Evil is not an accident. It exists. And there is no respite. He has no empathy. It is cruel and perverse. And these are the characters in the stories the writer tells. Gonzalo Unamuno in Your wild gardena book that I published in 2021 and dedicated to the actress Graciela Borges. But worse than that: the characters have no peace and no morals. There is no fault in the horrible actions of these deranged people. But they continue as if nothing had happened. And it gives chills. “Between the two of them they threw the dog into the jacuzzi. It took two hours to peel and dismember the animal. “It looks like a cow,” said Fernando, while arranging the cuts of the dog on the chorizo grill and sprinkled them with coarse salt..”. In Goalsthe first of the stories in the book, two brothers run over the country neighbor’s black Labrador and don’t know what to do. And then: what better than to dismember it, cook its remains and invite the owner to the barbecue? A love Fernando and Lucrecia. They are one of those people you wouldn’t want to meet. Capable of any madness. Even serving your dog as lunch and without blinking.
Of course: the two hundred pages of the anthology of Unamuno They avoid moral judgment and everything is left to their fate, or to their misfortune? Even so, the stories are beautiful and very well written, even if what they tell is creepy. Is it that thing about when man is man’s wolf? Well, that. Indigestible. Like the dog I guess. Although I never tried. Wow, I don’t know.
Blocked contacts
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Your wild garden It is a treatise on human barbarity and vileness taken to its maximum expression and a little further as well. They are frightening stories, written with a masterful pen but horrifying in the end. And one does not come out of one’s astonishment, because as the reading progresses, things become thicker and more suffocating.
It is the case of Filming on the banks of the riverthe fourth story. Magdalena, a young TV producer, is in Peru to participate in an audiovisual project about exotic rivers in South America. So far, so good. The strange thing comes when the protagonist films how some piranhas eat a girl in the middle of the river – and then uploads it to her networks as paid content. In the end. “Magdalena saw on her screen a silhouette receding into the river, its long arms synchronized, until a surprising and fierce splash arose around Luana’s body.”. Stop. Before continuing, I clarify that the TV producer had just had sex with the woman who was now swimming in the river. It is not just any data. It is the data. But I’ll leave that to you. “He heard the succession of screams, but continued filming. There was nothing I could do at that distance but capture. A few minutes later the group of piranhas ceased the attack, returning quiet to the river. Then he went to the car and got behind the wheel. He grabbed his cell phone and sent the video to his production colleagues. Filmed on the banks of the river, wrote”.
Gonzalo Unamuno’s protagonists are twisted. They are like many Hannibal Lecter (The silence of the innocent1991) recharged. They suffer and cause damage, they suffer and make people suffer without mercy. And they do so in disconcerting circumstances and in unimaginable places. And all with overwhelming tranquility. They are strange people. And it is in that strangeness that we get lost. And we ask ourselves: And now, what? The list is endless. And it seems like it never ends. But it is precisely there, in the author’s endings, that we understand that life is neither fair nor orderly and that most of the time we are not up to the task, no matter how or what they are. And yes: the truth is never sad, what has no remedy.
Reflecting the detestability of the human condition is -without a doubt- one of the great achievements of this work. And this is demonstrated by the 17 stories, one more disturbing than the other. Dear Elijah It is the last of the stories. And as an example, one button is enough. They are two brothers. One writes a letter to another. It seems like a farewell. There are reproaches. There are complaints. There is revenge. And there is no love. That’s for sure. “As I well know, you are the kind of trash who maintains that the crux of lying is that what is necessary to be the one who executes it subsists, always discovered too late, how then could you think that you would go so far, to get your way. (…) Therefore, dear Elías, it is time to sign the signature, put the pages in the envelope and go to the mailbox at the entrance. The effects of the poison are beginning to show themselves in my body and it is possible that soon I will no longer be able to get up.”. And as he wrote Daniel Guebel, on the back cover of the book, “(…) the author tries everything he can – and it is a lot. Sometimes the prose is sober and other times overflowing. The narrators go through all the people and characters through all the states of pain, disappointment, burning and hatred. What more could you ask for?”. Nothing.
♦ He was born in Buenos Aires in 1985.
♦ He is the author of poetry books From another light (2007), Distance that no one will occupy (2011), and new Minor chords for Marion Cotillard (2011), among others. His most widespread works, the novels Let everything stop (2015) y Lila (2018), are being adapted to film under the direction of Juan Baldana.
♦ Between mid-2008 and early 2009 he lived in Madrid, Spain, where he attended the School of Letters. In 2013 he compiled the Anthology Buenos Aires breathes poetry. In February 2019 he participated in the Meeting of Young Writers from Latin America and the Caribbean, in Havana, Cuba. For five years he co-hosted the radio program specializing in literature, Guard with the young womanand is currently a literary columnist in Extraordinary NarrativesRadio Provincia (Am 1270).
♦ Your wild garden (2021) y Blocked contacts (2023) They are his two books of stories.
