Words in Books: La luz

Antonio Seijas (de quien ya hablamos en esta entrada) presenta en su tercer cómic, La luz (2014) una historia que se yergue desde la sencilla base de unas cartas de tarot a una lente compleja que es la deconstrucción/reconstrucción de una vida,  LA vida, con sus decisiones, frustraciones, culpa y vergüenza. 

La ambientación es meticulosa, los diálogos, poéticos y el relato, íntimo. Las emociones las genera tanto el texto como el arte brillante y limpia de las ilustraciones con su gradación de colores. Capítulo tras capítulo, incongruente como la vida misma,  va girando la historia con aleteos catóptricos de un corazón que dura lo que dura la caricia del haz de luz de un faro.  El faro despliega así toda su simbología como emblema de esperanza: Explosiona en blanco luminoso, arde en llamas o se tiñe de negro, pero sigue ahí, permanece.

La luz es un retrato doloroso, profundo y rico de la tristeza, esa reina de corazones que ordena sin piedad la pena de muerte a la menor ofensa. Distorsiona y desdibuja los bordes de los personajes, no dejando nunca que acaben de mostrarse totalmente perfilados, como una especie de trabajo en construcción. ¿No es eso, a fin de cuentas, lo que somos todos?

Antonio Seijas "LA LUZ" from Antonio Seijas on Vimeo.

Letters in Books: Cartas de inverno (Winter Letters)

Today, Galicia mourns the death of writer and national treasure Agustín Fernández Paz (1947-2016) who has died at the age of 69. His fame as an author was as refreshing as it was far-reaching. His writing touched the lives of many who were introduced to Fernández-Paz in high school, through his acclaimed book Winter Letters (1995) or any of his other juvenile books. The book deals with the theme of fear, not typically found in the required reading lists of high schools in Galicia. But his story's success was a hallmark of his greatest gift - the ability to use language to transcend barriers.  

An author of over 30 novels, it's undeniable that Fernández-Paz was a literary powerhouse, but his long-lasting popularity was also due to his ability to stay relevant over the decades, not reinventing himself but always finding news ways to communicate with the world around him.

I became acquainted with his literature through my younger siblings, who had Winter Letters as a required reading at school, and thus recommended it to me.

‘The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown,’ writes H. P. Lovecraft at the start of his essay Supernatural Horror in Literature. In real life, the author Agustín Fernández Paz, Galicia’s answer to H. P. Lovecraft, is reading the newspaper and comes across a classified ad for a haunted house. He imagines what would happen if someone answered that ad. Then what would happen if they went to see the house and liked it. Then what would happen if they had enough money and decided to buy it. And finally what would happen if they went to live there and discovered that the house was really haunted. This is the plot of Winter Letters, one of the best-selling Galician novels of all time. The house will bring to mind, for older readers, the Bates’ home in Alfred Hitchcock’s film Psycho. Inside the house is a book of prints that may remind younger readers of Tom Riddle’s diary in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. However this may be, the reader is sure to be drawn in by the force and power of the narrative, which is as smooth and sinuous as the sirens’ song heard by Ulysses from the sanctuary of the mast of his ship.

Synopsis taken from http://smallstations.com/publications/item/276-winter-letters

Only recently (last month) and because of my interest in everything related to letters, did I get a hold of Antonio Seijas's graphic novel (2012) based on Fernández-Paz's text, which was a totally different  reading of the story and truly enjoyable. Grippingly dynamic rhythm and haunting illustrations.