Author: David Monteagudo
- Fiction
- El Acantilado
- ISBN: 9788492649235
- Release Date: 01-01-1970
-Reviewed by: Milly C. Lugo
Fin is the story of a group of friends who, now in their middle age, unenthusiastically decide to meet after many years without seeing each other. The meeting is to be held on the same calendar date when, during their youth, they played a mischievous prank to one of the members of the group nicknamed the ‘Prophet’. Despite individual misgivings, they all decide to attend the reunion.
The locale of the reunion is the same isolated place where as young men and women they use to meet. One of the members of the group spearheaded the calling and inviting, leading the reader and the characters to think that she was the originator of the idea. Everyone arrives at the designated place, except the Prophet. Speculations regarding his absence become a topic of discussion creating increasing tension and frustration among the friends.
David Monteagudo’s opening chapter introduces the first members of the group, thus it is titled with their names. Subsequent chapters follow the same heading style making it easier for the reader to refer back to a specific chapter in the event of character obfuscation.
As the story unfolds, Agatha Christie’s murder mystery And Then There Were None resonated in the back of my mind except that in Fin people disappear they do not die. The ‘corpus delicti’ rule reigns, followed by an increasing feeling of impending apocalypses. This change in theme reminds us of Tim Lehave’s Left Behind story line, without the religious undertones.
Monteagudo’s writing style resembles a movie script. He tends to write in a rhythmic staccato cadence; I felt like I was viewing the story, rather than reading it.
The subject matter in Fin may intrigue USA readers, as there is both a mystery (which is solved) and a conundrum regarding the future existence of mankind (which is left to the reader to unravel).
Monteagudo’s arrival in the literary scene did not happen until he was in his forties, the same average age of the majority of the characters in this book. Do we tend to ponder more on the fragility of existence, as we grow older? Fin is a book that would elicit formidable discussions and debates on the subject.
Monteagudo also presents us with the psychological impact produced by the reality of human extinction; where our emotions play against our reason. Where interpersonal relationships gradually deteriorate and guilt, frustration, fears, insecurity, and envy may take hold of our life before the eventual end. Fin is a book worth reading more for its existential perspective than for entertainment purposes.
