Recomiendo ampliamente esta novela de Julian Barnes. Admito que esta es una de las pocas novelas que no quería que se terminara. Mientras que un libro malo me hace simplemente leer la trama y un libro promedio me hace pensar y anticipar lo que ocurre, en este libro tuve que involucrarme con la historia.
Los pasajes que leí se volvieron traicioneros y al igual que el protagonista tuve que regresar al pasado para entender lo que había ocurrido. Los personajes evolucionan a lo largo de la historia y el lector va cambiando conforme van avanzando las páginas.
El protagonista de esta historia, es un hombre que en sus palabras…
“What did I know of life, I who had lived so carefully? Who had neither won nor lost, but just let life happen to him? Who had the usual ambitions and settled all too quickly for them not being realized? Who avoided being hurt and called it a capacity for survival? Who paid his bills, stayed on good terms with everyone as far as possible, for whom ecstasy and despair soon became just words once read in novels? One whose self-rebukes never really inflicted pain? Well, there was all this to reflect upon, while I endured a special kind of remorse: a hurt inflicted at long last on one who always thought he knew how to avoid being hurt—and inflicted for precisely that reason.”
Asimismo, a lo largo del libro encontré interesantes reflexiones que se mezclan con la historia. Aquí les comparto algunas…
Is the application of logic, to the human condition in and of itself self-defeating? What becomes of a chain of argument when the links are made of different metals, each with separate frangibility?
Time’s many paradoxes… When we are young and sensitive, we are also at our most hurtful; whereas when the blood begins to slow, when we feel less sharply, when we are more armoured and have learnt how to bear hurt, we tread more carefully.
In life? Our attitudes and opinions change, we develop new habits and eccentricities; but that’s something different, more like decoration. Perhaps character resembles intelligence, except that character peaks a little later: between twenty and thirty, say. And after that, we’re just stuck with what we’ve got. We’re on our own. If so, that would explain a lot of lives, wouldn’t it? And also—if this isn’t too grand a word—our tragedy.
Una vez más, si tienen tiempo, recomiendo esta novela.
