A book a day: Juan Bas: Alacranes in his ink

Original Language: castellano

Year of publication: 2002

Valoración: Recommended

I do not know if it can be an unconscious psychological need or, most likely, simple chance, but lately I carry several humorous cutting readings, which is quite uninhabitual. But the truth is that I am having enough luck, or my smell is working surprisingly well. Juan Bas only knew for some article and small flashes that he regularly publishes in the press, that kind of aphorisms that I have already said that I do not like almost anything, and I was curious about what this author could give this author to write something of more packaging. And the truth is that he has published a more extensive work than he believed, in which Alacranes in its ink It is the first of a kind of trilogy whose two subsequent stories are already published in ULAD (see below).

I was afraid, I have to confess it, face this book after having read those two reviews. I was waiting for something very long round, because it doesn’t seem to be someone who bites precisely the tongue. As perhaps someone also knows, I do not feel too fancy excesses in a book, and there are indeed, but we go in parts.

The truth is that it cannot be said that it is completely from a humorous story. There is humor, of course, acid humor, corrosive, fat salt in abundance, hurtful and uncomplexed sarcasm. Almost everything put in the mouth of Pacho Murgaa manual pijo, confused because his father, already to the bun of everything, has left him with a modestite assignment that barely comes to the ration of oysters and the whiskeys of Glenmarangie. It would be said that Juan Bas frequently discharges through the mouth of It is The bad drool that is surely that of the author himself. Darts that almost frequently stand on the popular icons of Basque nationalism, such as Olentzero* (‘Drunk Carbon’ o ‘Autistic Aldeano rescued from the mythology of a lost Valley of the deep guipúzcoa, is worth the pleonasm’) O Marijaia ** (‘frightening transvestite that officiates of totem of the frightening big week of Fiestas de Bilbao’), But also about Franco himself, in this great description: ‘An antipathic old, a small turtle for soup and a ridiculous voice, capado’.

Franco, in effect, has his role in the story, as a goal of a rocambolesco attempt to poison him, urged by a group of protoetarras. This episode, mounted in a framed story format, triggers a second part of the narrative, which could be defined as black novel, full of plans to kill and deep grudges that do not dissipate over the years. The humor, while presenting, goes to the background, and Bas enjoys inventing crazy adventures to materialize an unnegotiable revenge.

On the way we discover the talent to set up a crazy but coherent narrative, and also the characteristic tics of the Bilbao author. Bilbainism is one of its defining notes, with their pros and cons: he will enjoy seeing the characters in known streets and bars, in the environments that are familiar to us, although the foreigners will cost them more to identify their true character. The satire is ruthless and we could say universal, because no one is safe. But Bas is also quite a beast, it robes the sordid looking for the most brutal contrasts, and it must be recognized that sometimes it is stopped, stirring in ugliness and in sex branches that would hardly fit in the concept of dirty realism. But it must also be said that, at least as far as this book is concerned, the incursions into these submundos are not abusive, and work well in that hybrid of thriller, iconoclasty and comic scatter, generally well balanced.

* Olentzero is a kind of Basque Noel Pope, a coal that brings gifts for Christmas

** Marijaia is a female figure that embodies the festive spirit of the Main week of Bilbao

Also by Juan Bas reviewed in Ulad: Voracity, Oysters for Dimitri