the seminarian

The Seminarian by Michel del Castillo (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969)

Another book I had previously started once or twice only to abandon quickly, and I don’t know why.  This short novel (125 pages) is smart and sensitive and engrossing.  It is set in in seminary in rural Spain sometime in the mid-twentieth century, perhaps the 1950s, although it is hard to tell because there are no references to events in the outside world.   Our first-person narrator, an orphan, is sent to the seminary partly because he has no where else to go, and partly because he’s devout and believes he has a calling.  He studies very hard and is in all ways the perfect seminarian until he becomes secret friends with another boy, with whom he falls madly and passionately in love.  For good reason, it would seem: the object of his infatuation is a handsome, hunky, not-very-bright romantic fellow who has no qualms about sleeping with his friend, who is both tortured and exhilarated by the nearness of his sweet and beautiful friend.  Seeing how the book is set mid-century Spain, in a seminary no less, this illicit love ends tragically, although in a refreshing twist our hero kills his lover rather than himself.  The book is intense and atmospheric, and good at capturing the thwarted friendships and desires that occur within the monastic life, both between seminarians and also between teacher (priest) and student.  Our hero (I forget his name of course) is mentored by two Fathers, who perceive him very differently and act accordingly.

A brave, unusual, and beautifully-written book (even in the English translation).  The author’s biography is interesting and I would like to read more by him.