ABOUT
THE BOOK

The Joy of Being Awake is narrated by Gaspar Medina, now seventy-two and reflecting on a life nearing its end. Medina is, as the original Spanish title suggests, a ‘hidalgo disoluto’, and that element is certainly the dominant one of his life-tale — even if his dissolution is only part of the story, and of his unusual character. (The English title comes from his observation that it was in reading that he found “the joy of being awake”; now, in penning (or, more accurately, largely dictating) these reminiscences he finds also: “the joy of remembering”.)
Orphaned at sixteen — “the first orphan of the Spanish Civil War”, in fact (and rather unnecessarily, Abad not really making much of this) –, Medina’s parents left him enough money for him to live in considerable comfort, and never have to worry about working for a living. The death of his parents certainly marked him, but he was already somewhat of an odd duck even before that. He begins his story acknowledging that he wasn’t like the other boys — and, indeed, that sinful behaviour (of almost any kind) baffled him, as did most indulgence: food, for example, or sex — to the extent that he: “developed schematic rituals in pursuit of carnality”.