Among many Manacor scenes, the Torre de las Puntas, serves as the setting for an exhibition in the novel by Gabriel Galmés, El rei de la selva (The King of the Jungle).
At Catalina Bibiloni's exhibition were the great and the good of Palma. A minister in the Balearic government had gone to enthuse about her landscapes with children. A mass of official cars were waiting for their occupants to return so they could hot-foot it away. Catalina Bibiloni received sincere congratulations from other merry philistines, and she gave herself a pat on the back for having brought such people together. A revolving door of local writers mercilessly criticised the displays of puerile intellect from those who were not there. They fought with the artists, who were arguing with the writers and amongst themselves. They made the most of that day to stand shoulder to shoulder against the ingenuity of whoever thought they had invented naïve art. Both Catalina Bibiloni and Francesc Serra received warm congratulations. The Torre de Ses Puntes was a Gothic building miraculously saved from the appetite of a malevolent city.
El rei de la selva, 1996
Translated by Richard Mansell.
(Manacor, 1962 - 2001). Galmés was a writer and translator, and a lover of trotting races, good food, and good (that is, intelligent) conversation. He studied English Language and Literature at university, and moved to Dublin in the final year of his degree. He first came to public attention with the collection of short stories Scala Averni (1985), which with a few changes became part of Parfait amour (1986), published by the man who became his faithful editor, Jaume Vallcorba. His other novels, in which Manacor becomes a cosmopolitan viewpoint and epicentre of everything happening in the world, are: El rei de la casa (The king of the house, 1988); La vida perdurable (Everlasting life, 1992), a chronicle of his generation on the threshold of their thirties; El rei de la selva (The king of the jungle, 1996), a satire on politics, artists and writers in Manacor at the end of the century; and Una cara manllevada (An assumed face, 2000). He also wrote drama with Iguana Theatre. He translated Raymond Queneau, and wrote articles for “Manacor comarcal”, “Diari de Barcelona”, “Diario de Mallorca”, “El País” and “Avui”, and some of his journalistic pieces are collected in Vull una estàtua eqüestre. Cròniques de 1990 a 2001 (I want an equestrian statue: Chronicles 1990-2001, 2011). He was awarded the Premi Ramon Llull de les Lletres posthumously, in 2002.
The only remains of a medieval building, the Puntes tower, is the setting for an exhibition of a curious artist from Manacor, and for Galmés to make fun of the often disastrous relationships between art and politics.
Together with the Palau and Enagistes towers, the Puntes Tower is one of the few medieval remains in the city. The construction of the whole building can be dated in the 14th century, following the style of what remains. Of note are the rounded arch of entrance and the mullioned windows of the first floor, as well as the pyramid merlons on the tower. Even though only the tower remains, until the start of the 20th century there are pictures of a larger building with a type of central cloister. That has all disappeared, but luck had it that the remains were acquired by the council in 1926, since they were declared a historical and artistic monument the year before, and so the owners surely thought they were getting a good deal. Even though the sale did not stop the demolition, the tower remained until the restoration carried out in 1985 to turn it into the headquarters of the Patronat d'Arts Plàstiques. This association is dedicated to promoting young and unknown artists, and this fact is exploited by Gabriel Galmés to locate there the exhibition of a naive artist, Catalina Bibiloni, the protagonist of his novel about multiple loves.
