AUTHOR: Miqui Otero
PUBLISHER: Blackie Books
GENRE: Fiction Novel
READER’S NAME: Cristina de la Torre
DATE: May 30, 2022

I found SIMÓN to be a very engaging narrative from the very beginning when the narrator addresses the reader directly using the TÚ form. Or are those words meant for the other protagonist? Both/and. This is just an example of the text being very fluid in and out of the margins, constantly calling reality into question, and offering various options for the outcomes of the different adventures.

The story is a classic bildungsroman that follows the trajectory of two first cousins in today´s Barcelona who are “reaching for the moon” in their lives against all bets. There are more clear echoes of Don Quijote here since both the protagonists are also avid readers who are influenced and guided by the words / ideas they find in books. There are frequent quotes from some classics and the text is sprinkled with references to well-known authors and contemporary songs.

The story--told in chronological order as indicated in the chapter titles--spans a quarter of a century from the summer of the Olympics in 1992 to 2017. It uses the template of the hero´s journey to tell the life stories of the cousins (Rico the oldest, and Simón) as they repeatedly stumble and get back up on their feet in pursuit of their dreams. The general theme of the novel can be summarized as the ever-present gap between la realidad y el deseo.  As such it fits a universal pattern and one easily relatable across different cultures. The language is mostly on one level—familiar—and presents no major problems for translation. I particularly enjoyed Otero´s talent for describing everyday things such as sunsets or waves in startling terms that made me “see” them in a fresh way. Another very engaging aspect of the text is its playfulness, both between the characters and with the reader, and the emphasis on performance with the use of costumes and masks.

At 456 pages the book is long and, although the story line is fairly interesting, in my opinion it tends to drag in the middle and could have used a good editing to cut it down. Maybe this could be done in the translation in cooperation with the author. In other words, for me SIMÓN was definitely not one of those “I can´t put it down” tales. It´s hard to gauge if this would be the case in the English-reading market. Somehow I see the potential of the novel more in terms of a TV series, since the narrative is quite action driven, but I suppose the prerequisite for that is the availability of the English version.

Also like Don Quijote the two protagonists return home from their wanderings defeated. And the novels leaves us there, with them at home trying—unlike the old knight-- once more to find a satisfactory way forward.

So, in summary, I am ambivalent about having this novel translated into English. Depends on what the purpose is. If what is sought is to give a sample of contemporary life and writing in Spain today then SIMÓN is a good candidate. However, I cannot imagine it would be a runaway success like the author´s other books have been in Spain.