Loyalty to the ghost of Enrique Serna

Original language: español

Year of publication: 2022

Valuation: highly recommended

Any man, no matter how fascinating he may be, ends up becoming ridiculous because of his sexual desire.

This phrase by Yukio Mishima came painfully to my mind when I began to read the first story of “Loyalty to the Ghost”, a story that begins very much in the style of Serna: exposing in raw flesh the very mundane motivations with which we humans conduct ourselves. through life, or in the worst case, we let ourselves be led. The old trope of the teacher who fucks his student (the one who is free of sin…) takes an unexpected turn that may shock some (it even made me stop reading for a moment), or may spur others to continue. reading. In any case, he manages to take the reader out of that lethargy to which we often find ourselves plunged.

Following the same line, Serna continues to dissect the different circumstances that lead us to renounce this useless task of swimming against the current, resigning ourselves to letting ourselves be dragged placidly towards the inevitable collision with the rocks of depravity and ignominy. Whether they are implausible obsessions, base passions, or even the most vulgar boredom, they are more than enough reasons to start the wheel that will end up crushing us.

The longest story (it could well be a short novel), infamously titled “Grandma in Brama,” shows us a frustrated woman on the verge of old age, who has spent her entire life repressing her instincts and desires, kicking drowned in the deep waters of love and sexuality. And who would she end up getting involved with? Well, with a narcissistic and immature young man who could very well be her son, not only because of the age difference but also because of the constant game of control and transgression that keeps them united in a relationship destined for the most tragicomic. of failures.

Finally, Serna uses the idea of ​​the doppelganger to explore the masochistic impulse to self-destruct. Dissonant with the previous ones, the story that gives the book its title is a bad trip that cruelly reminds us that we are enslaved by our personal, generational, and even historical past.

If anything, the setting and language are very local, which could blur nuances (extremely important in a short text) for those who are not familiar. Still, the characters have enough complexity for us to feel embarrassingly identified with them.

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Below I leave a link so you can check out, in the writer’s words, a little more about this and other books by Enrique Serna, whom I had the opportunity to meet personally a few years ago, and again he was kind enough to give me some your time.