I love books that get the most mileage from the constructs/constraints they set for themselves and this is definitely one such book. ( )

Juan José Millás nos hace el favor de hacernos saber en la primera página de esta novela que su protagonista, un tal Damián Lobo, está totalmente loco. Hay muchísimos libros relatados en primera persona a cuyos protagonistas les faltan algunos ladrillos de la fachada, pero la innovación que presenta Millás es una ardid narrativa -- la cual no voy a describir aquí, aunque unos otros seguramente ya lo han descrito -- que funciona algo como una especie de doblaje. La historia se narra en el presente y en el pretérito perfecto simple más o menos a la misma vez. Esto crea un espacio donde Damián puede reflexionar acerca de sus acciones mientras las lleva a cabo, y da un cierto plus a un libro que, de cierto de punto de vista, tiene una trama más o menos sencilla y directa. A lo largo del libro -- y mientras los hechos relatados se vuelvan menos y menos probable -- el relato se profundiza y ciertas complejidades salen a la luz. Las líneas que separan lo real de lo obviamente falso y lo sano de lo fantasioso se van desdibujando, y varios personajes terminan creyendo en una serie de improbabilidades. Admito que no sé exactamente a cual propósito el autor se dirige. Como la familia a la que observamos en la novela es de una clase media alta que carece de cultura y de cierto tenor emocional, puede haber aquí una especie de comentario social, pero la presencia -- es decir, la locura -- del protagonista arrolla todo. Como muchos de esos libros antes mencionados, los cuales tienen un desquiciado como su único punto de referencia, "Desde la Sombra" te deja con cierto regusto de inquietud, algo que no siempre es tan placentero. Pero hay mucho que se puede rescatar aquí: la manera diestra en el cual el autor maneja la trama, las sutilezas que le da, y el impulso narrativo del libro hace que estas doscientas páginas valgan el tiempo que lleva leerlas. Este libro no le va cambiar la vida a nadie, pero indudablemente está bien hecho. ( )

Super bizarre book—I’m not sure what it all means, or how I’m supposed to interpret that ending. Is he about to die? Reveal to Lucía that he’s Ghost Butler? I find myself hoping for a happy ending for him, Lucía, and María. It would be a crazy, imaginative path for a character suffering from trauma and mental illness to follow in order to reach healing and a new life. That’s what I hope it is, rather than just the author trying to portray the mind of someone suffering from schizophrenia. Yeah, I’m going with the first idea.
I’m trying to think of who I would recommend it to—I guess someone who is looking for something really different. I’ve certainly never read a book like it. Damián, secretly living in a family’s house after being accidentally transported there in a wardrobe—that’s weird and creepy, yet I developed so much sympathy for him over the course of the book.
It didn’t take me long to read, but I’ll be thinking about it for a while. ( )

2.5 A little bizarre with some vague problematic content (incest?) that I still haven't come to terms with. But kind of like Kafka's Metamorphosis, it is largely symbolic and I just had to go with the premise put out there which is the main character Damian Lobo becomes a ghost without dying. He also has a very active inner life where he is the ongoing guest on a TV talk show and all his actions are accompanied by this inside-his-head dialogue. Yet, strangely he comes across as sane. The story trajectory: he is fired from his job and he ends up inside an old wardrobe at an antiques fair, which is carted off to the buyer's home without him being detected. There he builds an interior room where the wardrobe covers an old closet and essentially lives in the home like a parasite who does good deeds like tidying the house. He uses the teen daughter's computer to log on to supernatural forums, calling himself Ghost Butler where he meets the wife, Lucia who is trying to understand the changes in her household. Since the wardrobe used to belong to her grandparents, she attributes the "magic" to that. They strike up a friendship and between that and Damian's constant presence and proximity, he starts to fall in love with her. He also witnesses her husband (Fede) cheating on her and plans vengeance. However, in his life of hidden secrecy, he begins to feel less human, loses human needs to eat and sleep and kind of wastes away. From the book blurb: "From the Shadows is a book about alienation, loneliness, voyeurism, and the power of fantasy to transform claustrophobic, humdrum lives....it is an allegory that turns middle class comfort into a desert island." This makes it sound really good - if it were just a little less weird.... jury's still out. ( )

Març 2021