hitler had been a carpenter all his life, he would be a hooligan in his town and that's it."
“In politics, which is the other paradigm when we talk about it, evil progresses little, because they are very exposed to the public sphere, to internal and external control, of the parties, of the people, of the networks, of the journalists. , and also every four years there is a vote, that is, they can be fired. On the other hand, in the Vatican, sports clubs, large business or communication corporations where no one is accountable, or very little, evil progresses more easily because it is not known what they are doing... here there is power. “Who is in charge today, Elon Musk or Joe Biden,” she asks.
On the other hand, he also believes that "the Catholic Church, like no other, has set up an impressive liturgy of power, which it has built for two thousand years, and which has also been dedicated to it forever, is unbeatable", something that precisely “We Catalans have not known how to do things, and without the staging, the liturgy, of power, you cannot build much.”
The journalist and writer recognizes the spiritual power of Montserrat, “far beyond religion, with a lot of magnetism. It is the sacred mountain of the Catalans, like Mount Uluru of the Australians... An icon.” The author is so convinced of this power that he has decided to insist, because although the story begins and ends, “I have become fond of the characters, and I have found many fantastic, mythological and religious Catalan references that I did not know, so I will make a second part and I think even a third, which can be read individually, but also collectively.”
He is also clear that “it is a novel to have fun, an entertainment vehicle for the general public, for a vacation, for the summer or for a trip. I want to reach the general public with Catalan themes," he says, hoping that in Catalonia there will be more novels like this and of all kinds, because there are still genres that are rarely touched upon, such as the romantic novel: "I have the feeling that we Catalans think that We are select and we make literature, theater or cinema for minorities. We have to play all the games in all areas, in all genres of all disciplines, because we have to go outside,” he concludes.
Catalan version, here
