"Appreciate the beauty of simple things. Beautiful poetry can be made about small things, but we cannot row against ourselves." The quote belongs to a poem by Walt Whitman that the writer and presenter Sandra Barneda has chosen to open her last work, The waves of lost time (Planet).
The novel faithfully follows the evocative advice of the New York poet and extols, in a vitalistic tone, areas such as friendship or childhood, even above the personal tragedy that runs through the entire work.
Known by the general public especially for his television work, The waves of lost time is the fifth novel by Barneda, who also published an essay in 2016. His previous work of fiction, An ocean to reach you was a finalist for the Planeta award.
Now, Barneda presents a story "of emotions", which ranges from the intense happiness of youthful summers to the most extreme tragedy. "Life is desert and oasis. It knocks us down, it hurts us, it teaches us, it makes us the protagonists of our own story,” Whitman wrote.
Barneda has found the stage to place the most vital passages of the work on the coast of Cantabria, in the surroundings of the town of Ajo. There he presented the novel yesterday to journalists from all over Spain, who toured some of the landscapes in which a story takes place that seeks the beauty of endless summers, enthusiastic childhood friendships or first loves.
“This magical place is where they play the game of the bottle, although some hated it. Where two of its protagonists have their first kisses. Here they live the awakening of life, and they return decades later to rediscover their past, ”he explained next to the Ojerada cave.
These passages have the counterpoint in a tragedy that takes place far from the Cantabrian coast and that marks the lives of the protagonists of this choral novel, so that Barneda moves between two seas. Friendship is the bridge that allows us to bring each other's emotions closer.
“It is a novel that is very reminiscent of summers, the first summers of childhood and youth. It is a tribute to friendship, the power of belonging and ties. A work that reminds us that friends are 'the host'. The novel talks about life itself, when it passes over you and your friends are there. Although sometimes you mistakenly separate yourself from them”, he pointed out during his tour of the Cantabrian coast.
Grief and the impact of a tragedy, unfinished business with the past, the possibility of starting over... Sandra Barneda recognizes herself in the description of "intense" author: "Although it may sound pretentious, I think I am becoming an author of heart I am interested in emotions, more and more. When she was younger she ran away from being intense; now I like to be intense to reach people's hearts”.
Barneda is also reflected in the landscapes that the novel evokes and even dedicates it to the tribe with which she coincided every summer at a campsite. However, the 11 protagonists and their lives marked by the loss of one of them are totally fictitious.
So is their reunion on turning 40: “It's not autobiographical at all, although writing it has brought me memories and a lot of gratitude to all those friends from the campsite, to my tribe”.
Logically, the Catalan journalist also recognizes herself in the vitality that some of her characters give off and in the intensity that the passages of the novel convey: "The spirit of Whitman, of carpe diem, is embedded in this novel."
