Pulling on that creative freedom that he has always shown Eduardo Mendoza, the saga opened with the previous novel «The king receives»Finds a new replica in this installment around the quixotic Rufo Batalla and his insurmountable magnetism to undertake epic adventures.
And once again the matter serves to give an interesting review of some dark days that he transforms from crazy journeys through intrahistories parallel to historical evolution.
Because Rufo Batalla will be immersed in a trip proposed by Prince Tukuulo to Livonia, one of those homelands devoured by the passage of history between conquests, losses and struggles still in force in the twentieth century, even more so in a Europe that was remade since World War II amid sinister playmats from the endless cold war.
Rufo is a compliant guy with any lost cause that comes his way from that uncontrollable inertia that we are already discovering, ends up moving him as a motor towards new discoveries.
Livonia is seen as a final destination but ends up being just a flying goal. Perhaps the best thing would have been to return to Barcelona, as Rufo had planned, longing for the opening that is augured by the imminent death of Franco.
But the concerns of this character are always appreciated. Because if we did not give in to the crazy ideas of Tukuulo we would never know of that world full of contradictions that underlies the appearances of a more exciting reality even when essential mechanisms that move it are discovered.
Reading historical novels we learn about settings, stories that advance in parallel to the official of the civilization of the day. Losing ourselves through stories like those proposed by Eduardo Mendoza, we end up discovering new foundations, essences between the absurd and the transcendent, magical balances that make up new glimpses loaded with that magical subjectivity capable of filling everything, even the incomprehensible.
You can now buy the book «The yin and yang business», the new book by Eduardo Mendoza, here: