Catalina is a 15 year old Spanish girl living in the time of
the Inquisition. One day she is laying on the steps of the cathedral, crying
because she cannot walk- one of her legs is permanently injured- to see the
triumphant entry into the city of two of its favored sons. Of Don Juan de Valero’s three sons, two are famous-
one a bishop, the other a warrior in the pay of the king. The third is a humble
baker, who stayed to take care of his parents, raise a loving family, and help
the poor. Suddenly a woman appears behind her, who asks her what is wrong.
Catalina expresses her woe over her leg, including the fact that her inability
to walk has caused her beloved to dump her in favor of another girl, one
capable of the demanding physical labor of surviving and raising a family in
those times. The woman tells her that she can be healed by the son of Don Juan
de Valero who has served God the best, and vanishes. Obviously,
the woman has to have been the Virgin Mary.
A good section of the book is devoted
to describing the lives of the three sons, especially the Bishop. He has lived
a life of extreme devotion, wearing a hair shirt and whipping himself for his
sins. He is obviously the first choice for healing Catalina. After Catalina is
healed, the head of the convent in town wants her to become a nun, feeling that
the presence of a living miracle will add fame to the convent- and money in its
coffers as pilgrims arrive. But Catalina has other ideas…
And here the story falls apart to me.
The first part is a satire of the institutions of the medieval church and caste
system, and I enjoyed it. But after Catalina is cured, we leave that frame of
mind and end up in “Don Quixote”! Literally- Catalina and her small band of
entertainers run into a group of actors from somewhere in Cervantes novel and
spend a good bit of time with them. Now, that section of “Don Quixote” was
pretty senseless to me, and it doesn’t improve in “Catalina”. So, the first
half or more of this novel is witty and good; the last part just seems to fill
up space (when I read “Don Quixote”, I wondered if Cervantes had been paid by
the word). Three and a half stars.
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This did not influence my review.
Haha. Pass
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