Recounting surveys the social history of Barcelona and Catalonia,
primarily since the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939. The novel
follows the youth and education of Raúl Ferrer Gaminde, son of a
well-connected, middle-class Catalan family that embraces Franco and
Spanish Nationalism. The novel's potent drama plays out through
Goytisolo's crisp, forceful presentation of youth, humor, optimism,
rebellion, violence, sexual awakening, indulgence, punishment, and the
realization of one's artistic vocation. Alternately modern and
historical, Recuento displays intelligent realism, emotional gravity,
profane beauty, brute vulgarity, sweeping rhetorical scope, and seamless
transitions through long, streaming passages of narrative and
introspection.