Monday, November 22, 2010
Does Waxing Make Hair Thinner
The Lady of Kashmir by Francisco Gonzalez Ledesma
Francisco González Ledesma , The Lady of Kashmir , trans. Silvia Sichel, Blacks Pozza publisher / Janus, 2009 Francisco González Ledesma, crime fiction author of many professional lives, a journalist and lawyer before then, instils in his novels, the knowledge of the various social classes in Barcelona and methods of police investigation . Written in 1986, translated into Italian in 2009, "The Lady of Kashmir" is a noir tough and ironic, but is also more.
uses the style of film noir to play with the player, but at the same time is the picture portrayed in Barcelona a time of transition between old and new world, between the end of the Franco dictatorship and opulence of the 80. Each character represents and interprets a change in the city differently. It all begins with a murder committed with the aid of a wheelchair. The solution is the last page, as in the best detective.
The city is never a theatrical backdrop but a character itself, a living body grows and changes, for better or for worse.
Another element which characterizes the novels of Ledesma is the chorus of the characters. Everyone, even children are outlined in a very realistic way to seem real. Each of them is the piece of a puzzle that eventually will provide an image of a city and the diverse humanity that populates it. Ledesma's novels are choral and tell a poignant story of broken dreams, of lives let slide. The old
Méndez is a type of policeman that no longer exists, a street cop, now gone out of production, a bit 'as his gun. Taking the edge of the police, in whose methods do not recognize, but knows well the unwritten law of the road, is a friend of prostitutes and young criminals who will always be outcasts. There are criminals who have made the leap in class because they have been able to grasp the golden opportunities of the transformation of society to enrich themselves and destroy the lives of others and the collective memory of the city.
The female figures in the novels of Ledesma deserve a separate discussion. Whether the old seedy streets of prostitutes, new sex slaves from Eastern Europe like all the other women disillusioned by life, are the weakest part of humanity and painful for no apparent ransom.
The size of the Catalan writer resides in style. Ledesma also this is a teacher, takes the reader by the hand in the filthy alleys and sunless, in houses that smell of food makes him feel the feelings of the characters alternating registers and styles, reversing perspectives, playing with the reader. Amuses and moves at the same time. Point out the humor that softens the dialogues.
"Méndez caught for a fleeting moment, like an old photograph that you slide in front eyes, all shades of gray that were in the street, all shades of white faces with no sun, all the shades of black in the atmosphere. He realized in a flash like that you went there every day at your funeral, a funeral quiet that nobody cared and one accompanying person: yourself when you were a child. "
do not hesitate to compare him to Simenon in size and style depth investigation into the human soul.
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