The Case for Nostalgia and Sentimentality in Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’s “Serie Carvalho”

This article engages with Joan Ramon Resina’s negative critique of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’s representation of Barcelona in the ‘Serie Carvalho.’ Based on a detailed analysis of competing philosophical interpretations of nostalgia and sentimentality, the article suggests that Vázquez Montalbán’s use of nostalgia and sentimentality in his urban descriptions of Barcelona’s Raval and barri xino have a positive critical function and should not be dismissed as evidence of the author’s own personal nostalgia for the experience of life in these areas of the city during the post-war period. A selection of urban representations from Asesinato en el comité central, El laberinto griego, and El delantero centro fue asesinado al atardecer are employed to illustrate how Vázquez Montalbán deploys nostalgia in order to engage the reader’s emotions and stimulate the process of remembrance. This narrative effect is based upon Vázquez Montalbán’s persistent fears about the political culture of the Spanish transition and the perceived absence of historical memory following the end of Franco’s dictatorship. It is argued that his sentimental descriptions of Barcelona’s Raval and barri xino can be read as attempts to educate the reader’s emotions in order to resist the ‘cultura del olvido.’