About book La Muchacha De Las Bragas De Oro (2006)
I was supposed to have read Golden Girl or La Muchacha de las Bragas de Oro in its original Spanish for a college course more than 25 years ago, but elected instead to pick up an English translation at the Strand. Even so, I still failed to read the book, that is until now. Golden Girl tells the story of an old Falangist, Luys Forest, busy writing his autobiography at his beach house in Calafell, who is paid a visit by his niece Mariana (the golden girl). The novel explores themes of memory, truth, and the construction of identity. Forest, a writer and former propagandist for Franco's regime, has denounced his fascist past and creates lies and fictions to make himself a nobler and better man than he truly was. Mariana, an earnest hippie is helping him type his autobiography while also critiquing it. He's paternal, she's flirtatious, and their relationship borders on incestuous. Reality, memory, and imagination clash from time to time and in the end they become indistinguishable. It's an excellent translation, the characters are well crafted, and, though slow paced, the novel does have cinematic elements, especially the blurring of fact and fiction that culminates in the finale (the book was in fact turned into a movie). But the novel, because it does not have a lot of action, will appeal most to those who have an affinity for Spain and Spanish history.
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