ABSTRACT

Alone in the mountains, a woman wrestles with feelings of infinitude and longing. Alone in the city, a woman struggles with feelings of emptiness and loss. The first is Mila, protagonist of Victor Catala's—Caterina Albert i Paradis's—Solitud (Solitude); the second is Natalia, protagonist of Merce Rodoreda's La placa del Diamant. The separation of the two most celebrated novels written in Catalan by women, though curious, is in many respects understandable. Differences abound. Solitud is a dense, lexically demanding third person omniscient narrative by a woman who, writing under a male pseudonym and rarely leaving her native land, participated in one of the most important cultural movements of her day. In La placa del Diamant, written in an age more dominated by behaviorism than naturalism, the desire for tenderness does appear to be satisfied in the end, but only after many nearly devastating trials and tribulations.