This week we interviewed the psychologist and writer Eva Monzón. Born in Santander, He spent his childhood in Palma de Mallorca and, at the moment, lives in Valencia. studied music, languages, and psychology. He has published short stories and poetry in various magazines.. Your novel Entreactos was the winner of the Alfonso el Magnánimo novel contest in Spanish in 2006. Has published, in addition, Time-out (Bartleby), Wanderers (Parenthesis, and Sargantana) y The day to day (lizard). He has also written scripts, both short and feature films, and several chamber opera adaptations. in theater, won the Crono Teatro contest with The fight, in 2014. On this occasion we asked him about his recent novel On that fine line (NPQ editors). Gines J. VERA
I want to start by asking you about the narrative voice of On that fine line. And I do it by extracting a phrase in which the protagonist reflects on the fact that “There is no better listener of what we have to say than ourselves.”. What do you think?
which is true, and at the same time, it is not. That is to say, after telling ourselves what we want to understand, ignore or ignore, we know little; we need more, We want others to listen to us to give what we are saying a vote of reality..
In another passage of the novel, the protagonist speaks (in addition) about childhood. He says this is the “zone where we are who we will be”. That childhood conditions us about what we will be as adults sounds... Freudian, am i wrong?
And and and, Freud talks about the subconscious, how we hide traumas from ourselves, shocking events in him that later affect us for the worse. It is true that childhood is where shocks like this can occur the most., but it is not the only area for the blows. What is true, is that the child learns to be an adult, and the adult would have to learn to remember what it was like as a child.
This story is also nourished by loneliness., As readers will soon discover On that fine line. Curiously, I found this suggestive phrase in the thread of it so that you can tell us about it.: “There is no worse loneliness than that which awaits those who are not there.”.
I really believe that the most terrible loneliness is the one born from separation from those who made our days better.. The pain of absence is the worst loneliness.
And next to the loneliness, the memory joins together, the need to remember and, somehow, to narrate, as we read in a certain passage of the novel: “Narrating involves getting closer to the imprecise area of memories, recover what was forgotten”. Do you tell us?
Memory is selective, we remember what we want, and it's not always the same. As we grow, or we change, or our circumstances change, we usually remember in different ways. In fact, many times, We remember what we have told ourselves about what was, not what really happened, because even when we are living it, we are not objective with what happens to us, at all. You're welcome, on, remembering him. Memory is a blur that we focus on as we wish depending on the moment..
I don't know if he would dare to call intrigue On that fine line. I mention it because of a certain phrase that we read from the protagonist: “When I think of Elena, the narration is mutinous, moving away from my scheme, to play at being a mystery novel”.
This novel is a game of mirrors, It is and is not a novel, It is and is not the life that is narrated, It is and is not a black story, They are and are not real lives that are told. All of it is on that thin line that separates two extremes, each story, including main thread, It is in that very center where you can be alive or dead, you can hate or love, be bad or good, innocent or guilty. It is the game with which the entire book is built.
