A book a day: Gustavo Rodríguez: one hundred guinea pigs

Original Language: castellano

Year of publication: 2023

Valoración: Recommended

It is easy to empathize with vulnerable characters, for using the fashion word. Therefore, the stories around the elderly and children have, among others, the risk of falling into the ñoñía or condescension, or sliding towards the tear, all of them who in my opinion lead to the book to a safe failure. You have to do it very well to escape all this at the same time that there are interesting issues about these groups and characters that really have something to contribute are drawn.

The conductive thread of One hundred guinea pigs It constitutes it Eufrasiaa mature woman whose occupation consists of the care of the elderly. He accompanies them at home, shortly after also in a residence, in a laborious multi -employment with long trajectories in which he establishes a strong link with his clients. But although Eufrasia It is almost always on stage, it is more than the protagonist, because the absolute protagonist of the novel is old age: very different types of elderly, the lonely widow with mobility problems, the old surfist, the elegant woman and the world, the modest poet, the eastern severe always faithful to its origin. Very different, yes, but marked without remedy for the advanced age that makes them homogeneous above sex, origin or personality: physical decline, sometimes also mental, the aches are poorly fought with pills and above all, the unwavering conscience that death is very close, that the story ends and the slope towards the end is accelerated and irremediable.

All of them, away from families and with the payroll of friendships increasingly trimmed, arise, as I imagine anyone will at those levels, the possibility of a worthy farewell, to terminate the route without waiting for nature to make it longer and more painful than necessary. We are talking clearly is of euthanasia in its broadest sense, put the end point voluntarily when everything is already said and lived.

The book raises it very directly, perhaps too direct because it leaves little margin from very soon. And apparently it does not open to the debate, because who can deny someone the right to lower their own blind when no one harms it? Who is capable of forcing to continue fighting and suffering deterioration, loneliness, helplessness? How can a conscious and cold decision be condemned to finish a ordeal that will always be more and more painful? It would be said that somehow the author refuses the conflict and, if perhaps, leave the reader the responsibility of seeking an antithesis.

It is true that the story always presents an ideal situation. The elderly are in full use of their faculties, nothing ties them to life, they feel free and even jubilant to end in an honorable, painless way and to a funny point, circumstances that in the real world do not converge with such ease. But it is a hypothesis to raise reflection. And in addition the author does it impeccably, without abusing emotion, with simple elegance that fills all situations naturally.

Perhaps the narrative technique is a bit below the style. As I said before, everything seems quite obvious almost from the beginning, and an issue that despite everything is still so delicate, is raised almost idyllic, to resolve in a somewhat weak and evasive way. But it doesn’t matter too much. The important thing is that the book is read in a pleasant way thanks to the kindness and good taste that it maintains at all times, and especially because it leaves, clearly, those fundamental questions that should prevent prejudging behaviors that at some point may seem terrible, but that maybe, sooner or later, they can present themselves in our horizon.