The Shadow of the Eunuch

The novel by the outstanding Catalan writer Jaume Cabré "The Shadow of the Eunuch" is a funny and sad story of a sentimental and romantic art lover, a descendant of the ancient lineage of Jensana, who dedicated his student years to the armed struggle for justice in search of the Way, Truth, and Life. "The Shadow of the Eunuch" is a novel permeated with literary and musical allusions. Like Alban Berg's Violin Concerto, whose structure it mirrors, the book serves as a kind of "double requiem." It is dedicated to the "memory of the angel," Teresa, and sounds like a requiem for the main character, Miquel Jensana, for himself — as a deathbed confession. The hero finds himself in the house where he spent his childhood (by the cruel will of fate, the ancestral nest has turned into a trendy restaurant). Like Berg's concerto, the novel recounts the fates of all the beloved and lost beings connected with the Jensana home.