Vida de Pablo
Carlos Pardo

NOVEL | 2011 | 312 pages

Vida de Pablo is, on the one hand, a "coming-of-age" novel that brings back the liveliness and rhythm of 18th century literature (Sterne, Diderot, Jean Paul), but with themes and narrative techniques that are absolutely contemporary, passed on by Beckett and the avant-garde. On the other hand, this novel, which brings together several registers that range from the picaresque to philosophical digressions, is an exploration of the blurry limits that separate biography and fiction, and of the social anomalies that our culture of wellness hides.

Vida de Pablo can be read as a generational chronicle of youth condemned to marginalization in an industry of leisure. It also acts as a book that curiously explores the phenomenon of the distancing of friendships.

Pablo is a young artist in a small city in southern Spain who has given up his paint brushes for a bar, where he attempts to make his own "art" about expiration. The narrator (a young pretentious poet who barely makes a living as a DJ) decides to become his biographer and embarks on a picaresque portrait of Pablo and those who surround him, starting form the most important digression: love. And what initially promised to be a novel about "sex, drugs, and rock and roll" turns into the demystified narration of an imperfect first love with ups and downs.

 

RIGHTS: spanish EDITORIAL PERIFÉRICA

“Some books manage to get close to their readers, and convince them that they’re reading fiction based on their own lives.”
— Almudena Grandes, El País Semanal
“...The author has something to say, and he does it with an Italian elegance and concretion, with a language that feels as though sunlight has hit it and that makes some landscapes feel hyperrealist; with, I believe, critical loyalty to his own learning and a certain degree of nostalgia, although small. A splendid debut that won’t let the demanding reader down.”
— Elvira Navarro, Qué Leer
“A classic coming-of-age novel passed on by Beckett and the avant-garde that digs into the cracks of our culture of wellness.”
— La Vanguardia
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