Английская Википедия:Death in Spring

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Death in Spring is an unfinished novel by Catalan author Mercè Rodoreda.[1][2] It was first published in Catalan as La mort i la primavera in 1986. It was released in English in 2009 by Open Letter Books, translated by Martha Tennent.[3][4] It was rereleased by Penguin European Writers in 2018.[5] Rodoreda wrote the work in the early 1960s when she was in exile, and it is thought to be a condemnation of totalitarianism and Rodoreda's experience with nazism during WWII.

Premise

The novel focuses on a small town shadowed by a mysterious river and forest. The narrator, a fourteen year old girl, sees both her father and mother die in ritual ceremonies that are characteristic of the town. The villagers have several grotesque customs, like forcing a young man to swim in the underground aquifer of the town every year, and burying villagers in trees. The narrator, and by extension her audience, must struggle with the senselessness of violence when it is integral to the fabric of a society.

Ending

Death in Spring is thought to be unfinished. It ends with the narrator in the forest of the dead, making a cross out of nails, and beginning the suicide ritual. Some commentators believe this ending was a purposeful choice by Rodoreda; allowing both the tangibility of nihilism and the reality of hope to collide just beyond the final pages of the novel.

References

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