Let’s go ahead from the beginning and propose a first block that we could name with something along the lines of “immeasurable ambition.” In Wellness (DNA of Novels), omnivorous and with a frankly impressive muscle, Nathan Hill starts from the concept of “well-being” of the title to point to the center of our affective needs and emotional vulnerabilities with narrative ingenuity, reflective acuity and malicious humor. Rebecca Makkai shows identical virtues in I have some questions for you / Vull fer-te some questions (Sexto Piso/Edicions del Periscopi), although she focuses on the current context of feminist mobilization (Me Too, cancel culture… ), the perversions linked to social networks and the fever for detective amateurism derived from the true crime phenomenon.
Another possible section would be that of “men in a meditative maturity”, which would undoubtedly be chaired by Paul Auster with Baumgartner (Seix Barral/Edicions 62), a portrait of a widowed professor who reviews his existence, marked by the deep love for his wife. , and that is doubly exciting given that, between vital lesson and vital lesson, it radiates the aroma of farewell (to writing and to life). In his most recent book, The Friends of My Life (Salamandra), the Lebanese-born writer Hisham Matar – endowed with an extraordinary talent for breaking the barriers of the ineffable – addresses, with his characteristic warmth and insight, the nature of friendship. , their offerings and their challenges, the way time and the evolution of character tests them.
Although Haruki Murakami is a planet apart, the narrator of his latest dream/fantasy/Carrollian burrow, The city and its uncertain walls / La ciutat i les seves muralles incertes (Tusquets/Empúries), also lives to a certain extent imprisoned in deep musings, Of course, in their case more metaphysical since they involve unicorns, ghosts and talking shadows.
The third block has at its center “women who, sooner or later, find themselves.” The inspiration for all of them in the physical world could have been Mileva Einstein, one of the first European women to study physics, and a brilliant mathematician, who was separated from the academic world by marrying and having children with Albert. The Croatian author Slavenka Drakulic novels her figure in Mileva Einstein, theory of sadness (Gutenberg Galaxy). The inspiration for all of them in the fictional world could have been Hagar Shipley, one of the most beloved characters in Canadian literature, created by Margaret Laurence in her novel The Stone Angel (Asteroid Books), from 1964. At ninety years old, It retains a volcanic personality and remembers the fight for independence that has defined its almost extinct time on Earth.
No fewer obstacles must be overcome by Patricia, the heroine of The Divorcee (Gatopardo Ediciones) by Ursula Parrott, a scandalous novel when it was published in 1929 for its portrait of free (and hedonistic) verse in a suffocating patriarchal context. Pay attention to the reflection: “freedom for women turned out to be the greatest gift that God gave to men.”
Sometimes a foreign place or a unique geography helps decisively in this process of self-discovery or existential unlocking, this factor of spiritual renewal through a new environment brings together three great novels. Meters per second (Nordic) by Stine Pilgaard, Danish Booksellers Award, where a young journalist who has just become a mother settles with her partner in western Jutland, a territory of Martian social relations; All eyes (Infinite Doll) by Isobel English, a gem from 1956 in which a woman who has consistently felt out of place will find on a trip to Ibiza the key to unravel her past and propel herself confidently towards the future, and Nadar ( Periférica) by Marianne Apostolides, in which the lengths that Kat will do in the natural pools that form under six small waterfalls in the Greek town of Lutrá – her father’s homeland – will guide her towards decision-making in her current crisis matrimonial.
Another who returns to her roots is Hatoko Amemiya, the owner of La papelería Tsubaki / La papereria Tsubaki (Navona), located in her grandmother’s coastal town, a business that offers a writing service. Ito Ogawa writes a delicate story about the power of correspondence and its rituals to connect with others.
As a farewell, an express section dedicated to “Hooligans”, with three titles for heterodox, playful readers who want to be shaken and made to laugh. McGlue (Alfaguara / Angle), Ottessa Moshfegh’s debut film, where a cheating, dipsomaniacal, amorous and possible murderer tells us what he is doing detained in the hold of a ship docked in the port of Salem in 1851; The Future Future (Anagram) by Adam Thirlwell, an anachronistic, digressive and very crazy trip to Paris in the 18th century, where the unhappy Céline will react to some slanderous anonymous pamphlets with the orchestration of a wild fiction around her person, and Dr. No (From Conatus/Angle), another brilliant joke by Percival Everett, a parody of spy novels that acts as a distorting mirror of several of the absurdities that surround us.
