“This work that we are presenting today will not disappoint them”. This is what Max Fibló, multi-award winning writer, says in front of an expectant audience and in a room where there is not even a yawn. There haven’t been any empty chairs for two hours and the people who have remained standing hurry to put their elbows in a position of resistance, without the gesture seeming impolite. El Fibló presents The illusion lives in the attic, the latest novel by the multi-award winning Ferran Moncau. A presentation between friends, because Fibló and Moncau are close, as well as competitors, but they say, they say, they say they get along very well. “And they will not be disappointed, because it is just as loose as the previous ones; another box, well wrapped, in the bibliography of my friend Ferran”, adds Max.
The event was greeted with laughter and smiles in the room, aware of the sarcastic tone in Fiblo’s work, corrosion that he also practices in newspaper articles and radio talk shows. (Look what a face, Ferran! He’s disguising it, but he’s uncomfortable. I’m tired of always being valued more). Moncau sketches a smile like the Joker’s and glares at his friend (the friend?), as he waits for a change of rudder in the speech. But the wind blows the sails of the same corner and Philblo continues: “Don’t expect to find any spark of literature in these pages, not even in its primeval state. Everything is pure façade with a little more action than in other works, recurring characters and a bit of mystery, which wants to be from a Gothic novel, but which recalls the decorated peplum of B-series movies”.
Journalists look at each other, open their eyes and write with disdain. The critics sharpen their fangs and the public, between bewildered and amused, wiggles its asses in the chairs and widens the space of the elbows, as if a better understanding of what is happening depends on these gestures. (Ferran has always liked this intellectual pose, this way of putting his chin, as if he possessed an unattainable secret). El Fibló holds up the book and shows it as if it were a trophy: “You only need to see the title to predict what we will find in these pages: the dust that reigns in the attic, useless utensils, like the stories that are told”.
“Man, Max, maybe you’re doing it a bit too much”, interrupts Moncau, who says it in a low voice, because he still doesn’t know if he’s facing a surprise montage of this man who is next to him and which has always had more talent than him, but worse criticism and sales. If he was supposed to help him succeed after years of creative drought, right now he feels like he’s putting his hand on his head at the bottom of the pool. “Man, Ferran, to write this loofah you could have been silent for a few more years. Was this… novel needed?” The few photographers who didn’t have to leave – they are assigned more events than the Correcamins can cover – shoot right and wrong. “It seems like a lie for you to tell me that, friend Max. I always have to watch that your books don’t destroy my toes when they fall out of my hands in the first few pages.” Critics have Dracula’s fangs stained with blood. “The first chapter, Ferran, is full of clichés and commonplaces that make you vomit.” Readers write down the styrabots of one and conquer the thoughts of the other, according to preferences. “Perhaps you think that because you have witty, but empty sentences, and fill the airwaves with your nonsense, you are a first-rate intellectual, Max?”. “Ferran, do you think you are the Aristotle of the twenty-first century? Mi-te’l, the seven sciences, who has four critical baboons who are chained together in pretentious paragraphs, like this couple of licks”, and he points out from the stage two critics who are sworn to him.
The elbows, once respectful, seek the neighboring ribs. The two writers, until now soulmates, surrender their souls to the devil and clasp their hands in each other’s lapels. The photographers receive pushes from the attendees, who are now supporters ready to eliminate the opposite by pushing, clapping and the occasional punch, which there are always violent ones. Cell phones trying to record, screams of panic, general tuna and insults with variations (“You will always be a shitty writer”, “And you a shitty novelist”) of the two beasts of literature, which are breathlessly hurled and with liquors of blood and bile.
“This novel will kick it,” commented the editor-in-chief of the Ferran, away from the maelstrom. Max’s editor-in-chief, who is next to him, nods, as he thinks it will also boost his star’s sales. If it weren’t for the fact that the tables were loaded with canapés and drinks in the batussa and everything was destroyed, they would toast.
