I have just finished this novel by Dulce Chacón. I still have tears in my eyes. It is not easy and quite clear at the same time to explain why I have rated this book with 5 stars, since it is not a Nobel prize work. I have already read several novels by Dulce Chacón in the past and I did really enjoyed them, so I didn't perceive the writing style problems other stated in several reviews, and what is more, I do really like her characteristic writing style, so in my case it has been a plus and has helped me to live the story in such a direct and human way. I have always been interested in the Spanish Civil War and the Post-War years since I was a teenager and I have extensively read books on it (together with movies) and I never get tired of it, so this was one of the books I kept pending for years, until I could finally get a copy of it. I also love such novels because I can recognize still the places described in them perfectly, I walk through some of them every single day, and they have also been walked by previous generations to me, so I feel as if I already know much better their stories thanks to the stories of other that passed by before. I also find so many traces of my grandparents, of even my mother in those customs and daily life reflected in the novel, they seem so close to me that sometimes I become too nostalgic. Finally, even if so many years have passed by and I am the second generation coming from the ones who witnessed and suffered it, I have always felt quite close to those events, which break my heart once and again. Indeed, I am still unable to accept how human beings can reach such limits in life, how a different political approach can create such a deep hatred that some human beings become real evils and are able to defend their positions after such ideas, without caring about the opposite suffering and even supporting death penalty. I still can see so many traces of those years in society, even if many people don't know they come from there and much earlier, since the lovely Transition made a good job into trying to erase them completely, by assuming this would be the only way to go on together as a society, when the best thing that could have been done would have been to never forget what happened in both sides during the War and then in the dictatorship years in order to never make the same mistakes. But similar mistakes keep on happening these days, unfortunately, because we haven't learnt anything at all from the past. Silence is most of times the worst of the choices. But let's come back to the novel. "La Voz Dormida" is the story of several women, most of them jailed in Las Ventas jail in Madrid city. The novel evolves around their daily lives in jail and their memories of the past together with the lives of those ones who go to visit them when allowed. Through the development of the daily lives of all of them we will be able to perceive the life of the ones who "lost" the war, together with the typical customs and "lifestyle" of those days, many of them imposed. We will live and suffer with the characters, their past and current lives, their decisions, their consequences, their destinies, and above all, with the lack of freedom and the violent control of the authority. Even when it is told from the point of view of the destinies of many Communist affiliates, not all of them are, but they maybe just sympathise or maybe they were just relatives. The cruelty and injustice is present in most of the pages, but we can also perceive the dignity, the dreams, the love and the pain of some women that just happened to live in those days and were in jailed sometimes for reasons that we might find incredible these days We will learn what is to be deprived of freedom, we will see a Church that was extremely cruel as organization in those days, and like always, we will see what ignorance can provide to society. This novel may be treated in a partial way, as some have stated, and I will not deny it, but unfortunately it is based in very realistic accounts, in real facts, and that can't be denied either. Dictatorship and its consequences in normal people and daily life can't be denied, lack of freedom can't be denied, forced exile can't be denied, couples separated for decades due to jail sentences can't be denied. A war is a war, many people will say, but a war should be avoided at any cost, because the monsters they create is one of the worst metamorphosis the human being can go through and the worst consequences always go to working people, not to the direct responsible ones of them, who can't even imagine which type of suffering they provide to others.A bitter-sweet novel recommended to learn on the Post-War years in Spain, on the life in jails, on the repression on people, on the role religion played in it, on the way women tried to survive, on how you couldn't think different, on how, in spite of all, the human being will always search for freedom and love. Always.
