No messages, no science, nothing. Borja Bagunyà’s Social Image

Blind spots By Borja Bagunyà (Barcelona, ​​1982) is one of those books that generates so much positive expectations that it comes out with criticism made, with practically enforced consensus and the risk of overvaluation. As in his books (Trapology He wrote it with Max Pisora ​​and this now) likes to highlight the flaws of Catalan culture, and this is one of them, I dare to write it here.

Pagonia is a highly respected personality, university professor, promoter of Blume School of Literature, and author of two wonderful story books: Self-defense (2007) and Indoor plants (2011). The novel is thick, ambitious, humanitarian and puts literature at the center. It came preceded by the buzz surrounding the necessary and great books.

The starting point, the misfortune of the university, was reflected in a lengthy explanation of how the professor was elected, and the official opening of the session with Batum From Spanish literature on Catalonia, it is not particularly interesting to have discontent pebbles, like corkscrew crumbs floating in wine. But Bajunia knows how to turn the traumas and weaknesses of his character, the defeated aspiration, Anthony Morella, into an observatory of the world’s miseries. Then, when he introduced the girl’s character, Sesé, a Can Ruti gynecologist, the book reached heights.

Nullity represents the two sides of the coin that bought illusions and principles: the crisis of the human sciences, “the verbal fatal death between the educators’ lobby and the decerebrat de l’empresa ”, and the bureaucracy and fear of grievances that stifle scientific knowledge and threaten good practices in the hospital. One stuck to the other, representing daily routines and despair. It’s an empty and mean environment, described by the prose that surrounds you like a monster biting you with bursts of wonderful ideas exposed in tiny prose. With great secondary characters, such as an old school teacher, Boro Grappolosa or Sesé President, Santoro, a leader brutally exposed, through reduced strength and indolence.

The image of the night watchman in Can Rotteri, I found it a lesson in narrative realism, without the letters Krum

The image of the box-keeper Rottie at dawn seemed to me a lesson in narrative realism, without simplifications or chrome figures: each one had their perfect individual personality. The intimate relationship between Morell and Sesé leaves great shots. On the night he is on duty, the woman thinks he wants her to be different: less free. We also remember the pyrite ring, a gift from a patient that Morel wouldn’t accept in the simple dining room.

Of the two major whales (its creative failure, its awareness of a series of distorted births), the second has more personality and is the nerve of the book. There is some imbalance between the two. The character of Olof’s nephew, nephew of Muriel who is victorious in the USA, and who spends a short time in Barcelona, ​​sews it efficiently. The topic of disease and dental care is a great metaphor for rotting everything.

The novel is riddled with brutal wounds, from the deformation of newborns to the scars that a beggar in Barcelona has shown. “El cos no passa de carne picada, te l’has de fer teu,” says Olof Far, author of one of the phrases in the book: “How is this odieu la joventut?” Well written, obsessed with exploring invisible corners, hyperbolic: Cultural Apocalypse gave a work of art.

Burga Bajunia

Blind spotsPreCopy. 491 pages. 19.90 euros