Idioma original: English and Spanish
Translation: Hugo Camacho
Year of publication: 2017
Valuation: recommendable
Welcome to the bizarre It is an anthology that compiles stories by Anglo-Saxon and Spanish authors. These stories could be classified as bizarre, an original literary movement (I refuse to call it a genre) that has been on the rise for years and surprises with the imagination it exudes and the plot excesses it harbors.
In my opinion, the bizarre reaches its maximum potential when it functions as a cryptic allegory through which to reflect on current society. In this sense, pieces such as “The League of Zeros”, by Jeremy Robert Johnson, “Class Dynamics”, by D. Harlan Wilson, “Little Miss Ultrasound”, by Robert Deveraux, “There are a million ways to do Correct”, by Matthew Revert, or “Dildo Salesman at Home”, by Kevin L. Donihe, seem extremely vindictive to me.
The stories that I consider the weakest would be “The Night of the Chonies”, by Grant Wamack, “Exotic Dancer”, by Violet LeVoit, and “Mr. Plush, Detective”, by Garrett Cook. In them you can see promising scenes, images or intentions that, unfortunately, do not come to fruition satisfactorily.
In conclusion: despite its irregularity, I highly recommend this volume, although I understand that it is not for everyone. After all, there are profiles of readers who are less open to the iconoclastic, or whose tolerance for the absurd, the grotesque, the eschatological and the politically incorrect is not as high as mine.
Source: https://unlibroaldia.blogspot.com/2024/06/vvaa-bienvenidos-al-bizarro.html
