Fernando R. LafuenteSEGUIR Updated: Save Send news by mail electrónicoTu name *

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“Pilgrims of reading lost in the arid desert of bad novels: come to Iris Murdoch” encouraged Andrés Ibáñez (Madrid, 1961) convinced of the literary aura that they possess certain works. An aura difficult to define, but not impossible to enjoy. Now, after reading you can Never ask your name to a bird, one would write: come to Andrés Ibáñez. This novel is the quintessence of a narrative that has attempted different genres and has found in the sobriety of a story perfect the atmosphere, the characters and the plot of a story are several and they all complement each other and dazzle.

Horst, a writer, in the manner of Charles Arrowby from The sea, the sea, the said Murdoch, is going through a profound crisis of creation, mess emotional , and a yearning for personal recognition which leads him to retreat to an old house lost in the mountains of northern New York state. The house takes on the characters magic of those who seek the imprint of its former owner, Winslow Patrick, whom Horst worshipped as the highest expression of literary creation. But the house has a life of its own. is A hidden life, a presence that is enigmatic, a becoming dramatic. Ibáñez has written a gothic novel, a thriller of chilling mysteries, a love story tinged with violence, an allegation against the innocent victims, and a destination merciless for the one who forgets, or ignores, or bet for success, even when it requires a price fatal and tormented.

Huge literature of Ibanez. Leads to the limit of their characters and what more grandiose, to the reader

But it is more. Ibanez reflects the condition of the writer in your self-absorbed journey did himself, oblivious to reality , or better, plunged into her in a delirium, without turning back, in an exile of himself: “do Not is write with the intelligence -confesses Horst in an interior monologue formidable – but with the bowels. It is not written with the wit, but with the force. Force, he says to himself, force […] No, I don’t have any force, it is said, but I have terror,” because “we are not kings, we are slaves who know that their imagination, their memory, and their words are their only wealth.” After the delirium, Horst dreams of a bird of glass in a niche. And ask for their name. Sleep and wakefulness are made accomplices of Horst. And the plot is triggered. Ibanez brings together a series of characters defined by the key element in a novel: its language. Each one, and behold, one of their sovereign hits, is expressed with a voice of their own, Willard, a strange and lonely fisherman of the Delaware; Eva, the wife of the brother of Horst, a visitor assiduous of the house and the sinister, formidable, the creation, worthy of the most polished Lovecraft, Matt Signorelli and Kenny, an indian, silent and brutal companion of Matt. Ibanez debug each sentence, the polished, makes it the profile and the drawing of each of them. Some dialogues that seem to emerge from the best of David Lynch, he adds an action, which dizziness, it is presumed, suspected; a sensuality, in the descriptions of the landscape, the loneliness of Horst, in his relationship with Eva, as, impeccable.

Live

Every account is straightforward, no stills or barroquismos , in their silences and in their statements, their fears, and doubts. A sensuality that goes from the body to nature, to relationships and the fear. Fear. Forces that are on the other side, or that are or are called by us. Huge literature of Ibanez. Leads to the limit of their characters and what more grandiose, to the reader. It is involved in revealing what happens. Horst, in search of success, has relied on, perhaps unintentionally, to uncontrollable forces: the ambition. is Will have consequences, and victims.

The shadow of the immortal Faustus you plan on all the story, and the fatal combination of success, audience, and recognition. That is the dilemma end. Ibanez goes to the bottom, with great intelligence, with terrific staging, with exquisite and terrible sensitivity , with a huge sense of what is the enigma of the writing and of the literary creation: one seeks, as remembered by the essayist mexican Gabriel Zaid, a hundred thousand readers in a month or a hundred thousand readers in one hundred years. The answer is not easy, but in the case of Horst, it will be fatal. Splendid novel, the best and most complete of its author.