This text, a story from Agua de mar, offers a complete picture of the Port of Sóller, where Josep Pla had arrived aboard the Rufí.
Coffee, in the sea, what a marvel! One of the most exquisite meetings of sea folk is this: starting the day drinking, before eating anything, a cup of strong coffee, with very little sugar, black. The drink is almost immediately effective: your spirits head towards the outside world, your surroundings become fascinating and it makes your eyes shine. Exactly the opposite of the yellow and shapeless depression caused by milky coffee. A quickened heartbeat hardens your senses. Go from your flaccid yawning when you jump out of bed to a state of completion, of positive disposition. Yet again, stop asking yourselves if life is a perfect and tiring derision without any possible compensation. Those two mouthfuls of coffee invite you, before the sea, to begin a new day - a mysterious new day.
“En mar” Aigua de mar, 1966
Translated by Richard Mansell. Performed by Ivan Murray.
(Palafrugell, 1897 – Llofriu, 23 d'abril 1981). A writer and journalist, Pla came from a family of rural landowners, and studied law at the University of Barcelona. However, from a young age he had already begun to contribute to newspapers. The newspaper “La Publicitat” sent him as a correspondent to Madrid and later Paris. It was the beginning of a life of travelling. He also contributed to the “Revista de Catalunya” and “La Veu de Catalunya”, and also the Madrid newspapers “El Sol” and “Figaro”. A man of conservative ideas, when the Civil War broke out he moved to Marseille. He returned after the Nationalists’ victory and worked for a long time with the magazine “Destino” in Spanish, while at the same time publishing his massive body of work in book form.
His body of work is extensive, varied and difficult to classify. There are essays on social classes, such as Els pagesos (Farmers), novels like El carrer estret (The narrow street), travelogues from Catalonia and beyond, articles on many subjects, biographies, many of which appeared under the title of Homenots (Great men) and also diaries, such as the remarkable Quadern gris (The grey notebook). He had the gift of precise observation that was never isolated from human and social context. This text, taken from Aigua de mar, provides a complete picture of the Port de Sóller where Pla had arrived on board the Rufí. Boats, water and mountains surround that melting pot of a place, while he has his coffee.
One 20th-century Catalan who has held a more realistic image of Majorca is surely Josep Pla. He visited the island on many occasions, stayed in hotels, and with friends and acquaintances, he described it in detail in guide books, he tasted and commented on its cuisine, and knew virtually all of the island's writers, both in person and from the point of view of writing literary biographies: for example, Joan Alcover. Pla worked as a journalist and travelled around Europe and America. He knew the Mediterranean like the back of his hand, witnessed many of the convulsive historical events of the century, and he explained it all in detail and with precision. His body of work is truly monumental, a mass of volumes filled with his original prose, avoiding stereotypes, where he shows his loves and hates (sometimes more subtly than others) that have created their own following. Josep Pla had travelled on a small boat from Barcelona directly to Port de Sóller. He tells us this is a way that makes us enjoy it now just as he did then. Here he would find similarities with his own home, the Empordà, with its food, the people's character and the landscape. Curiously, in his writing about Majorca, and the Balearic Islands in general, he is almost always positive, and it seems that Pla was happy here, amongst the people and the landscape.
