Idioma original: Español
Year of publication: 2023
Valuation: Alright?
I approached Those days at the end of that year by Álvaro Llamas with reluctance. I was interested in what I had read about this novel, but I didn’t know if it would win me over. After all, it had come from the pen of an author I hadn’t met beforehand (a first-timer, in fact) and it was considerably longer than I had anticipated (more than 270 pages!). Added to this was the fact that I would soon discover that it had a style that was too convoluted for my taste, prone to over-the-top vocabulary, long sentences and cultured references.
However, after a few pages of trial and error (which, I admit, were a bit of an uphill struggle), I ended up acclimatizing to Those days at the end of that yearHis prose, despite its long sentences and certain pedantic touch, was decidedly fluid; its length, although undeniably bulky, was easy to read. And what is more important: its difficult-to-assimilate elements are deliberate and essential for Llamas to convey what he wants to convey.
Even though I was aware of all this, I was unable to connect 100% with Those days at the end of that yearbecause there is something artificial in the transcendence of his reflections and in his indistinguishable voices. And I insist that I understand that this artificiality is deliberate. Llamas himself clarifies this, implicitly and explicitly, in the novel. For example, when a character states that “the style is the theme and the theme is the style,” or when the narrator-protagonist recognizes that “the notes I had been taking (…) extracted from my conversations with friends, all of them in the humorous tone in which they usually took place,” “adopted on the word processor (…) a rigidity and a gravity that I had not sought.”
But what is it about? Those days at the end of that year? Well, about a man who, in the midst of an existential, emotional and economic crisis, nostalgically recalls better times. Our protagonist also establishes fragile and sporadic relationships with friends and family while he decides to distance himself from his circle during Christmas.
So that Those days at the end of that year It is a character study that dissects its contradictory protagonist. But it is also a coming-of-age novel. And a demographic portrait of a precarious and frustrated generation in their forties or fifties who have no purpose, no future, and no children. And an autofiction loaded with small stories. And a literary artifact dense with ideas that meditates on melancholy, loneliness, identity, maturity, homosexuality, family, friendship, etc.
Summarizing: Those days at the end of that year This is a highly ambitious and personal first novel. Although I appreciated it (it has an artistic vocation, a desire for transcendence, sharp observations and rhetorical figures of astonishing precision, wit and plasticity), I found it heavy. This is because it is permeated with elements that are difficult to assimilate; and while it is true that these are deliberate and even essential for Llamas’ work to work, perhaps some of them should have been omitted and a little more thought should have been given to the reader.
Source: https://unlibroaldia.blogspot.com/2024/08/alvaro-llamas-esos-dias-finales-de.html
