On the Edge
Rafael Chirbes
[New Directions]
Set on the Mediterranean coast against a backdrop of abandoned cranes and concrete mixers, On The Edge depicts the painful hangover that followed the burst of Spain’s heady construction bubble. Its pages teem with corrupt developers and con-men; we are offered a depiction of a small town as stagnant and yet as brimming with sordid life as the marsh it is built upon. The town’s dirty underbelly is described in grim detail by Esteban, the primary narrator, who inherited a startlingly pessimistic view of life from his embittered father: both see their fellow humans as “bags of waste tied up in the middle”. He has, however, failed to inherit his Republican father’s political idealism, and asks: “Is it a sin to have no interest in revolution or in digging up the past?” In many ways, the question is core to the book, as it is to post-Franco Spain. The other narratives, in large part dealing with society’s most vulnerable, would suggest that Chirbes feels the answer is yes.
On The Edge is not always easy going. The narrative voices lack definition and merge into each other, and it often lapses into over-determined, didactic preaching. But Chirbes’ vocal – at the post-dictatorship pact of silence, at Spain’s massive-scale political and financial corruption – makes the book stand out among contemporary Spanish fiction.
Words: Liza Cox
