Novelist Juan Tallón said, “When I read Jacobo Bergareche, I want to write sentences for the covers of his books.” That’s not the only thing. But what really makes you want to do it is to ask questions about yourself, to investigate your daily life, to question the choice of paths that is all life. The weight of the past. The real challenge is the bubble of routine that surrounds us and needs to be broken out of.
After the success of Perfect Days (Libros del Asteroide, 2021), a novel translated into 10 languages that tells the story of Luis, a journalist tired of his marriage and his job, who decides to attend a conference in Texas. Now comes Veda, the excuse to meet a woman, short, condensed and very well written. With bits of humor mixed with understated seriousness. Energetic. Diego and Claudia are preparing a party at their home in Menorca. A few days ago, while taking a walk with his wife, Diego encounters an American woman in a cafeteria whom he met at a festival in the USA, and they experience a carousel of music, sex, drugs, complicity and affection. One week. He hasn’t seen her in 20 years; It helped him get over an event that upset him. He wants to be closer to that woman whom time has consumed, but he does not want to reveal himself to Claudia. Make a plan to see him again later. He never knew his name.
Bergareche (London, 1976), a screenwriter, audiovisual producer and also a writer of children’s stories, explores in this novel the caliber of past relationships and how they affect the present. It also touches on decisions, with the characters ignoring Bertrand Russell, who said that reconsidering a decision is one of the main sources of unhappiness.
History is an example of how nirvana is conquered, lost, missed, and how traditions influence us. It doesn’t matter that some events in the work are somehow predictable, because reading surrounds us, isolates us from reality, teaches us and forces us to think about whatever is inside us (dissatisfaction?). And a literary skill: to gradually change the perception of some characters’ heads. Our hero is very successful. He has it all (it would be very interesting to list or dissect “everything”, which we usually understand to consist of a well-paying job, a stable marriage, children, real estate, and a good car). He is not bored but his life is not exciting, he is serious but has a tendency towards botaratism.
Particularly successful, though less poetic, are the pages in which Diego, stimulated by Claudia’s calls, recklessly wanders around the harbor with the idea of pending chores and duties, while contemplating how to see that woman. person who met twenty years ago. Humor and tenderness. Paralyzing or activating inner monologues. Of course, Diego manages to see that woman, we are not giving spoilers, but there are surprises. The past does not return, or if it does, it is idealized. On this occasion, that past bears the name of a woman from the United States who was not alone. Bergareche himself, who began studying Fine Arts in Madrid, had a wonderful season of development in literature in that country. Boston This past comes from the United States, yes, as it could from anywhere else; It comes in the form of a memory of one’s own youth and dreams. The dilemma is this: He has triumphed over conventional and crude rules, but perhaps not against himself.
The novel is read with great pleasure and the reader wants to know more about this woman, to learn about that festival 20 years ago, to get the information distributed to us. This mixture of clear memory but scattered feelings that the protagonist has is effectively conveyed.
Bergareche has a readership not only in Spain but also in the future, who will eagerly await his new books. There are no gimmicks and good material: a story and crafted prose. It’s one of those books where the characters stay with you for a long time. Characters that may carry something from you, but that you can also hold very close to yourself by observing the vital example of those around us. There is no morality. Yes, great advice, repeated in the book: goodbyes, always, always, very short.