Leaving the party early

In addition to being a poet and literary critic, Joan Todó is a vigorous narrator, author of a narrative that elaborates very interesting and unconventional pseudo-novelistic forms as The first horizon (L'Avenç, 2013) or The green one is taken (Godall, 2021), which has also been dedicated to the form of the short story.In pockets (LaBreu, 2011) and Thieves (LaBreu, 2016), without forgetting "The Navel of the World", a story included inIn search of flamenco, a volume co-written with Jaume C. Pons Alorda and Sebastià Portell, whose geographical focus was the Ebro Delta, one of Todó's literary territories. He was originally from the interior (Sénia) but also a keen connoisseur of rice-growing landscapes. It is precisely a story that takes place directly, with a migrant disembarking from a small boat on a fine sandy beach, that opens the book. The sweetness of living, which is a collection that seems very consciously ordered, so that each piece is exactly where it belongs.

Despite the diversity of voices and tones and masks behind which the writer hides, and which represent a varied and rich set of narratives, there is a color and a melody that weave and permeate everything: it could be the rusty brown of the cover, that of the stump of an olive tree. A short story, a short piece that perfectly closes the volume because it combines the two souls of the narrator: the fantastic and the realistic, in a story about a boy who hides for who knows how long inside the cleared stump of a hundred-year-old holm oak. Rootedness is one of the motifs that recurs throughout the book, whether in a plot form (there is a father who, literally, removes roots by the feet and plant hairs on the back) or in a more metaphorical way, hovering over the themes of the stories or embodied in the primordial element that shapes them: language. In this sense, "The Goat" is a linguistic filigree for Alcover-Moll sweets, but also a harsh and dry portrait like the landscape through which these animals roam, which you may come face to face when you go to pick olives.

Perceiving the inexorable passage of time

Another recurring theme is that of aging: quite a few characters are reaching middle age, beginning to look back more than forward and asking questions about what they've done, about the life they were given: reunions of old school friends or parents' birthdays. In the hands of good art, the opposite is true. Pieces where the inexorable passage of time is perceived in a single gesture or in an object so small it reaches into your pocket, like a glimpse of something that has irremediably escaped us.

There are several stories that seem more eccentric because they take place in historical periods other than contemporary ones, but they only seem that way: this is what gives the collection its title and perfectly portrays the hedonistic unconsciousness of the privileged in the face of the historical moments that will spell their end. And the one set in the 1990s, perhaps the best piece in the collection, where a son studying in Barcelona returns home for the weekend. This is a great example of when a story should end, just when it seems like everything has to begin: writing is also about knowing when to leave. Both this and "The Music Box" delve into the theme of family as a core that gives and draws strength from individuals, like the place of origin, which acts as a burden but also as a catapult for those who want to leave to look at everything from a little further away and perhaps, one day, write something.