Our second Readings in the garden-session didn’t take place exactly in a garden… A meddling rain forced us to improvise a sheltered location. We were lucky enough to get the generous help of Espai Jove La Fontana. Many thanks to Erika, as well as to Olokuti and Jiwar, which did all they could to make our session happen!
As you can see at the pic, finally we managed to keep our three authors, the moderator Rosa Mena and a large audience away from the rain. We counted more than 30 people!
The first reader was Jan Farina. He read a fragment of his detective novel Un despacho sin clientes, that takes place in Spain during the troublesome forties, at the worst of Franco's dictatorship. Real detectives with fake names, violence-prone policemen and dangerous partisans as Quico Sabaté showed up at his fragment. We were dying to know what happened with detective Pérez Moya and his mysterious assignment. But we will have to wait until Jan finishes his novel… Maybe is his Facebook-profile he would give us some news about his progress.
Iñaki Marín is a talented reader, so we really enjoyed the fragment of his novel La sombra del buitre. At the light of a cozy fireplace -but also at the light of quantum physics--, we almost felt like being present during to the flirt between the pragmatic pharmacist Pilar Laborda and an idealistic physics teacher. That relationship does not augur well for them… But it does for its futures readers!
The last author to read was Jordi Fenosa. He brought a funny change of register with his characters: an extravagant woman called Von Sprüngli and her pet, a chameleon that adores hot chocolate. With her purple nails and orange hair, that amazing woman can spread her wings and flutter under the ceiling of a pirate’s inn.
However, although the improvised circumstances forced us to change our location in the middle of our session and we lost part of the public, we can confirm something already noticed at our first session: The most interesting part of Readings in the garden is the final discussion! Until the point for our future sessions we will only accept shorter fragments from until 2.200 words in order to provide more time for it.
At the discussion we found out that the novel of Jan Farina emerged from his crazy idea of showing up one day, without an appointment, at the office of a private detective asking him for material to write about. At the office they put him in touch with a retired detective who transmitted to him many of the stories and atmospheres that he describes with such a convincing realism at his novel. Although that old man was not his only source: “I like to listen to what old folks have to tell me”, he said to us. That may be the reason for his ability to capture the atmosphere of the depressed forties in Spain.
The novel of Iñaki Marín has a different origin. He wanted to reveal certain abuses of the pharma industry, represented by his main character Pilar Laborda. But as it uses to happen, some aspects got out of hand during the writing process and his characters decided to take their own way. So none of us knows, not even him!, knows how the relationship between Pilar and Pablo is going to end, nor what will happen once Matías finds out about it...
We all could realise that the novel of Jordi Fenosa is visually very rich. So, as expected from somebody who is also an experienced illustrator, his narrative uses to evolve departing from an image. Another aspect that pushed him towards writing was the low quality of some of the books he had to illustrate. We all wished to see his illustration of Magdalena Van Sprüngli! Perhaps we are lucky enough to get him to share it with us at this blog, since we would like to provide some information here once in a while about the progress of the novels read “at the garden”.
But the discussion did not stop there. We talked about many other things, like the difficulties of combine creative writing with other kind of jobs or with the family, the problems with self-discipline or the emotions aroused when creating a literary universe. (“Pure joy!”, said Iñaki, for whom the pleasure of imagining a narrative world had become a serious danger when riding his motorbike).
The novel of Iñaki Marín has a different origin. He wanted to reveal certain abuses of the pharma industry, represented by his main character Pilar Laborda. But as it uses to happen, some aspects got out of hand during the writing process and his characters decided to take their own way. So none of us knows, not even him!, knows how the relationship between Pilar and Pablo is going to end, nor what will happen once Matías finds out about it...
We all could realise that the novel of Jordi Fenosa is visually very rich. So, as expected from somebody who is also an experienced illustrator, his narrative uses to evolve departing from an image. Another aspect that pushed him towards writing was the low quality of some of the books he had to illustrate. We all wished to see his illustration of Magdalena Van Sprüngli! Perhaps we are lucky enough to get him to share it with us at this blog, since we would like to provide some information here once in a while about the progress of the novels read “at the garden”.
But the discussion did not stop there. We talked about many other things, like the difficulties of combine creative writing with other kind of jobs or with the family, the problems with self-discipline or the emotions aroused when creating a literary universe. (“Pure joy!”, said Iñaki, for whom the pleasure of imagining a narrative world had become a serious danger when riding his motorbike).
Too many interesting aspects to be resumed here, so whoever wants to experience a similar discussion about the troubles of creative writing should come to our next session of Readings in the garden. We will let you know the date very soon. In the meantime, remember that whoever is interested in participating can send us a fragment of his/her unfinished novel, this time from only 2.200 words!
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