A book a day: César Sánchez: Shadow Catalog

Year of publication: 2024

Valoración: Between recommended and okay

We have an author who seems at least original. Mathematical training, he preferred to dedicate himself to literary, which is a notable trip and surely unpredictable consequences. In the book there is no trace of the origin of that journey but there can be traces of an abrupt break, which becomes the blanket to the head and start shooting without complexes.

Shadow catalog It is not a book of stories to use but a compilation that, proceeding from the same hand, has a certain seal, a definite but plural identity, a repertoire of materials that seem dispersed and sometimes want to form some type of unity. We believe to find her in the first measures, a child in her father’s wake, a mechanic by profession, perhaps also in the complicated delivery of electrical material for a work, in the young man who looks for her father in a bar, or in the character frustrated by her inability to be funny, until in a funeral virtues that remained hidden.

Sánchez exhibits a telegraph prose, with no more ornament than sarcasm always present, in a kind of proletarian literature infiltrated of everyday life, which has its reference in the neighborhood, the VPO, manual trades, perhaps the world of self -employed. Young people who, perhaps unlike their elders, already defeated by disappointment, still show some expectation of reaching something different. One has the feeling that all these episodes could be cuts of a more extensive narrative, as dispersed elements of something unfinished that could integrate these or similar characters, an urban story, more realistic than vindicative.

In this area they could also integrate a few pages in comic format that the text is offered by us, and that have a similar aroma. Because one of the most striking peculiarities of the book is the incorporation of diverse modalities, whether this of comic, a kind of technical brochure of the catalog that looks in the title, a kind of creative dictionary, or a quite long sex story I do not know if explicit or dirty, in my clearly expendable opinion. Let us admit that there is radicality, but also craving for transgression at all costs? Surely, although also a certain taste for the exhibition of records and, why not, a search for paths among which the author does not end up deciding.

I could have done it well, because where with a more shines it is in The surgeona very well developed story about a strange scientist who experiences in his basement with crazy hybridizations between humans, animals and diverse artifacts. Nothing extraordinary from the plot point of view, but perfectly assembled with sexual obsessions, a semi -conceived layer of reflections on relationships, and a disturbing science fiction environment, perhaps of the 50s. A story that is well worth the complete reading, or almost.

It will be necessary to see which of the roads César Sánchez decides to continue, or if you prefer to continue for the dispersion, perhaps it gives it up. Creativity is left over, and good hand to narrate too. We will put the magnifying glass and see what you can offer.

PD I can’t stop saying it: I had never had, nor had I probably seen even a book with a golden cover. Design and drawings, fun and relevant, by illustrator David Pérez, who also signs the internal comic. A success.