It is said that no one dies completely until the last of those who have known him, those on whom he has left some kind of mark, disappears. It is then when oblivion covers everything and a silent void or the shadow of a tenuous and fragile memory remains. But there are things that refuse to be easily lost in the mists of the past: pain, sadness, nostalgia.. And although each person copes with forgiveness, guilt or trauma in a different way, those stains on the soul become ghosts that usually become companions forever.
Ismael Martínez Biurrun (Pamplona, 1972) sends us his latest work, Duration of a ghost, by Editorial Aristas Martínez, to explain how a very special family deals with this mixture of loss and guilt after a terrible disaster that shatters the ties that unite them. And it does so from a place of estrangement, from a reality that is reality, but ceases to be reality at specific moments. Martínez Biurrun is one of the great current authors who walks this path, together with Carlos Pitillas (unmissable human noisesprefaced by Martínez Biurrun himself), Emilio Bueso or Mariana Enríquez, among many others. Estrangement causes that discomfort in the reader who follows the story and who notices that there are pieces that do not fit together, objects that do not fulfill the expected function, events that cannot be real, even if they disguise themselves and try. The reader perceives how the progressive distancing from everyday life leads him to paths in which he does not feel safe, and that is where the author attacks him with the unforeseen and the impossible.
“Through the relationship between these almost palindromic brothers, a possible metaphor for their ways of dealing with problems, the past of the Olano family is explained, full of secrets, mysteries and magic.“
The proposed synopsis is simple. After the death of the father of the family, Romana, the youngest daughter, goes in search of her lost brother to finish the inheritance procedures.. Amador, the brother, has disappeared of his own free will, escaping from an unclear past with supernatural overtones. In the search for him, Romana will be accompanied by Said, an intelligent young man with injuries in body and soul and, later, by Luz, his girlfriend.
Through the relationship between these almost palindromic siblings (Amador/Romana), a possible metaphor for their ways of facing problems, the past of the Olano family is explained, full of secrets, mysteries and magic. The brother’s search for the family’s multiple properties helps Romana unravel the most traumatic moments of her youth to Said. The meaning of the title of the work is offered well into the action, when one of the characters asks another how long the pain and sadness last.. And the answer is terrifyingly simple: they are always there.
“It is a genre book, where the supernatural components are essential and fill each page like fleeting, light brushes of a pen or some mistimed squawk.“
The author’s elegance in his narration style is striking. Soft, absorbing and with its own name, it leads the reader by the hand, without pushes or abrupt explanations.. The naturalness with which scenes full of tension are reached is surprising, including the ending, inevitable and inexorable, which tries not to leave a single loose end, even if it is in a somewhat far-fetched way.
It is a genre book, where the supernatural components are essential and fill each page like fleeting, light brushes of a pen or some mistimed squawk. But the background of the work is soaked in the deep feelings of the characters. One could speak of a circular book: the search journey, which ends where it began; the circle of hands that invokes the terrors of the past; the loop of Romana’s work, explaining small stories of tiny people that will never be read by anyone other than those who dictate them; the present that merges again and again with the past, preventing time from flowing; the family itself, which is the beginning and the end in itself.
The length of a book is not measured in pages or words. It is measured by how long your sentences remain in the reader’s memory.. And as long as they are maintained, which is the case of this work, it will be alive for a long time.
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Author: Ismael Martínez Biurrun. Qualification: Duration of a ghost. Editorial: Arista Martínez. Sale: All your books.
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