The first time I saw a ghost

Language: español

Year of publication: 2018

Valoración: between recommended and okay

I confess not to know much about Ecuadorian literature and what I know is limited to a few current writers (Mónica Ojeda, María Fernanda Ampuero, Natalia García Freire), excellent and that cultivate a literature that, although it cannot be fully attached to the genre of terror, it is quite disturbing (as little). To this trio of names I can now add that of Solange Rodríguez Pappe, which in 2018 published this book of stories, several of which would enter, in this case, within the premises of the genre, even in its supernatural aspect. That does not mean that all stories include this ultra -terrain component, but perhaps not by chance, several of the best, according to my taste. It would be the first, Breakfast timein which he tells us the day to day in a limital space that we could identify with one of those that awaits us, according to the Christian religion, beyond death -another thing is what it is … or whether it is about this and not something different, but equally desolate; The uncomfortable story that Olivia told her birthdayin which humor combines perfectly with the spooky; The tiesan effective story about superstition, curses and how to avoid them and the story that gives title to the volume, The first time I saw a ghostthat deals precisely about that -or perhaps not and it is the narrator who becomes a ghost in life -after a story that we could consider a noir hopeless. Also the supernatural is the ultimate reason for A Sunday walkalthough, in my opinion, the level of this story is a bit below the previous ones, even though it also responds to a remarkable idea. Something similar happens with Women’s blurred snapshota micro -reference that recreates the vampiric myth.

An element not so much supernatural, but fantastic or, in some cases, dystopic, is what we find in the stories Killerabout a family formed by a mother, her daughter and a cat, who try to fit into a new address; A man in my bedromantic-fouturist dystopia that with a global heating background and complicated personal relationships; Confetti in heavenwhich already directly tells us the night of the end of the world, from the perspective of a woman who lives in a Latin American city and the most surrealists Domestic funeral y Small little women (The latter deals with, precisely that, a colony of tiny women, somewhat wild, living under the house of the narrator’s parents). PalateOn the other hand, it does not have that fantastic touch, but Macabro – or not – and the protagonist, as in many of the other stories, is a Latin American woman, in this case married to a gringo who likes to explore exotic gastronomies. Finally, to mention three other stories – very much, in reality – that move away from the parameters that I have mentioned and that we can almost consider more literary exercises than narratives with all their sacraments: Lovers conversation, Story before going to bed y Loaded gun. The latter, which is the most extensive and also, I think, the best of the three, is more interesting, in addition, because it is an ironically metaliterary exercise -yes, the title’s gun would be the famous “Chéjov gun” -; In any case, it is a story at the height of the best in the book.

The feeling that leaves reading this collection of stories is something ambivalent: very satisfactory in the case of the first stories that I have mentioned, something less in the latter. But, above all, the idea of ​​a type of attached narration – although not at all, or not always – to the fantastic, but that leaves a more bittersweet, melancholic aftertaste, even, that most of the literature we can consider of this genre. In any case, they want to continue reading the narrative of this author, be they stories (which I think is what has cultivated the most) or novel, one more name to add to the magnificent and extensive list of Latin American writers who are giving us this time in which we live.