The Eighty-six Tales of Quim Monzó is one of those books that one does not easily forget if he is lucky enough to read it in his younger years. It was my case. I couldn't have been more than seventeen or eighteen. Life kept the seal intact, Borges y Cortázar they did not exist, and the college lawn was the certainty of eternity. Beside me, collapsed on the green carpet of any given morning, good old yeye he took for saying that he was reading a book where a guy feeds on letters. Curiosity and questioning looks. She was telling the truth.
? 86 stories by Quim Monzó, review
More than a decade later, with life mutated into a bunch of questions and Argentines placed on their obvious pedestal, I have not hesitated to buy again one of the books that have marked me the most in the time I have been breathing: the eighty six stories Catalan, journalist, columnist for La Vanguardia and addicted to twitter Quim Monzo. For humanity and respect, el colorado compact pocket anagram he could no longer tolerate groping and amputation.
a book where a guy feeds on letters. Indeed, “he discovered that sans serifs were more digestible than avec serifs; that, of these, the égyptienne was the heaviest, so much so that, eaten before going to sleep, it produced insomnia or shuddering nightmares». The 86 stories of Quim Monzó contains the five volumes of stories ugh he said (1978) Olivetti, Moulinex, Chaffoteaux et Maury (1980) the island of mainans (1985) The because of the causes (1993) and Guadalajara (1996) and constitute one of the most notable exercises in the history of storytelling in Catalan and Spanish.
- Monzó, Quim (Author)
? 86 stories of fantasy and reality
The fantastic abounds, yes, but this book has little to do with JK Rowling. Despite the fact that in another story there is a man who, after orgasm, transforms into a parrot and goes to live in the tropical forest that his lover treasures between her breasts, fantasy is only the vehicle with which Monzó introduces us to his particular world of entanglements and misunderstandings. With Barcelona as the setting, scenes of extreme familiarity as the plot, and a background dominated by the human being, put in evidence. What we are talking about here is a test bed for human psychology.
Using a simple narrative filled with a twist or double twist, Monzó plays at putting miserable currents with ordinary ambitions who find themselves mired in unexpected quagmires on the table of everyday life.
unfortunate that, armed with a string of presumably immovable principles, they rethink their scale of values when fate or the simple arbitrariness of life shake their faith in their particular order of things: receiving sexual and unpleasant calls from an anonymous person only to discover, only when they have stopped, that they miss each other , or spotting the same woman in the cinema, bookstore and restaurant in the same afternoon.
Constant dilemma à la Monzó: what to do now?
Approach to three of the Eighty-six short stories by Quim Monzó:
- What should the one who wears 50 years writing the work of his life and discovers that the ink of the first volumes begins to erase?
- Why is a punctuality patient accustomed to showing up for appointments an hour in advance, able to hold out for up to three more hours before accepting that they have stood him up?
- When the man who never finished reading a book for fear that the ending would disappoint him Will you muster the courage to “stop putting off the final decision”?
? Cold deconstruction of the sorrows of life
Monzo has an interview great on JotDown where he defines himself as an asocial being who does not understand relationships between people, nor friendship and, let alone, happiness. His stories have something of this. They are a deconstruction of the usual scenes and roles that we are used to seeing in any type of fiction, and they present us with characters who do what they do without really knowing why they do it, more attentive to instinct than reason. And that is what endows them with humanity.
Insecure men, possessive women. Humiliated, sad and lonely beings who, removing their unavoidable truths, feel fear, want to be accepted and live in lies and discontent. Monzó moves despite the cold narration and analytical descriptions.
Each story tells us of illusions to fulfill, portraying the absurd and the grotesque to which we would all consider descending in order to get a little closer to what we think will make us happy:
“The head nurse looks at the clock. She is not doing well that a patient of hers has died at this time. She has a quarter of an hour to go, and today more than ever she is interested in leaving on time because she has finally managed to get her best friend's boyfriend to tell her to meet, with the excuse of talking, precisely, about her friend »
The section dedicated to love and passion is the best. Adulteries, marriages, one-night stands…all possible formulas are scrutinized by a realistic and ironic pen (and precisely regulated doses of humor) that transports the reader to an uncomfortable feeling of familiarity. Eighty-six stories, like any good book, does not provide any answer. The reader who confronts its pages only leaves them with more questions.
- Monzó, Quim (Author)
Quim Monzó, Eighty-six stories
Translation of Javier Cercas
Anagram, Barcelona 1999
500 pages | 10 euros