"Mazurka for Two Dead Men" is a 1983 novel by Spanish writer Camilo Jose Cela, originally published as Mazurca para dos muertos, set during the Spanish Civil War in Galicia (Cela was a Spanish writer of Galician background). Cela won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1989, after a writing career dating back to the 1940s. "Mazurka for Two Dead Men" is an experimental work, without chapters or separation, but in multiple streams of consciousness, many telling the same stories over and over again, in slightly different wording. The description of the book on the dust jacket says that it is the story of a man who played a specific mazurka only twice, for a pair of dead men. However, while reading the book, I didn't discern much plot at all.
The story is set in a pre-war Galicia, with most of the characters poor peasants. And not just poor, but ignorant to the point where the description "half-wit" is used constantly. The villagers are drunken, imbellic, and given to various forms of adultery and incest, and the priests are involved in the same. The lists of physical deformities and misadventures is repeated over and over. It does certainly create a certain gothic atmosphere, somewhat Faulkneresque.
This is also where literary theories become important. Because while reading this book, I was wondering whether Cela was mocking the peasantry out of sheer cruelty, or whether he was making a social and political commentary about how traditional hierarchies and morals kept the people poor and ignorant. And so halfway through reading this, I did some cursory research, which made things that much more complicated: apparently Cela was an early supporter of Francisco Franco, but later his works were censored. Both from his biography, and from the book, I can't tell to what degree this book is satirical, and to what degree Cela is just wallowing. My own opinion is that it does seem to have a mean streak, and that it was too degrading for me to enjoy. Despite the weirdly hypnotic effect of the prose, and the possible social relevance, I just couldn't enjoy it, because much like with Lafcadio's Adventures, I couldn't get over the author trying to be an edgelord.