The covid-19 pandemic, which will soon turn three years old, is in its infancy when it comes to fiction. Few writers have begun to describe it in Spain, including Reyes Calderón, Lorenzo Silva, Noemí Trujillo and Eugenio Fuentes.
In the 2022 Netflix series Intimacy, we can see a scene where a character approaches Bego (played by Patricia López Arnaiz) and pretends to give him two kisses. “I’ve lost my habit,” he replies, stepping back. It is a word that some would not understand if it had been said five years ago. But by mid-2023, we all know the reasons why Bego left behind a greeting that is so ingrained in our culture.
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought society and social relations to dimensions we could never have imagined. Not daring to hug close friends out of respect and precaution, avoiding family gatherings for fear of infecting them, avoiding travels or activities out of prudence or extremism.
Getting back to what we knew we were living was not easy; For months everything came down to survival. Several authors claimed refusing to refer to this stage in fiction. That they really don’t want to know anything about masks, social distancing or curfews. But in recent months others have said yes, they want to record this part of our history. And some did it in a way that might seem crazy: using this stage of our lives as the background for a police or detective investigation.
In his play of perfect crimes, Reyes Calderón (Planeta, 2022) makes it clear from the start that he doesn’t intend to sweeten his story: The first scene shows us the Ice Palace in Madrid, full of coffins. high death toll. It will focus specifically on toilets through a complex crime plot. “The pandemic has put the entire system at extreme risk. However, drawing power from where there is no power, The toilets kept us afloat. A doctor trains for six years, prepares an opposition, and then retrains for four to five years. After that, it becomes part of the lower-middle class when attention is paid to salaries, and part of the upper-middle class when attention is paid to responsibilities. The pen allows us to pay tribute that lasts longer than our collective memory, the fish memory.
Noemí Trujillo and Lorenzo Silva A Rebel Forge (Destiny, 2022), The four-handed novels beautifully illustrate what it means to deal with motherhood and fatherhood during isolation. Family conflicts, which also create a wide catalog of emotional moments. Noemí Trujillo recalls: “The first book I read with my daughter when schools closed was Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story. He was seven years old at that time. At the end of the reading, he asked me if I believed that we are all part of an endless story and that we can find that story in books. I answered yes, then I realized that it was necessary to reflect the pandemic scenario to literature and reflect what happened to us from the fictional stage.
In contrast, Lorenzo Silva explains that he read with his daughter “Corazón de Edmondo de Amicis and Colmillo blanco, among others, by Jack London” during the most difficult time of the epidemic. Books that deal, in turn, with what saves us from loneliness and sickness, and the search for one’s own identity. “According to me Pandemic It made us realize our vulnerability and wonder what we really are. No matter what each did with that awareness and that question, both valuable experiences that we cannot ignore fiction and risk forgetting it if it is not proven».
What we have read so far adventures of richard cupid Thanks to Eugenio Fuentes, we know they are friendly novels that try to set aside brutality to focus on empathy. Dogs looking at the sky (Tusquets, 2022) are no exception, even emphasizing this look. “My novel was born another way. But after a few episodes passed, the pandemic hit us. And it was such a powerful topic that it was life-altering and unleashed such a flood of emotions and feelings that it was impossible not to include it on the list. History. In my novels, of course, I have always tried to include the bright part that we all carry in addition to the shadows of the story.
literary subcategory
It can be said to be a literary subcategory within the black genre, which is the study of exceptional circumstances such as wars or epidemics. Investigating the causes of one death is controversial, with hundreds more occurring at any moment. Is one life more valuable than another? Or does all this serve to restore order in a time of chaos?
To exemplify this, Calderon lays out data for a particular day. “In the 24 hours of March 31, 2020, the blackest day in our recent history, 849 people died in Spain. The intensive care bed occupancy rate was 110 percent. There were no respirators, we did not touch each other, we did not know how the contamination was produced. Autopsy is prohibited. If someone died, the virus was always considered. Isn’t that an ideal scenario for sneaking in or camouflaging a murder?
