Markus Orths: Catalina
This extensively researched novel presents the story of Catalina d' Erauso, a transvestite who lived in Spain and South America from 1585 to 1650. Hers was an extraordinary life, that’s clear enough, but the fantastic aspects of this tale are reinforced by Markus Orths’ strange, occasionally rather cavalier manner of presentation. He has taken readers back to an approximation of the literary style of that lost time while mixing the illusion with disinterested, scholarly interventions. The picaresque retelling flips from the vividly symbolic to the kind of scenes that might be expected to turn up in an historical adventure movie. But there are references back to the documentation of Catalina’s life as well as the lives of, among others, the dashing young doctor, Juan Bautista de Arteaga. She encounters him quite early in the piece. Very soon we are informed that there are 3422 closely written pages, which constitute his memoirs, held in the “archive of the Centre des recherches sur le siecle d’or en Espagne.” He has written, “I rode out into the gloom of a sunless morning, slumped on the [donkey of himself?], unable to clear my mind of what had happened, unable to engender a single thought, reduced to a mere [cape?], the world a ghostly presence, the clouds like [bleached ashes of the sky?]”
That was indeed a memorable morning for the gentleman. He had woken up to find a person whom he had never seen before emerge through a small hole on a rock face. This person is Catalina, but only just. For while in the total darkness of a cave in the wild 17th century Spanish landscape she had managed to reshape her nun’s garb into a set of clothes appropriate for a man, and she had cut her hair. She had become…? Well, the truth is that she had not yet decided who she might be. The first words she utters are at a high, girlish pitch which was natural to her, but quickly she understands she must drop her voice down an octave. With the same speed and certainty she adopts the name, Francisco Loyola, and from that moment on learns to live, love and act as a man.
Catalina’s brother, Miguel, was the principal influence on her life from birth till she turned eight. From the moment that he left for South America, to look after the family’s mine, she was determined to reunite with him. But first she had to endure a period in a convent, from which she quite simply walks away. That departure might be interpreted as a first “birth”. But it is not nearly so graphic a birth as her exit from the cave.
Bonding with, and assisting the young doctor in his work our heroine manages to raise questions about his profession: “I think,” said Catalina, “that you doctors just guess.” “What did you say?” “You guess. You try things out. You don’t actually know the right thing to do, you just work on assumptions. Because if there are two views on everything, how can you tell who is right?” “Obviously the one who manages to cure more of his patients.” “And which one is that? In both camps some patients die and some get better.”
Once in the Americas, and after some disappointment relating to the mission that brought her there, Catalina-Francisco turns into a classic Christian European adventurer among those “lesser” human creations of God. She kills Indians, becomes a gambler: this is fast moving stuff.
The author, Markus Orths, together with his translator, Helen Atkins, has produced a fantastic book, which takes the reader on a wild ride through not just the life of its central character but also through a range of genres from its post-modernist style recourse to 17th century documents to the rather surrealist re-enactments of Catalina’s transforming birth process and on to educated and insightful asides. And all the while the driving pace keeps a reader in its thrall as some 1950’s Saturday afternoon cinema showings might once have done.
The Book
Orths, Markus: Catalina / translated by Helen Atkins. - New Milford (CT): Toby Press, 2006. - 259 pages ISBN: 1-59264-165-2 Original title: Catalina (German)
