Cortesanos

To clothe historical events and the spaces where they unfold in literature, highlighting their comic, absurd, demented, and human side. This is the purpose of Manuel Longares's new novel. The story here is that of the Spanish monarchies of the Habsburgs and Bourbons, with their courts and courtiers. From the golden centuries of the Spanish Empire to the century of civil strife and military uprisings that was the 19th, passing through the enlightened Age of Enlightenment. The monarchs, almost all those presented in these pages, are less concerned with peace, war, or uncharted territories than with the powers of God. The setting is that Madrid which monarchs and courtiers mold to their liking —or so they believe— while another, more boisterous and outspoken Madrid, where the sovereign people reign, tries to break free from the grasp of power. And, ever-present, the river of Madrid, which so often flows listlessly, carrying everything but water, yet "it's ours," a metaphor for wanting everything even when there's nothing. With this, Manuel Longares offers us what is undoubtedly one of his best novels, in which he displays a profound understanding of human beings, regardless of their place on the social ladder. A literary feast crafted with some of the richest Castilian Spanish written today and with a refined sense of humor and the grotesque that will bring a permanent smile to the reader's face and more than a few laughs.