The Polish Rider () is a Spanish novel by Antonio Muñoz Molina, published in 1991. The plot revolves around a man just about to enter mid-age reconstructing his family past, all cast against the background of a small Andalusian town. In terms of structure the narrative is non-linear; the book is a patchy structure of numerous episodes from 1870 to 1991, referred from different perspectives and in non-chronological order. In terms of style the novel is viewed as multi-genre exercise, which combines elements of detective fiction, heroic sonnet, feuilleton, realist novel, Doppelgänger, adventure story, generational saga, Bildungsroman and Gothic prose. In terms of major themes it is usually viewed as a discourse upon relationship between identity and memory, either in case of an individual or in case of the collective Spanish self. Upon release the novel was highly valued by both critics and readers; the novel earned Premio Planeta for 1991 and topped the Spanish weekly list of best selling novels from November 1991 till February 1992. In some rankings compiled today it appears among the best Spanish-language novels of the last few decades.
Plot
Don Mercurio, a fresh graduate in medicine, young free-thinker, freemason and republican conspirator against the monarchy, feels compelled to flee Madrid after assassination of general Prim in 1870.Jordan 2000, p. 564 He settles in an Andalusian town of Mágina, where he gets engaged in love affair with Agueda, young and beautiful wife of a local conservative and clerical aristocrat, constable Dávalos, owner of the Casa de las Torres palace.Marta Beatriz Ferrari, Moderno/Posmoderno/Neomoderno: "El jinete polaco", de Antonio Muñoz Molina, [in:] Iberoamericana 1/3 (2001), p. 10 The romance is uncovered, Mercurio flees overseas,Patricia Riosalido, El jinete polaco de Antonio Muñoz Molina como novela de memoria, [in:] Dicenda. Cuadernos de Filología Hispánica 31 (2013), p. 182 and his lover gives birth to their son. She is immured alive in 1871,Marian Womack, Negotiating Memoria Histórica in ‘Mágina’: narrating the past in "Beatus Ille" and "El Jinete Polaco", s.l. 2008, p. 4 while the anonymous baby is left at a religious institution.Jordan 2000, p. 562 Dávalos leaves the town for ever, leaving a guardian to take care of gradually dilapidating building.Ellinor Broman, La memoria republicana de la Guerra Civil en "El jinete polaco" de Antonio Muñoz Molina [PhD thesis University of Gottenburg], Goteborg 2011, pp. 12-13
The baby, given the name of Pedro Expósito, is adopted by a poor horticultural worker.Antonio Muñoz Molina: El jinete polaco [The Polish Rider], [in:] The Modern Novel service [retrieved January 16, 2019] The young Pedro takes part in the 1890s war in Cuba and returns to Mágina almost simultaneously with his father; in the early 20th century Don Mercurio tries to find out what happened to his son and he apparently succeeds, but Pedro refuses to learn who his parents were. Don Mercurio resumes his practice as a physician, unaware of the fate of his lover. Pedro gets married and has many children, one of them Leonor, in the 1920s the most handsome girl in Mágina. Sometime in the late 1920s she marries Manuel, a humble worker; the couple work hard in horticulture and have 7 children.
An unrelated major Galaz, posted to the Mágina garrison in April 1936, single-handedly prevents rebellion of local troops and shots a lieutenant suspected of leading the plot.Natalia Corbellini, Tropos y fotos para encontrar la identidad en "El jinete polaco" de Antonio Muñoz Molina, [in:] Memorias de I° Congreso Internacional de Literatura y Cultura Españolas Contemporáneas, s.l. 2008, p. 6 He then fights in the Republican army, to leave Spain after the war.Antonio Muñoz Molina: El jinete polaco [The Polish Rider], [in:] The Modern Novel service [retrieved January 16, 2019] Manuel spends the war in ranks of Guardia de Asalto fighting the rebels in nearby mountains; at the day of Nationalist takeover of the town he reports on duty as usual - against the advice of his father-in-law Pedro - and gets immediately arrested;Jordan 2000, pp. 564-565 he spends 2 years in a Francoist labor camp.Antonio Muñoz Molina: El jinete polaco [The Polish Rider], [in:] The Modern Novel service [retrieved January 16, 2019]
In 1941 an accidental explosion in half-ruined and uninhabited Casa de las Torres reveals a hidden chamber with the perfectly mummified corps of Agueda Dávalos.Vigdis Ahnfelt, La construcción del mundo posible en "El jinete polaco" de Antonio Muñoz Molina [MA thesis Stockholm University], Stockholm 2003, p. 27 Don Mercurio arranges for the mummy to be secretly taken to his place, where because of its rapid disintegration he orders a wax copy; remnants of the mummy are secretly burnt. Don Mercurio dies in few years; his wagon-driver inherits the lab, which for decades remains unused. The love for mummified woman is cultivated by Ramiro the Portraitist, a photographer who unaware of its history cherishes the photograph of mummified corpse he made when discovered in 1941.Ahnfelt 2003, p. 24
A daughter of Manuel and Leonor marries Francisco, a humble Mágina farmer, in the early 1950s. They live extremely laborious, hard and uneventful life, and have one child, Manuel, born in 1956.Broman 2011, p. 14 He grows fed up with provincial town,Jose Manuel Begines Hormoigo, La teoria literaria de Antonio Muñoz Molina[PhD thesis University of Seville], Sevilla 2006, p. 279 fascinated by English rock.Antonio Muñoz Molina: El jinete polaco [The Polish Rider], [in:] The Modern Novel service [retrieved January 16, 2019] In 1973, drunk and high on drugs, he probably has sex with Nadia, daughter to comandante Galaz, then librarian in a New York university, who following death of his second wife decides to visit Mágina.Marco Kunz, Anticipacion y resonancia en "El jinete polaco", [in:] Cuadernos de narrativa 2 (1997), p. 130 Galaz and Nadia leave Mágina shortly; she starts work in tourist business, he becomes a pensioner in a nursery house in New Jersey.Kunz 1997, p. 130
