A few weeks ago, Vargas Llosa wrote that journalism in France is almost as good as its literature. Sometimes there has also been a literary discussion, for example, through the memorable character he created in Antonio Tabucchi’s novel. Pereira continuesdirector of the cultural supplement of the newspaper Lisboa, who in the thirties of the last century was followed by a doorman about the Salazar dictatorship, or now, New novel by Julio Llamazares published by Alfaguara, vagalume.
There are notable cases of writers who are also journalists, such as García Márquez or Miguel Delibes. An intriguing novel by Italian journalist Nicola Pugliese was published last year, bad wateror that of Enrique Vila-Matas, Montevideobut on this occasion Julio Llamazares, just as here Pereira continuesAdapted for the cinema and starring Marcello Mastroiani, journalism becomes a narrative element to build the storyAs Llamazares shows us: A veteran journalist returns to a provincial town where he started his journalistic career at the newspaper where a colleague died, in which case a colleague who was also in charge of the cultural section died, where he unexpectedly discovers several novels written by him. friend of whom he was a follower in his early years as a journalist.
Julio Llamazares, a native of the state of Leon, is what we can call it. a complete writer in the sense of having written in almost all literary genresi.e. from narrative, poetry, screenplay, travel literature, or essay. Llamazares, who studied law and devoted himself to Journalism and Literature, published his first novel in 1985. full moonIt will be adapted into a movie in 1987.
wealth
The name of this novel vagalumeAlthough written in Spanish, it is a Galician word meaning firefly. The protagonist who dies from the very first pages of the narrative is the Galician journalist Manuel Castro, who writes by lamplight at night, hence the name vagalume by his family. One of the features and riches of Spain is undoubtedly its linguistic plurality, as can be understood from this word used to denote those bright insects at night in the Galician forests. Llamazares comes and asks us what it means to be vagalume.
Writing and reading in the strange hours of the night, Yet the narrator, a journalist, did not write for his novels. best sellers, but let’s just say that because of his literary passion, his vision for literature was not simply to sell books in bulk. Juan Cruz said in an interview with the author: “Literature is trivialized, commercial success seems to determine literary quality”.
During the narration, the protagonist recalls a sentence by Manuel Castro that says “the writer is the one who continues to write even if he hasn’t published”, these are the words between romance and asceticism, and Max Beerbohm’s already at the beginning. 20th century, in his story Enoch SoamesWhen the devil tempts a mediocre writer to travel to the future and find out if his work has actually been published and whether it is in libraries, he warns us of the arrogance of being published and recognized at all costs.
Mystery
Beginning the story with melancholy to capture the reader, the narrator encounters a mystery that eventually turns into the conflict of the narrative, which is when someone sends him a forgotten novel written by his friend and Days later, the widow discovers several literary manuscripts among the hero’s belongings.. Why was he doing it secretly? The narrator begins to pull the rope to reveal his friend’s hidden soul.
A technical element of the novel is a narrator by Nick Carraway, written by Francis Scott Fitzgerald. The Great GatsbyIn other words, one of the differences between Julio Llamazares’ novel and Tabucchi’s novel, which uses an anonymous narrator, was precisely the character who discovered a story and told it to us. Characterized by a clean language and a narrative rhythm that takes the reader’s hand to bring it to an end, the author tells us a seemingly simple story in which Llamazares has the ability to develop a narrative conflict where literature is a great human passion. your hero, that is, self-justification through vagalume.