Author: Antonio Orejudo
- Fiction
- Tusquets Editores
- ISBN: 9786074212563
- Release Date: 12-27-2012
-Reviewed by: Roxana Benavides
Un momento de descanso is a campus novel, a metafiction where Orejudo is the author, narrator and character. This offers opportunities to explore the boundaries of fiction and reality. Orejudo’s use of personal experiences, documents and photos calls into question the fictionality of the characters and episodes throughout the book. However, it also allows for the reader’s imagination to shape and interpret the story.
This novel incorporates both the motifs, themes and the styles of writing used by various authors. For example the satirical narrative of Lodge’s Small World and Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim. Orejudo’s use of whimsical silly singing in Edgar’s first day at the Dragon High School in the style of Thomas Pynchon ; and of course the episode with the female black student reminisces that in Philip Roth ‘s The Human Stain.
Orejudo has created a unique narrative, to treat serious subjects that are intimately connected with his life and convictions in a playful, humorous and ironic way, yet maintaining a level of plausibility. For instance, his criticism of the literary world, of the academic setting- in particular of the Spanish university as an institution and the faculty; the roles and relationship between the writer and reader , that of the humanities and other subject areas, literature and its exegesis.
Antonio Orejudo is superb narrator and storyteller with a unique voice; which makes of “Un Momento de descanso” an excellent read.