Manuel completes linguistics study in the late 1970s and becomes a simultaneous interpreter, working mostly for the European Parliament in Brussels. He is increasingly detached from his family and town,Antonio Muñoz Molina: El jinete polaco [The Polish Rider], [in:] The Modern Novel service [retrieved January 16, 2019] but does not take root elsewhere and becomes sort of a perfect alien to wherever he lives.Jordan 2000, p. 563 Nadia gets married in the US, gives birth and gets divorced when in 1990 she bumps into Manuel at a conference in Madrid. She recognizes him; the two have sex. In two months Manuel arranges for a professional trip to the US, where he finds Nadia; the two meet again and have sex again, apparently in love.Ahnfelt 2003, p. 30 In 1991 he returns to Mágina in wake of death of his grandmother Leonor,Ahnfelt 2003, p. 32 while Nadia decides she would take a temporary employment in Madrid. Manuel discovers the true story of Agueda and Mercurio, revealed by old Don Mercurio's wagon-driver.Broman 2011, pp. 12-13 Nadia comes to Mágina; Manuel meets her and the two go to a hotel.William Sherzer, "El jinete polaco" the autobiographical fiction of Antonio Muñoz Molina, [in:] España Contemporánea: Revista de Literatura y Cultura 10/1 (1997), p. 12
Characters
Agueda Dávalos (1850?-1871), great-great-grandmother of Manuel, highly aristocratic young lady, married to owner of the Casa de las Torres estate in Mágina; she engaged in a romance with Don Mercurio and got pregnant;Begines Hormoigo 2006, p. 299 after giving birth to a boy she was immured alive by her betrayed husband. Her mummified corps, in perfect shape, was accidentally found in 1941; it was later stolen by Don Mercurio; having noticed the mummy was disintegrating he ordered a wax copy; before the mummy fell apart its remnants were burnt by JulianoFerrari 2001, p. 11 colonel Bilbao (?-1936), commander of the Mágina garrison,Antonio Muñoz Molina, El jinete polaco, s.l. 1991, available online here, p. 176 unkempt, chaotic, poor officer,Muñoz Molina 1991, pp. 214-215 disappointed with his children,Muñoz Molina 1991, p. 177 highly affectionate towards Galaz,Muñoz Molina 1991, pp. 176, 215 whom he would have welcomed as his own son;Muñoz Molina 1991, p. 220 on the day of the coup in July 1936 he could not make his mind and kept drinking;Muñoz Molina 1991, pp. 215, 220, 241-242, 247 once Galaz took control of the garrison and ensured its loyalty to the Republic, Bilbao – totally drunk – shot himselfMuñoz Molina 1991, p. 249, Sherzer 1997, p. 12 The Butcher (1930?-1974), a bull-fighter; actual name and surname not mentioned, son to a butcher from Mágina who owned a stand next to this of Manuel's father; enjoyed nationwide but brief fame some time in the 1950s or 1960s; used to show up in Mágina in a flashy cabrio with glitzy women; for Manuel he epitomized a person who broke away from Magina mediocre life to fame; earned a modest monument in Mágina dotted with verses written by Florencio Perez lieutenant Chamorro (born around 1915), drafted into the army he served as corporal in Mágina in July 1936; he delated military conspirators to major Galaz; entered the militia and in its ranks fought the Nationalists in the mountains; sent to Popular Military School in Barcelona he graduated as lieutenant,María-Teresa Ibáñez Ehrling, La ficcionalización de la guerra civil y posguerra en „El jinete polaco” y „Beatus Ille” de Antonio Muñoz Molina, [in:] Anuario de Estudios Filológicos XXV (2002), p. 1971 after the war arrested by the Francoists, spent 14 years behind bars; he tried to organize an assault on Franco in the nearby Sierra and ended up in jail 22 days after his release from prison.Jordan 2000, p. 567 In the 1960s and 1970s he was manual worker employed by Manuel's father, whom he befriended. He was friend also to Florencio Peréz, who visited Chamorro regularly to lock him up as potentially subversive rebel. In the 1980s and 1990s a belligerent activist for an unnamed progressist movementBroman 2011, p. 19 Domingo González (born in the 1910s), a young Falangist in the mid-1930s; fleeing the Republican manhunt in 1936 he went into hiding. He fled Mágina in 1937 and returned after the war already as colonel, in the 1940s and perhaps later serving as ruthless prosecutor and maybe judge. In revenge he was blinded by an unnamed individual, who burnt his eyes out and promised to return to kill him; until the end of his days he lived in fear, went mad, left the city and resided in a ruined shelter in the countryside Donald Fernández (1955?-1989?), a Colombian, petty drug dealer and painter in Paris in the 1980s, where he befriended Manuel; shortly enjoyed some sort of success, as his fictitious African landscapes were displayed in New York; later he was sacked from work and robbed, lived begging and contracted AIDS; somehow he made it to his dream-land Africa, where he felt happy and from where he tried in vain to contact Manual by phone; his corpse was found – with smile on his face – below a tree in natural reserve of wild animals in Kenya; except Manuel he did not interface with any characters from MáginaWomack 2008, p. 11