What is it that my hero Pepe Carvalho smells-> "lajanías rancias"?
My hero, Pepe Carvalo has just entered a warehouse of «Jamones al por mayor Mena» and is following the (hopefully no longer) jaundiced girl I asked about in an earlier post.
Keep in mind that Pepe Carvalho is man for whom "la gastronomía" is important. So we hear (and you now read) that he might prefer not to follow the girl because his sensitive nose detects:
...con la muchacha una vaharada de olor y lajanías rancias que trató de disuadirle de seguir adelante.
......but what is this "lajanías" which is/are "rancias?"
While otherwise searching in vain for the meaning of this word, I did at least come across evidence that it is a real word and that I am not just hearing it incorrectly or reading from a text with a typo. (For the curious, "lejanía" means "remoteness").
Quoted from one of Federico Garcia Lorca's poems called A Catalina Bárcena:
Tienen tus ojos la niebla
de las mananas antiguas;
dulces ojios ranolientos,
prenados de lajanías.
I will continue my search, but if someone happens to know????
4 Answers
HI janice, this is the correct version of the poem:
Tu voz es sombra de sueño. Tus palabras son, en el aire dormido, pétalos de rosas blancas.
Tienen tus ojos la niebla de las mañanas antiguas. ¡Dulces ojos soñolientos, preñados de lejanías!
lajanía does not exist, you answered it yourself, typo
I think I have my answer!!!
I found an Italian translation of Lorca's poem which seems to suggest, indeed!!! the meaning of "remoteness" for the word lajanías, which suggests in turn that "lajanía" is perhaps another form, even if misspelling (which I actually doubt...but) for "lejanía."
So perhaps I can understand...I have to think about just exactly how one would express this in English - given that I even have it right yet:--) Perhaps Montalbán means to imply that the "whiff" or smell his protagonist gets is of rancid far-away places, "remotenesses" (Sorry, one really cannot form a proper plural from "remoteness" ...I am just trying to form an idea in my head.)
Any other ideas would be appreciated.
