De Vlucht is een goede titel. De lezer wordt niet verteld waarom. De naam van de jongen en een herder worden niet genoemd. Het gaat om overleven op de aride vlakte in Spanje. Het vinden van eten, drinken en beschutting. Dieren zijn belangrijk. De jongen leert. Een iets te hoog gehalte aan: 'Maar het lukt.' Goede taal. Niet een boek om achter elkaar uit te lezen.

The Flight is a good title. The reader is not told why. The name of the boy and a shepherd are not mentioned. It is about survival on the arid plains in Spain. Finding food, drink and shelter. Animals are important. The boy is learning. A little too much of, "They survived". Good language.Not a book to read back-to-back from beginning to end ( )

Un niño escapado de casa escucha, agazapado en el fondo de su escondrijo, los gritos de los hombres que lo buscan. Cuando la partida pasa, lo que queda ante él es una llanura infinita y árida que deberá atravesar si quiere alejarse definitivamente de aquello que le ha hecho huir. Una noche, sus pasos se cruzan con los de un viejo cabrero y, a partir de ese momento, ya nada será igual para ninguno de los dos.

My girlfriend wouldn’t have got past page one, the hanging dog. I mention this because if you’re the sort of person that wouldn’t get past page one you’ll regret buying the book and I don’t want to mislead anyone. If you’re not fazed by that and worse then it’s a good read about finding some humanity in a violent world.

This graphic novel adaptation of ‘Out In The Open’ opens, like ‘East Of Eden’, with a description of the landscape in which the story takes place. ‘The town was built on the bed of a broad gully down which water had flowed at some point. Now it was just a long hollow in the middle of an endless plain.’ The original novel doesn’t open like this (I checked), so clearly, writer Jesús Carrasco isn’t following it exactly, though he does begin the actual story with the same scene, the boy hiding in a hole and listening to his pursuers.

They include his father and the sheriff. His father beat him regularly but no doubt pretended to the town that he was terribly missed. The sheriff…well, you’ll see. The boy has no food or water and the only escape route is across a baking hot plain. Fortunately, he finds a wise and kindly old goatherd who is going that way and helps him. Unfortunately, his pursuers don’t give up. Meanwhile, in his dreams, he remembers the terrible past.

Javi Rey’s art is rendered in an attractive linear style decorated with faded pastel colours and seems perfectly suited to the material. His storytelling is clear and vivid. The boy’s nightmares are painted with a more limited palette, mostly one colour, to distinguish them from the rest of the book. The story is terrific but there are brutal scenes. Mind you, each is limited to a panel. This is not a gore-fest but a short, sharp shock. It’s nowhere near as violent as the average Judge Dredd story but that’s cartoon violence and doesn’t feel real. The true-to-life nature of this story makes it harder to take. For all that, I must emphasise that there are humanity and hope as well.

The story takes place in an unnamed country and unspecified time. Although it features a motorised vehicle there are no SF trappings and the general look is primitive. The townsfolk go to mass and the landscape is barren and dry so for me it was Mexico.

I hope someone films it. Thanks to Javi Rey’s striking art, I can easily visualise’ Out In The Open’ as a spaghetti western from Sergio Leone with music by Ennio Morricone. I see Jack Elam as the boy’s brutish father, Lee Van Cleef as the evil Sheriff and Spencer Tracy as the wise, grizzled old man. Unfortunately, I think all these people have moved on to that great cinema in the sky and I don’t know enough about modern film to cast it otherwise.

Recommended as long as you’re not of a too sensitive disposition, though if four or five panels don’t make you feel a bit ill then you’re of a too brutish disposition and possibly a psychopath.

Eamonn Murphy ( )

Breu relat, intens, descarnat i encisador. Des de l'inici al final no pots deixar de llegir-lo, t'atrapa i vols continuar per saber el què i el com de l'infant recargolat i amagat dins un clot a terra, cobert de branques, respirant pausadament per no delatar el seu amagatall, davant la patrulla que l'estar cercant. Per què s'amaga,de qui fuig?
Descripció d'un paisatge desèrtic, abandonat, deixat de la mà de Déu i dels homes. I entremig de tanta desolació un infant desprotegit al qual n´hi ha passat alguna de molt grossa.
Recopilatori de mots arcaics de la vida rural, els termes utilitzats per l'infant i el cabrer segur que han desaparegut del repertori dels parlants en extingir-se la forma de vida que la història ens presenta.
Relacions distants i fredes entre els personatges, acuirassats i fets a la mida del paisatge que els abriga. Una meravella de relat. ( )

Novela breve, con claras referencias de Delibes pero que, no sé por qué, por momentos me ha recordado a las películas del Oeste de Clint Eastwood, sobre todo hacia el final. Durísimo escenario, una historia terrible que solo aumenta su truculencia, porque desde muy pronto el lector ya intuye por qué el protagonista huye de su casa y se esconde como un animal (también, más que buscarle, le cazan como a un animal). Muy pocos personajes, todos masculinos salvo alguna referencia breve a la madre. Pero no sé si el indudable impacto que este relato deja en el lector es fruto más de todo eso (paisaje, historia, acción concentrada, diálogos muy escasos) que de fuerza literaria real. Claro que todo lo anterior también es "fuerza literaria", sea lo que sea eso. Por cierto, que está lleno de trucos editoriales para hacer pasar por novela lo que no deja de ser un cuento largo: tipografía generosa, amplios márgenes e interlineados y hasta una anchura del libro menor de lo normal hasta ahora. ( )