De la primera vez solo recuerdo la cárcel de mujeres de Ventas, algunos fragmentos de las colas de familiares esperando a sus puertas y los encuentros entre Pepita y El Chaqueta Negra. Durante años he recomendado esta novela solo por la impresión que dejó en mí. Un rastro que iba desde la curiosidad por todos aquellos que tuvieron que callar durante la represión franquista (por eso quizá lo de la voz dormida) hasta la espera del ser amado que tantas veces había visto en la literatura, en el cine y en la televisión. Cinco años, diez, diecinueve años esperando…La segunda vez tengo que matizar. Hay otro aspecto de La voz dormida que es importante: el lenguaje. Dulce Chacón era poetisa y, por eso, en su modo de contar la historia no duda en utilizar todos los recursos poéticos de repetición que conoce. Hay anáforas, anadiplosis, concatenaciones, derivaciones, epanadiplosis y epíforas. Constantemente. El efecto es dotar de ritmo, claro, pero uno frenético, parecido al del bombo de la lavadora, que marea pero que también introduce al que lee en los torbellinos que son las vidas de sus personajes. Un ejemplo:Hasta que llegue la ratificación de la sentencia, las presas pasarán las mañanas en el patio intentando engañar a la tristeza. Por las tardes no será posible el engaño, porque la noche se acerca, porque se acerca la hora de las sacas, se acerca la hora en que la funcionaria puede llegar con las listas en la mano. La alegría de las mañanas caerá por las tardes con la amenaza del sonido de las listas.No hay muchos novelistas que se atrevan a utilizar el aspecto formal de lo que escriben como un elemento más de la historia que quieren contar. Es muy arriesgado y hay que ser muy preciso. Con sus repeticiones, Dulce Chacón recurre a los sentimientos y a las emociones. Si no hubiera abusado tanto, conmigo lo habría conseguido.
Do You like book La Voz Dormida (2002)?
Es 1942, la II República española recién ha sido derrotada y Hortensia, antigua miliciana y guerrillera comunista, está presa en la terrible prisión feminina de Las Ventas en Madrid y encinta, mientras su marido sigue en la lucha armada clandestina. A través de ella, conocemos las vidas de muchas otras presas y de sus familiares angustiados. Un Consejo de Guerra la condena a muerte, postergando el fusilamiento hasta que dé a luz, y entonces el protagonismo pasa a su hermana menor Pepita -- basada en una verdadera mujer del mismo nombre. Pepita no es de portar armas como su hermana, sino una muchacha asustadiza y despavorida que ni siquiera quiere saber del partido. Pero supera el miedo para hacer cosas muy atrevidas, primero para apoyar a su hermana, después para criar a la hijita que ésta le deja, y por muchos años para ayudar a un novio que casi nunca puede ver, un temido jefe guerrillero que cae en manos del régimen y dura decadas en prisión.Fue la última novela de Dulce Chacón, que murió en 2003 a los 49 años. Para documentarse, trabajó más de cuatro años leyendo todo lo pertinente y recogiendo testimonios orales. Es una historia tremendamente impactante, una novela construida de episodios reales vividos pero callados durante y después de la dictadura de Franco.
—Geoffrey Fox
Ay... ¿Qué podría decir de este libro? Debería ser lectura obligatoria en los colegios españoles, y no me cansaré de decirlo. Como bien me pusieron en la dedicatoria «este libro demuestra, una vez más, que el femenino no es el sexo débil. » He conocido a través de él a mujeres fuertes, independientes, valientes y luchadoras; a guerreras dispuestas a dejarse la piel en la causa. He podido disfrutar de un pedazo de historia de mi país, y emocionarme con dicho pedacito.Si tan sólo hubiera estado escrito de otro modo, seguro que se llevaba las cinco estrellas. Pero aún así, ha sido un libro que me ha enseñado grandes valores, ¡ole!
—Julia
Me he encontrado lo que me esperaba encontrar, desgraciadamente. Una novela facilona, maniquea, sin dibujo de personajes, sin profundidad. Llena de estereotipos, sin capacidad para crear una trama, abandonándose a los lances patéticos para hacer que la historia progrese y a la pura empatía más simple respecto a unos personajes oprimidos para chantajear al desprevenido lector.Me parece estupendo que haya libros para todos, me parece estupendo que a la gente, que a mucha gente, le guste... Pero esta novela es un flaco favor tanto a la memoria histórica como a los que intentan crear personajes femeninos con entidad como reacción a una literatura masculina...
—Raúl
