Isolating yourself from noise and distractions is usually the best formula for any author who is in the middle of writing. Aware of this, the protagonist of the following story rents a cabin for a while and travels to a mountainous area that, coincidentally (or not), is very similar to the one that appears in his latest novel. Everything seems to be going smoothly until he realizes that he has forgotten to bring a book with him to make his stay more enjoyable. After much searching through his luggage, he ends up finding a book, his. What he does not imagine is that it would have been better not to have found him. Boredom leads him to rewrite it to the extreme. "It is the perfect narcissistic nightmare," says Javier Moreno (Murcia, 1972), who has just published Magnificent desolation (Candaya), a book of four long or nouvelle stories. The first of them starts from the previous premise.
When does a writer finish his work? "When the editor takes it out of his hands," says Moreno convinced. Is there no way that it is the author himself who considers his book finished? "Yes of course. But more for a matter of not going crazy than for anything else. It is very strange that he is one hundred percent satisfied. I don't know anyone, wow. There is always something to tweak, to improve, to contribute, and so on to infinity. The protagonist's partner already says it: 'I must protect myself from your writing'. And it is a trade in which you get so emotionally involved that it can affect not only you but also those around you”.
Of involvement Moreno knows a good time. In just over a year he has released three books: the essay El hombre transparente (January 2022), a novel titled Omega (in April) and the aforementioned work. In all of them he presents a diffuse border between reality and fiction. "It's something I always like to play with," he justifies. The new technologies are also present since "they are an occupation and a concern as a writer and essayist since they often interfere with ourselves and our relationships."
An example, once again taken to the limit and worthy of a chapter in the television series Black Mirror, is the one we find in another of the stories in his new book. A university professor lives a life torn between the real world, together with his wife and his two daughters, and AltLife, a virtual world where he recreates and continues his interrupted love affair with a former student. “It seems like a joke but artificial intelligence raises these crazy possibilities. We have our analog and digital identity and many times they don't go parallel”.
In his book, Moreno gives a twist to the matter and poses “how an artificial intelligence would respond to a series of common scenarios, names and details that, in fact, the reader will be able to verify that they are repeated in different stories. They say this is the future. I think it is already the present and that is why I wanted to experiment”. Be that as it may, “we must not fear. It is believed that all this will destroy us as a species, but I believe that there is something that saves us and that differentiates us from these robots: creativity. It is something that escapes artificial intelligence and that the human being still possesses”.
Technology can also be used for good. It allowed Moreno to experience Chicago like the back of her hand without ever having visited it, and to follow in the footsteps of photographer Vivian Maier and writer-artist Henry Darger, creating an imagined relationship between them. “I have always been fascinated by this type of outsider characters, not only because of their marginality, but also because of the recognition they obtained after their deaths and that they were not even looking for. Investigating, I realized that they both lived in Chicago, in areas that were not far from each other. It is not known if they really met but I want to think that they did and that is what I have fabled in another of the stories ”, she points out.
All these stories captivated Paco Robles, founding editor of Candaya, from the very first moment. “I would say that this was the last book that he edited and revised, at least completely. Therefore, the fate of this work is inextricably linked to his death and disappearance. In fact, the unfortunate coincidence occurred that the day the book was scheduled to appear, which was January 30, was the day Paco died. My way of giving meaning to this sad goodbye is to defend this book, which is possible thanks to it ”, he concludes.
