L'heréu Noradell : Estudi de família catalana by Carles Bosch de la Trinxeria
"L'heréu Noradell : Estudi de família catalana" by Carles Bosch de la Trinxeria is a novel written in the late 19th century. It portrays a landowning Catalan family in the Empordà, focusing on the heir Marsal Noradell as he steers the estate through modernization while navigating community ties and public duty. With costumbrist precision, it evokes village life, vineyards, and parish rhythms to explore generational change, stewardship, and Catalan identity. Central figures
include Marsal, his wife Teresa, their daughter Mercè, his mother Catarina, and loyal servants Joan and Margarida. The opening of the novel follows the elderly servant Joan on a hot market-day return to the Noradell estate, where he learns the patriarch Don Jaume is gravely weak. After a rich description of the estate, church, and household, Don Jaume receives the sacraments, blesses his family with sober counsel on honor and land, and dies, deeply mourned. The narrative then turns to Marsal: a modern, well-trained farmer who improves the property and, pressed by local elites, runs against a government-backed outsider; comic village meetings and a lively campaign end in Marsal’s election and a tearful departure for Madrid. In his absence, Teresa oversees the house with the shy steward Francesc Saqué; walks to the mill and vineyards reveal a bumper harvest amid first signs of phylloxera, visits with the rector anchor the village setting, and brief scenes show Marsal solitary in Madrid, studying the city and taking his seat. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
