Singing is a good way to combat devastation
As you wish, brothers, that I sing, Joan Pons Bover's novel, published by Isla Ediciones, is a work of continuous and persistent power that goes in crescendoIt doesn't go for easy effects; rather, it unfolds its multiple narrative strengths as it progresses. Although it may sound cliché, this is indeed a captivating work that you can't put down, and which, like the prodigious film,... One Battle After Another, Paul Thomas Anderson's film is a magnificent artistic offering that arrives at an opportune moment, as it also functions as an extremely political, yet subtle, artifact that, with the fury of good fiction, denounces the current state of affairs, devastated by this abominable return of the far right and fascist policies disguised under democratic masks. Thus, with surgical precision, layers of memory and wounded dignity are laid bare.
The starting point? Margalida and Jaume are two siblings who have reached old age. They share a room in a nursing home and mentally revisit their childhood and youth, marked by Francoist repression. This is the narrative foundation from which the author articulates a double, and multifaceted, story, made up of two temporal planes that constantly converse: the present of old age and the past that still pervades their lives and consciences. The first-person voices—which alternate to share contrasting intimacies and distinct expressiveness that confirm the author's great stylistic skill—transform the reading into a kind of sustained confession, a kind of poignant, unspoken narrative in which personal stories, inspired by events experienced by the writer's family, are intertwined with the one that shapes existences, characters, traumas, and silences. The book stands out for its ability to evoke everyday life with poignant truths, from the repetitive grayness of the nursing home to the fragile glow of a happy summer or the devastating impact of a lost love, and it does so with seemingly simple yet meticulously crafted, exquisitely refined language. This skillful work complements the already powerful descriptions and careful psychological portraits of the characters.
'As you wish, brothers, that I sing,' Joan Pons Bover's novel, a well-deserved winner of the Maria Antònia Oliver City of Manacor Prize, is a profoundly human, restrained, and breathtaking marvel that perfectly complements titles such as The old folks, that nuisance, by Celia Sánchez-Musician, and Sarah and Jeremiah, by Sebastià Alzamora, which elevates memory as mortal salvation and invites us to resist in adverse times. And, given the state of the world, that's no small feat.