thank you and thank you very much

During these years, Uclés gained wide fame, was the subject of controversy, was present in countless circles and created a unique personal image. In the new novel, City of dead lightsconfirms the persistence of an aesthetic that combines historical references and free invention. Some continue to adhere to what has been classified with little propriety as magical realism.

City of dead lights if we begin with a prologue in which the one who most sought a precedent for the commercial phenomenon, Carlos Ruiz Zafonhead to New York, there are jamming signals at sea and observe dark skies approaching the capital of Europe. The “huge” ship that loads the expiatory temple of the Sagrada Familia heads into the city and according to the alarm someone who looks like Gaudí: Barcelona is dying y “total darkness rodeo town”.

It is a communication of the central motif of the Uclés fable, realized through the title of the book: the city from which the light disappeared. For this Barcelona in Tinieblas we present a large number of characters, 74, which appear in the preliminary index of the book.

It is a colorful collection of names accompanied by caliphic messages. Most often they are: the “anizer” García Lorca, the photographer Cortázar, the playwright Bolaño, the Egyptian Terenci Moix, the dying Gil de Biedma, the magician García Márquez, the detective Vázquez Montalbán, the alien Eduardo Mendoza, the little girl Matute, the promising Rosalía… The others are defined by their actual activity: the poet Machado, the soprano Caballé, the doctor Marañón…

Most of them belong to the world of art and culture, but there is also someone from another field (athlete Fermin Cacho) and including one proceeds from fiction (el “ayudante” Biscúter). Tienen presence escasa, safe Carmen Laforet. Presented in an evocative mix of biography and fiction (she lives with her parents, like Andrea, the protagonist Nadain the house at 36 Aribau street, where the plot of this novel is located), the “veinteañera” Laforet brings a thread of continuity to the scattered actions.

In this Barcelona in Tinieblas, there are varied and colorful events with many protagonists and absolute flexibility in a short time. there is the main focus, concentrated in the post-war periodbut this core decays to actual physical size and expands. Now let’s meet the dictator Prime de Rivera. Please note that it is associated with Code XXII and we know it you have books or records that come from the future. in the middle, Picasso recently passed away in 2026 and died on April 8th.

A meritorious work, even if the mass of inventions and events broke through the effect of surprise

In this “space-time chaos”, to decipher it in the words of his own novel, the installation bomb in the sky which illuminates the city and escape from the oppressive darkness requires a collective effort that offers a strong argumentative advantage. But only episodes of pure imagination are required. The monuments can be different: from a huge tower full of views in the middle of the city, from a house or from a village called Iberona salted out of nowhere.

Or you can talk about surprising things about people: de Josep Pla y Ruben Dariode Dali and Olympic athlete Fermín Cacho. Here are some smart and nice guesses: Vargas Llosa goes to the hospital to remove the heart from the site, before the shock to the back of the chest cavity, he can not think about it or feel like a progressive and make sure the blood is bombarded on the conservative side of the body.

These fanciful stories were also accompanied by critical material based on testimonies, centered mainly on the Capuchinade of 1966, which brought together students and people of culture in the monastery of Sarrià and created a resounding public demonstration against the dictation. On the other hand, an explicit complaint is found at identify darkness and fascism and attribute the darkness that plagued the city to fascism.

This damning situation caused by Francoism will be resolved when the light returns, and this happens at the end of the novel with a parade of characters that suggests a positive sense of the story. Machado epitomizes this well. After staying in a suite at the Majestic Hotel with the hope of meeting Lorca alive, a lucid dream inspired her with “The Last Verse”, “These Blue Days and This Baby Sun”.

David Uclés asked that the freedom of imagination applied to characters, stories and time always conform to a formal plan. This is how they demonstrate it argumentative and capricious desarrollo in addition to a puzzle and a return to the control inherited from the vanguard.

They play with the graphic presentation of the story. In this sentiment we meet with many manifestations: no less than these pages replace the text with a black lack; if they intertwine different manuscript texts; one page occupies only the first and last lines and the rest is blank; Two pages no longer list posting times (12:00 and 12:01); it also shows a triangular typographic cuña beginning with the letters of one sentence.

The combination of the above stories underlines Uclés’ great desire to escape the novel about a mimetic copy of reality and embrace an avant-garde narrative model. In this regard, a parable is written in which the references work by flexible seeding with the real world. His strong ingenuity and his ability to write but the playful feel of the writing lends itself well to that intention.

While it presupposes a meritorious work, if it is anything manneristic, it also requires serious correction. The contrast between dark and light leads to exemplary symbolism. He is drawn into innocent culturalism: Cortázar wondered who the Enchantress was, or that Ana María Matute had diagnosed her with an “addiction to traumatic realism.”

And no more thanks to those who ask. In short, a bunch of inventions, insights, or simple events and learning curves broke through the desired surprise effect and new repetition fatigue.