That Ribadesella was going to be part of the set of a western is something that none of its neighbors would have ever imagined. Jon Bilbao made it possible a few years ago with Basilisco (Impedimenta) and he does it again with his sequel, Araña, which hits bookstores by the same publisher and was recently presented at the BCNegra festival.
Readers will be able to meet familiar characters in the author’s literary universe, such as the married couple —now an ex-partner— formed by Katharina and Jon or the reclusive gunslinger John Dunbar, alias Basilisk, who in this sequel has become the guide of a group of pilgrims seeking the Paradise of Men, a promised land reserved only for men.
“Martin Grouard is an enlightened man who is preaching around the world that he will go to a kind of Eden. He also appeals to a superior and divine authority, as he says that some nights a light appears to him in dreams that indicates the men who can accompany him to said place. And he seems a bit like current politics as many believe him and follow him like sheep. They don’t even know how to defend themselves and that’s why they need to have someone like John Dunbar in front of them, to guide and protect them”, Bilbao advances to La Vanguardia, who admits that “for me, paradise has nothing to do with heaven.” Eden. It is something quite similar to the life that I have if I think about it coldly. That the people around me are healthy and happy and that I can dedicate myself to what I want”.
In this journey of men that he recounts in his book, it is striking that a woman participates, Lucrecia, with whom Dunbar will establish a relationship. “For me she is one of my favorite characters,” admits the author. “Both she and the gunman know that they are different from the group and hence that connection. In addition, it also allows me to show another facet of this protagonist, more human and that brings us closer to what the Wild West really was.”
In this sense, as the writer laments, “most of the images that come to mind when we think of the Far West are archetypal and narrative constructs, most of which are the result of cinema. Looking for documentation for my books I have realized that the images we have about that time are generalizations and exaggerations of quite isolated events. Everything was much dirtier, sadder and more peaceful and not so exaggeratedly masculine, because women also had their role. Clint Eastwood’s movies have done a lot of damage to masculinity and gender, as has popular literature. I mean the little novels that our grandparents read, which I think have done the genre no favors. They have brought it closer to the people, it is true, but at the cost of standardizing it”.
However, he acknowledges, “things are changing and the seams of the western have widened to the point of being able to set it at any time and place in the world, like Ribadesella. You cannot tell a story of Romans in another geographical and temporal space than that of the Romans. However, there are science fiction movies that are western stories. This is a success.”
But the trick to reach more and more readers is clear to Bilbao: “Telling stories that start from the everyday and that step by step lead the characters to behave in an unpredictable way. Readers feel identified in this way, so that they end up wondering what they would do when the time came. It is important that the surprise of the characters is shared with the readers and that the two go hand in hand, ”he concludes.
