Greeted by the main magazines and literary supplements in the United States as the book of the year, and Pulitzer Prize winner of 2023, Demon Copperhead is presented to us in an edition of almost 700 pages with a body of letters only suitable for teenagers with powerful eyesight. Barbara Kingsolver's novel is a robust text, a tribute to Charles Dickens' David Copperfield, which was also defined as a “supreme masterpiece.”
Kingsolver (Annapolis, Maryland, 1955) mimics some of its characteristics, both stylistic and substantive. Here we find Demon, the son of a single mother with a great sense of humor that allows the reader to overcome all the inclemencies and vicissitudes of his existence, of which the Washington Post critic said that “it will make you laugh and break your heart in parts.” equal.”
Perhaps these are exaggerations, but what Kingsolver manages to do is seduce the reader through his journey through poor America, from the caravans – where he was born – to the possible sports shelters, the social programs – even for dental implants – and the lack of opportunities for those who are under the rug of the system, the millions of poor who survive the American dream.
This coming-of-age novel has been compared to Salinger and others, but surely time will surpass them, not even out of poetic justice.
Some of us met Barbara Kingsolver thanks to the good work of the feminists of Edicions de l'Eixample, who in 1988 published her first novel, Arbres de mongetes, in a version by the Valencian poet Jaume Pérez Montaner. In that almost remote book, the writer, born in a small agricultural community, already poured her irony into second-hand cars, where the protagonist even saw an Indian girl abandoned in her back seat. These settings and the strength of her prose already brought her closer to Dickens, even though at that time the dirty, and even beatnik, references were different. In short, everything comes to be the same and what she intends is to establish a link between these 35 years that have passed between her first novel and the Pulitzer Prize.
Demon, the narrator protagonist of the new novel, has many similarities with Taylor from the first book, including a certain aura of mischief. Kingsolver solves with skill and verticality what would have meant imitating a bareback Dickens. He has moments of absolute epiphany when he moves lazily through training on the football fields and does not question whether he should join the rural program to check his decayed teeth.
Demon Copperhead thrills and accompanies you as he instills mercy in a ruthless society. He is also a goal to win at any price. Here are Charles Dickens, Thoreau, Leon Tolstoy and Bakunin to tell us that no, we do not need to move quickly, that we must learn to look at the sky and around us. The panoramic view is always good, not only for the senses. Kingsolver manages to introduce in his latest novel the notion of danger, of fragility, which contrasts with the prevailing superhero mentality. “Where does the road to ruin begin?” the narrator asks. In fact, the novel begins with a revealing quote from Dickens, “it is vain to remember the past unless it exercises some influence on the present.”
And he actually exercises it because this road movie has no foreseeable ending. It invites us to drive aimlessly toward life itself, that of the nameless who wait in hospital wards, those who only receive hopeless news, the thousands of army veterans who have nowhere to fall dead. Without neglecting the naivety of the young protagonist, Kingsolver offers us his masterpiece: “I spent the night curled up in a ball on the sandy floor, my back against a cold rock, thirsty, hungry and, it turned out, not entirely drugged. Each cricket that advanced step by step along the face of the cave was a copper head, each squirrel stirring up the leaves, a bear. If he survived, in the morning he would come down the mountain, find June and tell her that she was ready to fly.”
That's the goal: to fly.
Barbara Kingsolver Demon Copperhead Cast translation. of A. Lozano and to cat. by M. Hernandez and Z. Mendez Navona 678 pages 24.70 euros
