Guadalajara

Guadalajara consists of a mixture of surreal, sometimes grotesque, and occasionally wickedly funny tales about the absurdities of everyday life and past and present customs. In the first story, "Family Life", a nine year old boy openly questions a longstanding family ritual on the eve of his ceremony, which leads to unexpected consequences. "Life Is So Short" concerns a chance meeting between a man and a woman who find themselves alone and attracted to each in a temporarily disabled elevator. In "Centripetal Force", a man is unable to leave his apartment on an ordinary day, and his subsequent attempts draw his girlfriend, neighbors and others into his plight.

Also included are several satirical tales about well known characters and stories. In "Gregor", a beetle is suddenly transformed into a boy; in "Outside the Gates of Troy" the Greeks within the Trojan horse are faced with an unexpected complication to their plan to enter the city; and "A Hunger and Thirst for Justice" concerns Robin Hood's attempts to rob the rich, who are increasingly bored by his exploits, and help the local peasants, who question his ethics and are unappreciative of his efforts.

I enjoyed this clever collection of stories, and I look forward to reading his novel Gasoline, which has also been recently published by Open Letter Press.

These are short, almost aphoristic short stories, done with wry and faintly surrealistic humor. The publicity, and the author himself, speak of humor -- but what, exactly, is this kind of humor? Why is this sort of writing regarded to highly? It reveals superficial absurdities, it deflates commonplace pretensions, it undermines ordinary expectations, it reveals everyday conventions. In other words, it does almost no interesting work. If all it takes to create insight is this kind of low-level, easily satisfied, almost rote sort of humor, then the stakes of interesting writing are very low.

One of my absolute favourite books. I bought the Norwegian translation because of the nice cover and had it sitting on my shelf for a few years before I read it, with no expectation whatsoever. What a surprise! These short stories range from the weird to the absurd, often playing on classic stories or literature, like the alternative version of the story about the Trojan Horse. Strange, memorable and brilliant!

Wonderful short stories.

Interesting short stories.

Buena colección de relatos, muchos de ellos impregnados de absurdo, melancolía y desazón. Destacables las historias "La literatura", "Estrategias", "Durante la guerra" y "Los libros". La traducción de Cercas es globalmente correcta, pero algunos pasajes contienen catalanismos o fórmulas literales que podían haber sido mejor construidas en castellano. Ameno.

La canción "Guadalajara" es el éxito invisible del cual nacen catorce relatos grotescos y afinados, apasionantes y febriles, que diseccionan el anima humana con un sutil bisturí narrativo.

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