Between 1998 and 2008 Roser Ametlla (Blanes, 1963) published four novels. Since the first one – El nedador, 1998 – was a revelation and came out at a time when there weren't as many books by new authors as there are now, the idea of a writer who promised a lot and who didn't finish making the promise. But Ametlla has written good books, where there is always psychological depth – interest in people – and a global vision – attention to social facts – linked to the fact that she has been a professor of philosophy.
These virtues reappear in A happy ending, a novel about happiness and love, around three female figures: a twenty-one-year-old girl, Sara, victim of male violence; her roommate, Nora, who leads a life of drugs and drinking and who is irrationally in love with a guy who treats her like a stick; and Nora's sister, Elvira, who is thirty-eight years old, is separated and has a son from a relationship who lived in Mexico when she studied whales: she is a biologist. The action unfolds in one night: between Sara and Nora arriving at a rave in a farmhouse, until hours later, Nora and Elvira accompany Sara to the hospital to look at her dislocated shoulder In between, a lot of small incidents and conversations.
Not long ago I heard the psychologist Alba Alfageme give very large figures of sexual abuse of women: she said that, contrary to the most widespread idea, these abuses take place in a close environment. Alfageme questions the idea of consent. He says that sexual assaults cause paralysis and that victims are often unable to explain what has happened to them. This is the case of Sara, a complex girl because she had not had a relationship with any boy. One night, in a nightclub, he flirts with two or three. One of the dwarves tells her to go out, he thinks they are going to a bar and takes her to a field. An important part of the plot revolves around this traumatic experience. Sara wants to remake herself. Nora believes that every now and then she has to leave work and studies and go out, to break the blockage. But when they are at the rave, he relives what happened to him and, once again, feels guilty. There is a dependency relationship between the two flatmates. Sara needs to be loved. Nora, so sure of herself, flips out every time her boyfriend leaves her. When the sister appears, the plot gets complicated. Through the conversations they have in the car, the tree of conflict unfolds its branches and opens its leaves: conflict with boys, with girls, with mother, with stepfather, between sisters and between friends.
There is a double symbolic correlate: on the one hand the whale, which is the literary emblem of unattainable desire. Elvira – disappointed – explains that this desire smells like falling fish. Sara follows a television series that recreates, in an executive atmosphere, the story of Samsó and Delilah, loaded with sexual implications and power. Sara would like to be like Delilah in the series: determined, confident, sexually complete. If I have to choose, I think the whale correlative works better narratively. Since it is explained with two brushstrokes, it gives the tone without stretching. For my taste, TV fantasy takes up too much space, and at some point it causes annoying interruptions of the action. When you think about it, it's a little strange that, with so many complexes like Carreteja, Sara establishes such a direct and erotic relationship with Elvira, whom she knows nothing about. But Ametlla introduces it naturally and you can believe it. In this symbolic dimension, the use of light should be highlighted, which opens up panoramas and focuses on unknown aspects of reality, just as conversation does. A happy ending is a well-crafted, emotionally complex and well-read novel.
