Glez, Montero – Cuando la noche obliga (2003)

Synopsis

“Cuando la noche obliga” confirms the best impressions of the previous novel and forces us to carefully consider the future work of this writer who does not resemble any of his contemporaries and who also has a unique and unmistakable expressive capacity, a strange mixture -what I will say this, in synthesis and to abbreviate- of the tone with which Valle-Inclán sprinkled his esperpentos and the harsh cynicism of Raymond Chandler. As in these authors, in addition, the story told, not exempt from obscure points and half information, stands out above all for the way of telling, oblique and full of interferences: a narrator tells what, in turn, he was told by the Luisardo, a rascal from Tarifa who survives thanks to various tricks. The narration has a marked oral character, which the phraseology underlines from time to time: “According to what Luisardo told me, the traveler would discover it in a rush and never better said, well, they will see” (p. 174). The story comes and goes, anticipates information, goes back again and again, with a structure like “Crónica de una muerte anunciada” or “Mazurca para dos muertos”, so that chronological linearity gives way to the interest and plasticity of the scenes, thanks to a composition that can be described as impressionist…

(SOURCE: El Mundo)