A book a day: Antonio Ortuño: Vague ambition

Language: español

Year of publication: 2017

Valuation: between recommendable and very good (very fine line)

Book of short stories by the Mexican writer Antonio Ortuño that won a prestigious contest dedicated to this literary modality (in fact, the most prestigious in the Spanish language, I believe), we have to assume that with justice. It is not, of course, about acting as a jury a posteriori, but I can say that the level of the stories contained here is more than worthy, bordering on excellence, in some cases, so yes, we can think that the award was good granted.

It is assumed, on the other hand, that the stories contained in this slim volume of barely 120 pages (I suppose to adapt to the conditions of the contest in question) will have been carefully selected by the author and hence also the quality of the stories. be quite homogeneous. There are not many, half a dozen who, except for one of them, have in common the protagonist, a writer named Arturo Murray – perhaps or perhaps not a another self of the author – whom we find at different moments of his life and his literary activity. Or perhaps they are stories with different protagonists to which Ortuño has decided to give the same name, that doesn’t matter… So, in a drink of oil We find the boy Arturo spending the weekend at the home of a wealthy family, where his father has taken him with unclear intentions.

In The mirror knight The writer meets, at his mother’s funeral, with a cousin who had mistreated him as a child – the boy Arturo was not saved from troubles nor by his literary hobbies; in Fifth season Murray is hired, along with other Latin American writers, to collaborate on the script of an international epic series – the nod to Game of Thrones is more than evident -, while in The prince with a thousand enemies He carries out a tour of libraries and literary fairs in the provinces (of Mexican provinces, of course), offering us the assortment of anecdotes and peculiar characters that can be assumed. And what can a professional writer still need to do in the 21st century? Well it is clear: The Battle of Hastings It is about a literary workshop that our hero teaches, in the middle of a marital crisis and can be interpreted as a story about the impulse or itch to write.

The only story that does not have Arturo Murray as its protagonist is titled Disgusting Provocation and recreates a hypothetical meeting between Walter Benjamin and Bulgakov in 1926, in Moscow, outside the theater where a work by the latter was being performed. It has nothing to do with the rest of the stories, set in Mexico in contemporary times, except that the protagonists are also writers. That’s probably where the title of this collection of stories comes from, The vague ambitionwell It is known that writers are usually ambitious but lazier than a guard’s jacket It sums up quite well the irremediable but elusive feeling of that impulse that leads someone to start writing.

In any case, and since, as I have already explained, the quality of all the stories is quite remarkable, in general, in my opinion the first one stands out, a drink of oil as Fifth seasonone due to the discomfort that the author knows how to convey by describing an uncomfortable childhood experience, which ends up being traumatic and the other – it also happens with The prince with a thousand enemies– because of how fun and even hilarious it is, with the portrait it makes of the fauna, circumstances and miseries of both the literary and audiovisual worlds.

In short, a book of stories that makes you want to continue reading more things by this author and, therefore, it is an excellent letter of introduction for those who do not know him. That’s what, I believe, literary contests should be used for (and this one, in particular, has always stood out for that, as far as I know), and not – or not only – to be able to sell empty products, pay favors or promote those who don’t. you need it.