Pablo Lopez Carballo write a review of "B" which you can read here and cut and paste here as well.
Who does not need B?, On purpose "B", Alberto Santamaría
The story is simple: a man talks / account / tells / shows a series of facts in front of a camera, helping almost exclusively on his memory. Here we raise many questions, "Who is it, Who is B?, Why ...?, How ...?, When ...? Fortunately, this book contains the answers, and otherwise follow the trail of so many texts that continue to abuse our models times medieval, Renaissance or Baroque, based on the mystery and morality to evolve. Needless to say that we did not find B neither one thing nor the other, only a literary high.
WORK OF PERCEPTION
One of the particularities of this book lies in the narrator's imaginative capacity and use that in its service, it is of memory rather than a mere archaeological tool. The perceptual process is located here just at the moment in which the narrator stands in front of the camera and never moves to the run, those that generated the image in memory. Thus what is produced are always new images and no other pre-existing reconstructions. Thus, when the narrative is the one that concerns us park the other images, remain in memory waiting to take shape. Karl Wallenda, a character referred to by the narrator, says: "being on the tightrope is living, everything else is waiting."
And now this same statement could be applied to the images that arise from memory, as matter, to live again. Born, once again, to form a new territory, a new landscape that needs to be seen as unique. Charles Wright said that it is impossible to look twice for the same landscape, although the fruits are in season, we can only see them at any given time. And is there enough difference between remembering and bringing to the present, as are two works significantly different. So the perceptual system finally established itself, making each new image-scenery remains a common process: from the identification of the edges, through the grouping of geometric shapes and its structure, to a particular structural representation and subsequent comparison with mental repertoire of representations which is recognized as a real object. And then appear and differentiate the characteristics that identify it as an object-unique landscape. With this system, what is evident is the ability of each fragment to establish itself as a whole, in addition to providing work of a structure, generated by repeating the process. What is important, as one character sentence would be "the fact that he was there at that moment with him and for him. The rest, he thinks, are stories "
This perceptive work is taken to its ultimate consequences, in which memory naturally has much to say. Even, at times it may seem that is being discarded, is also put into practice: "The summer light, the strange sun appearing in the north to gusts, shines intermittently and randomly some of its parts as a launch small messages in Morse code or some strange language invented to confuse the enemy, always bright indecipherable the human eye. " The process is the same as described above, in this case, reaching the most abstract of all possibility, which would be finding a different language, next to rest in a state of harmony.
DIRECTION MACHINERY
modeling conducted by the narrator would be comparable in many respects to that developed by the video camera. Both make their products without a previous general sense, serves the piece and have no need to fit the whole picture. Record what happens get ahead, without choosing, setting images. Thus, in this text, we would say that the momentum of meaning in each fragment of tip over, leaving the task of generating a sense (or many) to the reader. This leads us to talk about all the potential drift of the work, but now we are not concerned that the important thing of all is the new pairing of need that is generated between the fragment and forming joint work between the camera and the narrator, between the stories and shape. Thus, the character B arising from Warhol's quote "I wake up and call B. B is any one help me kill time. B is any and I'm nobody. B and me. I need a B because I can not be alone "could be any imaginable back or imagine. Or it could be that all literature is there any reader that it is thinking ... yes, B's you, or me, or us.
you want to hear
Thus we find a common thread, very fine, barely present but which can nevertheless give the story a short point union. It is the questioning of the narrator asking or wondering to himself "This would be a good summary of what you hear?" "Is this what you wanted to hear today?" Just to be an indicator of the direction pursued virus the narrator and in another order, the reader. By questioning seeks to tie knots, reminding the reader that you must build your story. The narrator doubts the process therefore needs the support point, behind the camera because no one, just him, not even perceive how it is being, or how it is being recorded. Probably, its head is past the idea that after you see the video (read it mentioned in the other plane) to be that the time to create the new sense, "surely that does not have the overall story. But do not forget you are working the detail and we also think the camera. The camera placement is not an event accidental, was there before the teller. In this case it would be B, the counterpoint to the machine. Or, this questioning of you might be interpreted as testing the reader-narrator binomial and not reader-work, as usually happens and is taken for granted. Therefore, the text ends with the phrase "Tell me about yourself", giving the you the leadership that has dominated throughout the story.
DEATH PICTURE
close relationship with death to keep all the characters of the text is what sustains turn to images of which we spoke earlier. In the development of these is present his death and, as happens to us, the images have little time re-acquainted. Hence the paradox of attributing a meaning, not only unique, but permanent things, "something akin to waking in the middle of a movie. Everything appears to be a sense around you, everything seems to follow a script, all seem to know what to do, but how about you? ".
death Rather than the image we should talk about the death of the fixed, because not even death just for having a space, a sign reading. Although, as expected, this does not intend to defend the death of meaning, but only the static: "The importance of the flight will not is the loss in itself, ie the end of the story, but on the contrary, the permanent state of flight. No state is gone but the process of disappearing that searching for "
PAUL LOPEZ-CARBALLO.
