Tiempo de destrucción

The novel deals with the first vital adventures and the abrupt break of Agustín. Behind this hero, somewhat naive, but always inquisitive and often 'clairvoyant', we guess the concerns and experiences of Martín-Santos himself. The story is delayed in the maturation of the protagonist -it is a 'training novel'-, until his brilliant access to the judiciary. Being already a promising judge, in the midst of the Tolosa carnival disorder, he hears of the murder of the night watchman of a family factory, and this dark drama ends up imposing itself on his existence, because, through dense interrogations, he unravels the sordid entangled lives of the factory owners and their employees. Little by little, Agustín's personal exhaustion is revealed. And after the ambivalent moments of a love encounter -or because of a broader vital failure- his collapse occurs and he finds himself immersed in a rarefied and apocalyptic world, full of strange voices, grotesque beings and mythical fantasies. This latest novel by Martín-Santos, almost forgotten today but decisive in our 20th-century literature, recovers and renews a 1975 edition, with another arrangement to which a brilliant prologue by the author is added. Now the force of his imagination and the nerve of his prose can be better enjoyed. The narration, endowed with a great introspective charge and a surprising wealth of ramifications and thematic journeys, unravels the confluence between the outside world and the intimate world, between the city poisoned by its river and the immoral mask of some inhabitants. In the mental twists and turns of its streets, the demolition of the protagonist is reflected through lyricisms, meditations and dialogues. At this point, the novel, although fractured, and perhaps because of this, reaches its greatest complexity and beauty.