It is always gratifying to reach one of those unclassifiable authors as he was javier tomeo. Even more so if it turns out that the author of yore was Aragonese like this blogger who writes here.
Perhaps it is because of the extensiveness of his work around the fifty published books. Or because of its ability to spread an immeasurable imaginary. The point is that such an author cannot be labeled without leaving a multitude of aspects to discover in the process.
In the same way, it will always be a daring to launch into a classification of the most recommended works. But that's what this site is about, being daring to recommend even knowing that a multitude of novels or master volumes of its genre will always remain unreviewed.
Top 3 recommended books by Javier Tomeo
The lion hunter
If it is about looking for the most surprising Javier Tomeo, there is nothing better than stopping at this book that turns the grotesque more traditional in brilliant surreal humor that ends up distilling drops of everyday existentialism.
A novel about the strange food pyramid at the top of which stands, above the lion, its hunter. A hunter waiting to ambitiously conquer new pieces, only lacking real powers and ammunition, the thing remains in vague attacks, failed strategies and resounding failures.
Not all lonely ladies are lucky enough to pick up the phone the day an intrepid lion hunter gets the wrong number. Even fewer are those who, in addition, have enjoyed the fortune of having seduced this brave gentleman with their voice to the point of getting him to "make a mistake" again, call his number again and entertain them with his loquacity. Of course, it may not be luck.
It is even possible that the verbiage of this busy adventurer who today has time to chat at length hides dark intentions. May countless and unspeakable desires swarm behind his spirited sympathy. That when you finish telling your African stories and singing caramelized flattery you begin to change the tone, to be much less subtle, much less dreamy.
That even seems downright lewd. "The Lion Hunter" is an entertaining, funny and impeccable narrative tour de force, a singular novel, everyday like life itself and strange like any other day, which portrays in all its naivety and in all its baseness its monologous protagonist and perhaps also to his silent listener.
But it also portrays the telephone, which is always there, often silent, but reminding us with its silence to what extent we are indifferent to others and thus giving us the exact measure of our insignificance. Because what we all need is a "valid interlocutor." And we need it so badly that, if we can't find it, we decide to invent it, without even waiting for the moon to shine at full moon and the night to be filled with howls.
The bolero singer
When Javier Tomeo assured that everyone likes boleros, surely he needed to round off the statement with the clarification that it is only a matter of time. And bad is that they can never get to like you, because then you will not have reached the age of wisdom, good taste and the intoxicating melancholy of a good bolero.
"Boleros remind me that I have a heart," a learned friend confessed years ago. In those days, having a heart was not as risky as it is in these hard times, many people had a generous heart, and they began on the risky adventure of love.
Nowadays having a heart and confessing it is more risky. As happens to the central character in this story, our bolero singer. Pretending to sing boleros, moreover, can be pathetic when others, to better manipulate us, tell us that we are not doing it wrong at all: "Go ahead with your boleros", they come to tell us and meanwhile they exchange a look of intelligence with their henchmen and continue secretly plotting their plans.
Complete stories
Being such an extensive narrator, it never hurts to take a tour of compilations capable of becoming a whole collection of the virtues of this narrator. Grown in a wasteland of impossible fertility save for the imagination. So Tomeo always knows how to put down roots wherever.
Because in the worn, dry, hollow lands, broken dreams slide like dusty snakes, disturbed by the heat without shade. This is how good stories are born, away from lavishness and abundance, reflecting the miseries of the dry valley where a tear shines like a diamond.
His short narrative. His stories. His micro-stories. A free and audacious literature. A direct prose. An indisputable author of a work full of intelligence and lucidity. Humor. Satire. Perversity. Kafka. Goya. Buñuel. The Complete Stories of a Teacher, by Javier Tomeo.
Javier Tomeo masters the story: the short distance is very suitable for a writer who often operates on the suggestion of an imprecise and imminent threat.
The work that we present in this edition ?? that brings together the short pieces published in the books Bestiary, Minimal Histories, Eye Problems, Zoopathies and Zoophilia, The New Bestiary, Perverse Tales, The New Inquisitors and a collection of unpublished works, which includes new works and rewrites of old stories ?? collects some of his best texts.
