The Time of Doves by ​​Mercè Rodoreda

The Time of Doves by ​​Mercè Rodoreda is set in Barcelona during the time of war. The story covers all aspects of war from deaths to the family of the soldiers left behind. The protagonist of the story Natalia is shown to be a people pleaser who breaks up with her fiance to marry a man she met during a dance, Quimet. Quimet is shown as an abusive husband who is very particular about his masculinity ( maybe because his mother often dressed him as a girl when he was a little boy. Later the couple is blessed with two children – a boy named Antoni and his little sister named Rita.

Quimet is a furniture maker in the story and rather weird as he would not let his wife or children sit on a chair he built. He gets fond or we could say obsessed with pegions and builds a tower for them. Natalie becomes a slave to these doves and looks after them. During this time she also works as a maid and never complained about how tired she would get as a caretaker to these pigeons, a mother and a housewife. One day she got so tired that she killed some chicks and their eggs and never told anyone about it. Throughout the book, I sympathized with Natalia’s characters. One thing very interesting about the story was how dominating Quimet was and changed Natalia’s name to Colometa and often spoke out the name Maria who is a mystery till the end of the novel. He also says that as a wife, she should like everything her husband likes and if she does not then she would have to learn how to like them.

Quimet later goes off to war and everything goes downhill for the family. Natalia does not have her job anymore and she along with her children, is starving. She sends her son off to a camp for boys as she cannot feed him anymore. Later she learns that her husband died in the war and left her a watch. The boy comes back from the camp and all of them are reunited. However, when natialle as though she can’t live any longer and provide for her kids she decides to go to the store and buy a hyaluronic acid which would help her kill the children and herself. The plan does not succeed as the grocer offers her a job at the store. The Grocer, also named Antoni, later married Natialle and became a happy family.

I think Natalie is someone who liked living in the past. Even when she got married to Antoni and lived a life she never could have imagined, she still thought of the doves that she once hated and of her late husband who she was not yet sure if was dead or just missing.

I loved reading the book as it covered very human experiences of families that go through wars. Like I said before I sympathized with Natalia because as a reader I was supposed to! The author perfectly explained to us how her mother was a victim of domestic violence and when she died, Natalie, a part of her father also died that day thus she adjusted for the bare minimum because she thought that was the best she deserved.My question is who do you think was Maria and why would Quimet mention her from time to time?