Image: The cover of the book is a wood/linocut style image of the backs of two people, sitting on a rocky landscape, staring out into the night sky. The bottom part is in black and white and the sky is an hombre gradient of dirty yellow, brown and black. There are also spots of the yellow on the lower black and white landscape. White spots dot the sky as stars and there is a very large crescent moon low on the horizon. The center of the sky in white letters says, "The Weight of the Stars." Below that in smaller letters is, "The Life of Anarchist Octavio Alberola." At the bottom of the cover is "Agustín Comotto," and below that in smaller letters, "Translated by Paul Sharkey."
It can be difficult to review a biography without reviewing the subject himself. I am not sure what is the best course of action in that regard, but this review will be a mixture of the two. The Weight of the Stars is a biography written in a style that I have not previously encountered, though I am sure has been done before. The author, Agustín Comotto met anarchist Octavio Alberola while Comotto was writing a piece about Simon Radowitzky. He inquired if Octavio would be publishing a biography some day as he had lived a very long and eventful life. Originally Octavio declined but later consulted Agustín about helping him put one together. This partnership resulted in a biography that reads much like an extended interview with the subject where the answers take the form of long story telling sections. Occasionally, Agustín would challenge or debate a point or belief of Octavio, but for the most part, compiled and included the story in much of Octavio's own words.
I will admit that part of my interest in this was learning more about a history that is important to understand- international anarchist resistance during and surrounding the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco (1938-1975.) I knew little about it before this aside from teachings from friends, podcasts, or online articles. I do think I would have absorbed this book better if I already had a foundation of historical knowledge. The book after all is a translated work that likely was not created purely for an ignorant USAmerican audience like myself. It is also already 348 pages and to properly detail everything one could ever want to know would make the book too heavy to carry. All this is to say that there was a lot going on in this man's life with a vast number of groups, characters, and large and small historical events all blending together in the story. Comotto did offer short snippets of the overall setting at the start of each chapter. But, I did feel overwhelmed and lost at times. This is not a critique of the book's quality as much as it is a description of how one could get the most out of it. If you don't already know about the horrors of the Franco regime and other related events, you may want to brush up on them before reading this in order to get a better picture.
Alberola's dedication to anarchism and the toppling of fascist regimes was immense. He was no doubt shaped by growing up in a militant anarchist household with a well known father- Jose Alberola- who was brutally murdered later in life. It is suspected that his father was murdered by fascists taking revenge for Octavio's actions despite Jose refusing to kill during his activism. I can only imagine what kind of mind-fuck that was for Octavio and how that affected his dedication to the cause. He doesn't speak of it much in the book, we learn this from Comotto.
Big names pop up throughout this biography in interactions with Octavio- Castro, Che, Durruti, etc- and Alberola has different nuanced opinions on each of them. He spent much of his life bouncing around internationally, avoiding authorities, and consistently participating in a wide variety of direct actions ranging from gentle to violent. Reading a book where someone speaks so openly about militant actions like this, knowing it would be published in his lifetime, is an interesting thing. Overall, Alberola avoided violence when possible, but thought that the assassination of Franco was a necessary measure. They failed in achieving this particular goal but succeeded and grew with many other actions.
Something that stuck out to me constantly was that this book is about men. This is unfortunate but not entirely unexpected with any book about radical men in these movements. The women in this story are girlfriends, lovers, mothers, children, and overall described as side notes or burdens. I was really disappointed, but again, not surprised that there didn't seem to be any effort on behalf of the men featured throughout the decades of this story to include women in these organizing efforts. Perhaps in a less patriarchal scenario, there would have been ways to balance the tasks of life where women did not feel as if all they could do was leave with their children. Octavio fathered many children with multiple women without all of them even knowing about it. Octavio was of course, off with the revolution that he was dedicated to and could not be bothered with children, so what were these mothers to do? Even when they wanted abortions, the illegality, inaccessibility, and dangers made them near impossible to get. He expresses no regret or remorse and also regularly criticizes anyone who left his style of militant organizing to be with their families or do more academic types of work. He does admit though that certain circumstances allowed him to take more action than others.
I know that if the story was about the life of Irene or Gloria, it would not have been so readily accepted by everyone that they leave their children behind for the revolution, expecting the fathers to raise them. I wonder what the function of women would look like in a truly anarchist society to Alberola and his kin. I get it, though. I get what it is like to be so dedicated to destroying something so vile and destructive that one develops tunnel vision and the inability to do anything else. I have certainly been there. Nonetheless, I cannot help but imagine the way the movement could have expanded if the other half of the population were more involved. I know that they were there and that Alberola's history is only one of many. I kept waiting for Octavio to come around and see this, but he does not. He reunites with many children later in life and has some relationships with them. He has interesting views on things with his current partner (for lack of a better term) where they did not want to formalize anything to avoid playing into the system of ownership of each other created by laws around marriage. We still never know much about Irene, Gloria, and Ariane by the end. I wish the author would have asked more about them, but I understand why he did not. The book is technically about Octavio and we get a good sense of how Octavio saw women playing parts in his life and the struggle.
The last sections of the book are more of a Q & A style in which Comotto asks Alberola about his views on various things and how they have evolved over time. We learn here that despite being in his 90s, Octavio still participates as much as possible in the evolving social and technological tools of time. He has continued educating himself and growing in order to adapt and thrive. Despite my critiques about how he and the men of these generations treated women, Alberola led a truly courageous existence and dedicated himself to what he believed in without compromise.
The book is finished off by an illustrated comic of a short conversation between Alberola and Comotto that was a lovely closing. This is something I really enjoy about many print books from AK Press- there is great care taken to create and design an immersive experience that goes along with the text. The translation of this book by Paul Sharkey also seems to be quite good. My Spanish is awful and I have not read the original, but it is one of those texts that flows well enough that the reader forgets it was translated from another language. This book was an immersive glimpse into the life of a man organizing as part of an inspiring revolutionary history. It left me curious about it all and motivated to read more about this tumultuous and inspiring time.
This was also posted to my goodreads.
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