A better place by Pedro Ugarte

Original Language: Español

Year of publication: 2024

Valoración: It’s very nice

That Pedro Ugarte is one of the best Spanish storytellers of the last twenty -five years is something that should be out of any doubt. With A better place It corroborates that statement and also shows that it is in full form.

Those who already know the work of Bilbao will find in this collection of stories some of the constants that travel their career: their predilection for current characters (so many jorges) and everyday stories, their humor throwing black, their hopeless hope or hopeless hope, its form To see life, love relationships or personal relationships, the world of work, etc. But what distinguishes him from his previous work (or, at least, from what I have read of it) is that A better place It is a darker book. In fact, I would say that he is the most Hoolebecquiano of his books, something like his particular Annihilation.

A couple of examples of the above would be these two quotes:

“My hope was now reduced to spending an intimate afternoon and collection”

“Time spray memory, hardly leaves useless crumbs”

Grouped into four thematic blocks, although all of them forming a unit, the texts of A better place They talk about how the affections, of solitudes that try to break through ephemeral hopes, of latest opportunities, impostures and cynicisms, families and loves, etc. are built and undone. And to tell us about all this, Ugarte opts, as he has done throughout his literary career, for everyday life (if I am not mistaken, I think that in previous reviews I defined him as a chronicler of everyday life). We will not find in this volume blows of effects, surprise ends or tricks of illusionist. Only life and its pathetic and strange realities passing.

Four are the stories that I would like to highlight:

1. We were so happy: A very Tolstoyan beginning (from the Tolstoy of Anna Karenina) gives way to a text, at the same time, cruel and melancholic about the materials of which happiness is made. A TREATY ON TIME (Bars that change their name, workshops that close forever …) which serves as a gateway to a volume of what is a representative sample
2. Balada de Rowena Trevanion: It is perhaps the deepest story, with a ruthless vision of the world of work, although not exempt from a certain poetic. Cinism and loneliness in its purest form, between fears and tedians.
3. A better place: A magnificent starting point (how important is a good first sentence that grabs you from the neck!) Gives way to a text about wasteful lives and hopes that last what the journey lasts between two subway stations that leaves the reader with a “silly” smile.
4. Teeth, caresses, August: My favorite story, perhaps because it is the most metaphorical and the most open final. Affects, responsibilities, family … with a 13 -year -old girl and a nice kitten in between.

I don’t roll up anymore. Better Pedro himself who speaks to you A better place and of the rest of his work. Here the talk we have had with him.