Some are born with a good star and others, starry, says popular wisdom and in that second group are Asier and Joseba just beginning the
novel
Hijos de la fábula
(Tusquets) by the
Basque writer Fernando Aramburu,
which in 2016 became a world
bestseller
with
Patria
, a story about
the victims of ETA terrorism.
Fernando Aramburu intervenes during the 'Tribute to Almudena Grandes' event at the 2022 Frankfurt International Book Fair. EFE/EPA/RONALD WITTEK
Also in this new book ,
ETA's activity is a topic
, although there is a question of
timing
that does not work because, just when Asier and Joseba –two Basque boys with lives in which what is left over are deficiencies– decide to join the forces of the terrorist organization,
just those responsible for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna announce the definitive cessation of their armed activity
.
"What a piece of paper that history reserves for us," complain these
apprentice terrorists
, locked up in a poultry farm on the outskirts of the French town of Albi, where a married couple hides them, and where
they stay for goodness sake
.
If
the initial statement is hilarious
, the adventures of the characters accentuate the nonsense page after page.
Asier and Joseba cannot believe that ETA will hang them (neither them nor the struggle of the Basque people), so they intend to continue that "legacy".
Thus they become a
freelance
terrorist commando .
carnival scarecrows
These days, Aramburu said that
the idea for this satirical novel occurred to him in a carnival
: "And it is that if one looks closely, he will see the tragic history of Humanity pass through it, demystified, parodied," he pointed out.
Mural in the town of Hernani where the novel (not series) Patria Fernando Aramburu would have been set, which generated a series on the ETA Basque Country conflict.
Photo CEZARO LUCA
Because while the tragedy happens, while everything is fright, terror and death,
there is no room for a smile
.
"Humor attacks the argument, the consequences, the behaviors. And to perceive this it takes time," she added.
All in all, the most laughable part of the story lies less in the adventures of that lost duo (in the many senses that the polysemy of the term constructs) as in their political ideas: the simplicity of the statements
,
the repeated
slogans
emptied of reflection. and moral, generate, from a distance, no longer a laugh but a grimace of fright.
The writer Fernando Aramburu Photo: Andres D'Elia.
"It is that in reality - Aramburu resumes interviewed by
La Vanguardia
-
simple thought and fanaticism go hand in hand
. The mechanism of action and behavior of the fanatic, of the radical, is very similar to that of the believer".
On May 3, 2018, ETA announced its
dissolution
.
It left 864 people murdered.
Other violent fanaticisms are in good health.
look too
Almudena Grandes and memory
look too
Gustavo Rodríguez, in favor of old age
look too
democratic breath