After years of writing, presenting himself for prizes –and winning some– and recently publishing stories in the Magazine of this newspaper, Blai Felip Palau (Sabadell, 1961) makes his book debut with No et facis il·lusions (Column), 27 tales of varied themes and sizes united by a humorous tone that confronts a world that at first glance seems ours but then introduces a point of fantasy and often a final twist. He also unifies the game with the language and some titles always with a twin ele. Why that letter? “It has always fascinated me, it refers me to an absurd reflection of the world, to the different possible readings of reality”, explains Felip.
Most of the stories start from a modified daily life where nothing is what it seems, a bit like what happened in the mythical series The Twilight Zone. Toes that come to life, seductive mannequins, runners too fast, hypnotic voices, a wide variety of sex, women without horizons, fascinating paintings... For the author, our world "right now borders on the absurd, and turning it around at the key you realize that you explain it better with the absurd than coldly as we would do from the journalistic point of view ”.
Always with exceptions, such as a realistic story that recreates a colleague's fight against cancer and that "is a tribute without appealing to tears, but the reader may be moved." Narrations that drink from day to day, because the spark can arise at any moment: “I take advantage of everything, I am a bit of a fancier and in anything that I experience or that is explained to me, I often already see a story. One, for example, occurred to me going down Calle Santaló, where I found a phone off the hook and when I hung it up I had the feeling that I had to listen if there was someone on the other end”. No, there was no one.
And despite his careful sense of humor, there is also social criticism, often with bad temper: "Cioran came to say that reading a book has to be like an open wound or like a punch in the stomach, and I want to surprise, but also strike a chord and make you think”. He gives an example: “There is a story of a clear anti-sexist will, I don't know if it is feminist, because a feminist person may find fault because I have been educated as macho and we probably have not just gotten rid of this culture. But it is an attempt to put myself on the side of the other, of the permanently and continuously undervalued woman, as well as mistreated or sexually assaulted. It is unthinkable and unpresentable that at this point in the 21st century half of the population, and in some countries infamously, live that way”. And at the same time, he tends to leave space for the reader "so that he is the one who forms his opinion, with a margin of doubt," she says.
After many years of writing, Felip confesses that he had "moments of great discouragement, of absolute collapse: everything changes with the Pere Calders de Gurb award, in 2017. We do not value enough the work of these small town halls that help people who He has a hobby, he encourages and publishes. When I received the message that I had won that award, I began to cry and I'm still emotional. It was the turning point." And publish? "This book was the last attempt, because I was about to throw in the towel."
"In the end -he remembers-, the book is called Don't have any illusions, because something happens to almost all the protagonists, they don't live their lives happily".
Catalan version, here
