We begin the year with a literary interview with one of the veterans of the Spanish crime novel and a cultural activist dedicated to the creation of literary festivals. We refer to José Luis Muñoz (Salamanca, 1951). With more than forty books to his credit (Weed, La Frontera Sur, Hunters in the snow, The son of the devil, The trail of the wolf, among others), framed in various genres, has been awarded the Azorín awards, Tiger John, Cafe Gijon, The Vertical Smile, Camilo José Cela and Ignacio Aldecoa, among others. Write about cinema, literature and social issues in various media and is also a passionate traveler. Precisely about travel, about New York, is his latest book, The frozen apple (Bohodón editions), which we asked about. GINÉS J. VERA
“I'm nothing but an imposter” Marc Emmerich comments on them to Martin Eden, who responds in turn: “Maybe we all are.”. I want to see in the protagonist an alter ego of José Luis Muñoz to tell his own experiences. Or as another writer said, The novel is a way of working on lies to tell the truth. Is it so? What has been the most fun part of writing this ironic fictional travel chronicle??
The genesis of The frozen apple It has been curious and rewarding for me. On all my trips I take notes, redacted notes, some of which I publish on my blog The loneliness of the long-distance runner. Those notes have been very useful to me., For example, to put together one of my latest novels, still unpublished, which tells a journey along the entire west coast of the United States towards Alaska. Looking for an alter ego came later, when I decided to give a narrative structure to all those logbook notes, and I used it as a literary game to give that ironic and somewhat acid vision of a city and a culture, the North American, what is, by nature, invasive. Use Martin Eden, a tribute to Jack London, another of my favorite writers, a nomad as well as an adventurer, he allowed me to hide behind him. These metaliterary games, the so-called autofiction, two of my favorite authors practice it with mastery: Paul Auster and Enrique Vila-Matas. The reader is morbid and doubts whether I am portraying myself in that alter ego or not., guess what is real or not, Although I don't think that ultimately matters much.. Me, as narrator, allows me to practice introspection, give free rein to irony and introduce a certain humor into the narrative.
“There are neighborhoods that remain exactly the same as they were a hundred years ago.” Martin Eden tells us, which we see is related to another event narrated later. Apparently, New York is the city with the highest number of firefighters per capita and with the most work due to antiquated electric lines, of gas and water that cause leaks and fires daily. Is New York more than a great movie set, a great theater where we allow ourselves to be dazzled by the lights of the stage without perceiving an underground stage full of misery??
The European is very struck by the urban neglect suffered by the city., a chaotic mess, but that is part of its landscape, just like the peeling houses of Rome, which I hope they do not restore because it is its essence. Finding bumpy streets, garbage thrown on the sidewalks, because there are no containers, an absolutely filthy meter, although very efficient because it works twenty-four hours a day and takes you to any point in the city, but no one cleans, full of rats and insects, is hardly compatible with the wealth that the city boasts of., as you say, It is a bit of a showcase with gigantic skyscrapers that touch the sky or the neon lights and gigantic screens of Times Square. There are many New York. Martin Eden, thanks to that guide who knows the city, or part of it, because New York is unfathomable, On this third trip, he discovers unusual corners that he had not noticed in previous forays..
There is a curious reference to New Yorkers, to its population. Apparently, in the city and its area is expected to count in 2040 with eighteen million inhabitants. Eden reflects on “How many blackouts do there have to be for the population of the Big Apple to double??”. I don't want to imagine NY in the dark, Although I do ask you how you imagine it.. in the dark, in a blackout, For example, What stories can arise from that dream in the city that never sleeps?
Public lighting in the United States, in general, conspicuous by its absence. There are gloomy areas, dark and hidden, with those basements that we have seen in many film noir and horror films, that really strike fear at night. Many New Yorkers were born from the Great Blackout, so I think that was positive. An erotic story could come from there., an orgy organized in an elevator stopped between two floors of a skyscraper, without going any further, or endless black stories, of criminals acting under the cover of darkness. I highlight a fun fact, and sinister, which was reflected in the press on a day when it was so cold that no murders were committed in the city because the hitmen stayed in their homes to wait for the temperature to rise to do their work.: His victims had twenty-four more hours to live. That's true. A curiosity of the thousands that the city provides.
Near Central Park, Martin Eden orders a hot dog for which he pays 5 dollars. At the price of gold, butterfly. He also complained about the price of an Americano coffee with milk and sugar for three dollars.. A coffee that not even Bigas Luna liked. I imagine that it is another of the concepts that you have to get used to not only in NY, also in USA, the price of things or that extra when paying the bill at restaurants, that tip to the waiters. Tell us about it, in the face of this resignation of the protagonist of The frozen apple.
The food issue was somewhat annoying.. Money Martin Eden, and for me, The moment of sitting at a table in a restaurant became the worst of the day, because we were both aware that we were inevitably going to eat badly and we were also going to pay a fortune. The fact that the waiters do not have a salary but live off of tips, It is something very annoying that makes them very aggressive, Of course. They would have to be aggressive towards those who employ them in these conditions of third world exploitation.. It is cumbersome to constantly calculate the tip in restaurants, because you have to leave the minimum percentage or the waiter will chase you down the street. Coffee is another nightmare. It is difficult to have a coffee properly in the United States. Then, when they serve it to you in those waxy glasses that Martin Eden, me too, we hate, achicharra. It is a town of extremes, or the sodas are extremely cold because they put tons of crushed ice in them, or soups and coffees burn. But you don't go to the United States to eat., by the way. And North American society, and his country, They fascinate me for their blatant contradictions (a father loses custody of his son for leaving him alone at home for a minute but not for putting a firearm in his hands and teaching him to shoot). It shows that it is a young country, in training, and that excites Americans who tend to be very patriotic, but what impacts me the most, and I try to reflect it in the novels that I have set in the United States. (The dream house, Nickel rain y La Frontera Sur) It is the palpable rootlessness in many Americans, notice that many of them do not take root, because their origins are very diverse and they have only recently been established; all, except the natives, They are foreigners. They are united by the concept of a powerful empire, They believe they are part of it even though it is a country with terrifying social inequalities and they do not benefit from its enormous power.. And as an empire it expands irremediably throughout old Europe, unable to confront it.. In Barcelona they begin to appear, in addition to the McDonalds that have been around for years, the suwbay, a simply infamous sandwich franchise, that shows another form of penetration, through the stomach, of the American Empire.
