The Fascist

Roses, languages, and clods of the Catalan earth

Auca del noi català, antifeixista i humà, an antifascist children’s book written in Catalan, Spanish, English and French, published by the Second Republic during the Civil War.

“Never give the client the raw data” is a golden rule for anyone dealing with customer feedback in marketing. Clients are notoriously touchy — and the same goes for writers. Presented with 100 reviews, 99 of them glowing — “your product changed my life, my world has been improved immeasurably by your words, I only wish you could bear my children and redecorate my home” — the client/writer will head like an exocet for the sole bad review. “Perhaps I wasn’t in the right headspace, but I didn’t enjoy this”. Why? Why didn’t they enjoy this? the client or writer will ask. Before long they’ve redesigned their product, re-edited their piece, or, worst of all, tried to contact the hater. It’s an immutable law, a human characteristic, not to always look for the pattern, but sometimes for the anomaly. I’m as guilty as anyone for this habit, and try to limit my exposure to reviews, particularly on “social cataloging applications” like Goodreads or Letterboxd. That way, madness lies.

Wednesday was St George’s Day, the day of the patron saint of both England, where I was born, and Catalonia, where I live, and where he is known as Sant Jordi. It’s a day beloved by nationalists in both places, although those nationalisms are markedly different in their tones. Personally, neither appeals to me, but I do love Sant Jordi. More a festival than a holiday (it’s still a working day), people celebrate by buying their lovers, spouses and even family or friends roses and books. It’s the most important day of the year for publishers, making up about 10% of their annual turnover on a single day. On the streets, people bring out tables adorned with the Senyera and sell second hand books and roses to raise money for their local associació, ateneu, school trip or trade union. What’s not to love about love, about streets full of people clutching books and roses for their girlfriends and boyfriends, about people clutching books and roses from their girlfriends and boyfriends and beaming from it.