Catalonia in 1925, a century ago, was a country of contrasts, from ideal Noucentisme to revolutionary radicalism. The cliché works: "sign and speed"" (sanity and rapture). This May marks the centenary of the attempted assassination of King Alfonso XIII, the Garraf Plot, and also of the publication of The bonhomies, a collection of newspaper articles by Josep Carner in The Voice of CataloniaBehind the plot lay the long shadow of the future president Macià; behind the delightful book lay the literary heartbeat of the "prince of Catalan poets." A self-made prince, the son of an orderly middle class: his father was an editor of the Carlist newspaper The Catalan Post Office. It was the time of the Primo de Rivera dictatorship and everyone tried to escape it as best they could.