‘Bar Urgel’, by Pablo Gallego: an initiatory novel

The plot, like any initiation novel, is almost predictable because it tries to account for the formation of a character. Thus, the so-called Bar Urgel is the domain where a microcosm is exercised that, the protagonist knows, is not only adverse but harmful but which he cannot do without: «The Bar Urgel is the place where the men who scare me the most in this world meet. Their tortilla skewer is as it should be, not like those downtown cafes where they charge you five bucks for a tiny skewer and a piece of sour bread, and you leave hungry because there is free Wi-Fi…” Needless to say, the matter could easily fall into customs and it would seem that the types described could enter a postmodern version of Romans innkeeper. Thus, that conversation between father and son:

«—I like cars, I want to get my license.

—And for what? Do you want to be a scrap metal dealer?

—No, but if I want to go somewhere I need a car. I’m not going to ride a bike. Without a license I’m going to be a ‘disgrace’.

—Well, don’t feel ‘unfortunate’. Feel like an idiot — the man laughs at his own idea and repeats it looking at those of us around. The son laughs too.—You, ‘disgraciao’ never. “Just assholes.”

These types of characters are not the most suitable for someone who wants to be a writer, takes care of his sick mother and he takes neighborhood walks with his friend Fatty, who becomes that unclassifiable person who accompanies us in our youth and who, suddenly, disappears one day. And, meanwhile, present, whatever happens that kind of dandMonipodio Courtyard which is Bar Urgel, with its tortilla skewer totally adapted to the taste of the neighborhood. In that patio, everything happens, free gatherings are offered as a result of some television debate, there is always some drunken rant with thick sexist words, where emigrants are criticized and homosexuals are hated. All in words. Because the environment demands it.

Pablo Gallego, who says he discovered his homosexuality when he entered the theater, He does not apply himself vehemently to skinning the bar’s socialites. Sometimes he feels disgusted by the moral decay of the place, but he also feels grateful for all of them who welcome him as one of their own, coming to understand lives that can only be explained through centuries of acquired survival. He even sees a certain hint of poetry in it.

A novel that faces the complexity inherent in the human condition and does not allow itself to be carried away by easy dichotomies, ‘Bar Urgel’ is a good initiation novel, whose poetry…, despite… can manifest itself in any bar in Carabanchel, that will become unique once uniform gentrification sets in.