coldhearted scientist وداد

A pesky novella by Miguel de Unamuno seems to boil down to this:

1- a priest does not believe, but believes people need to;
2- people in fact do not think about this as much as he does, and just want good works;
3- even his main disciple is more interested in truth / authenticity than dogma;
4- so, his insistence that people not question or disturb putative faith does not actually serve them but the overlords who would prefer to evade political agitation, unions, and other forms of democratization.

It is hard to notice these things because there is so much emphasis on the priest’s suffering / guilt about not believing, and how meaningless life seems to him without some (anthropomorphic) divine purpose. I of course favor the Zen like aspects of his ideas and I agree he is a martyr — but on behalf of the ruling classes / the state.

I had not reread this in decades. As a text, it is more complex than I had realized and one key to seeing this is narrative voice. Technically there are two narrators but really there are more voices. All emphasize doubt, lack of authority, and the uncertainties of both memory and narration.

We heard, it seemed, I thought, he perceived, I testify, some said, they wonder. You confess; I write but have no plans for the manuscript. I think this text is about the shifting sands of narration and the ways in which the kindly Don Manuel supresses others’ voices — as they struggle to speak, and hang on his words, but also listen closely for what he whispers or does not say.

A question I have about this text has to do with the maternal — Don Manuel is feminized, referred to as “matriarchal,” and asks for absolution from his parishioner, the female narrator he has excluded from his more serious theological conversations undertaken with men. This is what I have so far.

Axé.