The Catalan writer Fernando Trias de Bes It is presented to us as the strange case of the novelist who ended up becoming an essayist, popularizer of economics and even the author of books on Self Help. And the fact is that professional development sometimes ends up engulfing creativity or, at least, redirecting it to a more pragmatic narrative that, however, always ends up imploding on occasions with new fictions. And about that space for the fiction of Fernando TrÃas's imagination we give an outlet here...
Analyzing it cold, everything makes sense. Because creativity is necessary in almost all areas of human performance. Without it we are mere automatons of subjugated will to end up alienated in that nihilistic drift. When TrÃas de Bes begins to write novels, she offers us a range of disparate stories that at times remind us of suskind ("The collector of sounds" evokes "The perfume"), or they go into humor to satirize our society. Not to mention that other informative facet to learn about economic vicissitudes that escape us or brilliant essays focused on more everyday aspects ...
Top 3 recommended novels by Fernando TrÃas de Bes
One billion mussels
Vallecas, June 2010. An unemployed waiter receives a call from a temporary agency. There is an offer for him, on a luxury cruise. They can not give more details. National security issue. The Vallecas waiter accepts. On the ocean liner he will meet the main world political leaders, invited to Berlusconi's wedding with a well-known model. But they suffer a shipwreck on the high seas.
Obama, Zapatero, Rajoy, Aznar, Berlusconi himself, Emilio BotÃn, Florentino Pérez, Flavio Briatore, Fernando Alonso, Jordi Pujol, Ibarretxe, Carla Bruni, Hugo Chávez or the ghost of Michael Jackson are some of the delusional characters that will end up to a desert island, where they will have to organize to survive.
The most important politicians on our international scene will thus become victims of their own decisions and will reproduce episodes in our history: food bartering, the adoption of a currency, the creation of banks, inflation, as well as the problems of international trade, in a hilarious parody of the crisis, not without its critical sharpness. Fernando TrÃas de Bes, instructs us in a fun way about how we have arrived at the current economic situation. The magnificent illustrations by Toni Batllori complement this fiery satire of our political and economic system.
The sound collector
One by one he possessed them, but it was they who were catching him. As a child, Ludwig Schmitt has the amazing ability to dissect sounds and house them within. During his childhood he dedicated himself to collecting sounds. But when he thinks his collection is finished, he discovers that a sound is missing, "a unique frequency, the most desired, a perfect, heavenly, magical and eternal sound."
He will then dedicate all his energies to scrutinizing the sounds of the Earth in search of the latest sound in his collection. In this process he will discover that he can sing the sonorities that he treasures, becoming the greatest of German tenors. But his gift carries a curse. The hidden sound will become his master and lord and will take over his will, demanding that he become the most ruthless lover of all Germany.
Eros and Thanatos. Elixir and antidote. The gift and the curse. Based on the legend and the opera by Tristan and Isolde, this epic love story, set at the height of German romanticism, is a fast-paced thriller that, from the very first pages, engages the reader in a disturbing plot.
Red
In Mainz in 1900, Johann Walbach has long searched through the volumes of his bookstore for the reason for his misfortunes. One day he meets a mathematician who pursues the same goal through formulas and arithmetic. Together they will give birth to an unusual text, Red, a book of books, one that explains the meaning of all things.
To preserve this secret, he will hire three amazing individuals: a printer who can print with a unique ink that erases letters after reading, a copyeditor who cannot create, and an editor who has never read a book to the end. And, thus, the only book that is read with the heart will finally be published.