Fuentes’ position in this case is another position to set up with a detective who doesn’t believe that “he should be responsible for maintaining order in environments of chaos”. It has enough to reveal the truth of what happened ». However, “In moments of emotional intensity, we see who and what we are better than in more routine periods. The pandemic has helped reveal the identity of the characters through their heroism and misery.
Trujillo said, “Of the few instances where the COVID-19 outbreak has reached the literature, many noir novel; This means that gender is flexible and knows how to adapt as a mirror (let us not forget that literature, like cinema, distorts mirrors)». Silva says, “It’s a consolation that in the midst of chaos, there is not so much order, but rather the perpetuation of humanity of trying to bring justice to a victim.” Because for Silva “any death, whatever the cause, is a world gone, and if death is caused by crime, it leaves a bit of additional pain in those who live close to it. While the scythe took thousands of lives, showing how one could investigate a single death was undoubtedly a challenge ».
And the big question: Is it necessary or important to record our experiences through fiction? The response from all of them is unanimous and strong. Eugenio Fuentes says, “I think he looks back and I think what happened with the pandemic affected us all for at least a few years. as all writing that respects cannot do without the materials they provide. to the story
Calderon is empathetic and believes that “forgetting would be a mistake because Do not accept the mistakes made and therefore not learning, not developing. The pandemic has revealed a dark side to some, but mostly it has made us better. It reminded us that we too are beings living in a relationship and that we form one. I don’t want to forget any of that.”
Trujillo said, “When we promoted The Forge of a Rebel, we were still wearing masks to talk to reporters. The drama was great. It directly affects half a million people, the family, who have lost loved ones forever. In my case, my mother died the day the alert was issued, and this is what happened to me. It was an invisible spark that made me want to write. Sharing my pain with other people was cathartic for me and allowed me to tell the story of Manuela Mauri and the pain she went through with the death of her best friend’s mother in the middle of the epidemic.
Silva also admits to us: Naomi died on her head“Mine eventually went away, probably due to a continuation of the disease she apparently had mildly contracted. And there are hundreds of thousands of bereaved Spaniards like us, and Spanish society is a large part of a generation to which we owe much of what we have today. If he chooses to turn his back on literature, comfort, anxiety or whatever, it risks becoming a vulgarity that doesn’t interest me much.”
Each creator needs his own time and circumstances. Frames cannot be forced. But trying to literally ignore an event that unanimously affected the entire world’s population is worth at least analyzing. Avoiding pain doesn’t make it go away, and we already have experience in our country about what silence can do to us as a society. I hope sooner or later novelist generation To record what’s in our hearts.
outside our borders
There are many different ways to describe a disaster. We can roll through disaster or focus on the most human and supportive part. The Covid-19 pandemic is in its infancy for literature.; Few of those who begin to describe it, and I suspect many do not want to read it yet. But it needs to be reflected in the novels. Fiction helps us better understand ourselves, bring our experiences down to earth, and absorb that whirlwind of emotion that few of us still keep locked inside of us.
Ana Paula Maia in de cada quincientos un alma (Eterna Cadencia, 2022) presents an apocalyptic world that is very different but very similar to exactly the one we live in. A disease devastates the population, and the dead do not stop multiplying. The heroes will discover a military vehicle that will cause them to suspect that a final solution has been accomplished: destroy the infected to destroy the virus. This exaggeration It serves as a repugnance to the reader to wonder whether this extreme situation is as far from reality as it might seem at first. Was public health a priority for all governments over economic well-being? If not, was it the wealth of the majority or the wealth of the privileged few?
Petros Márkaris chose the story format to shape his latest work, Cuarentena (Tusquets, 2022). Jaritos will have to overcome a challenge. close contact confinement addressing an issue that has plagued an infected person and millions of families: answering the question of whether they really know the person or persons with whom they have shared their life. He even goes a little further, talking about those who do not have a home to isolate themselves in the face of a health emergency. Reflecting the epidemic, choosing the friendly side, the supportive side. Even after years, the most painful part is the one that will be desired to be remembered without being forgotten.