‘The best in the world’, by Juan Tallón: I know who I am or so I think

The subject of this novel could not be more timeless and fascinating: what we could have been and are not. Unamuno called “future ex-selves” those truncated or aborted versions of ourselves that could have developed under other circumstances. The idea that we are what we are due to a mixture of uncontrollable chance and constant decision-making (each decision rules out one or several different futures) is dizzying and allows us to conceive the fantasy of a multidimensional universe where countless versions of a single individual coexist, the saint and the criminal, the hero and the infamous. The theme of multiple, fractured or revoked identity has received numerous literary treatments, from the I am another from Rimbaud to Pirandello’s split subject in One, none and one hundred thousandbut Juan Tallón gives it a twist by interweaving it with a motif typical of the fantasy genre (and science fiction), that of parallel universes in which History has followed divergent courses. This is what Philip K. Dick did in 1962 when he fantasized in The man in the castle with which Hitler won the war and this is what Tallón does when he imagines that Hitler was simply no more than a third-rate painter. It must be said that the interweaving of the theme of relegated identities with the motif of historically divergent worlds is fortunate, although the Hitler protagonist is not German nor is he called Adolf, but is Galician, an undertaker, and answers to the name of Antonio (the origin of the surname is opportunely explained later in the novel).

Antonio Hitler is a reckless and ambitious businessman, married and the father of Irene – whom he adores – who, on a trip to Mexico, where he closes a fabulous deal on his old idea of ​​a luxury coffin for millionaires, experiences something that radically changes his life. He does not know what that coffin is. something, but the reader can make his own guesses if he accepts the presence of the supernatural in the literary fable or parable or, simply, if he considers that he is faced with a fantastic story. As for the radicality and magnitude of the transformation, the protagonist will become aware with disbelief upon his return, in the second part of the novel. In this part, the discovery that Hitler is an intruder in his own existence is developed, that in this other In this universe, someone with his name and appearance has built a private and public life that is not his own. Thus, the two parts of the novel outline dissimilar and one might say incompatible identities: that of the Hitler without scruples or morals, afflicted by outbursts of extreme violence, and that of the peaceful and appreciated director of an art museum. Tallón narrates in a linear manner this stupefying journey of the protagonist and, in order to provide the reader with the biographical background of the first Hitler, he intersperses retrospective chapters that exhibit the sombre and even gloomy profiles of the child and the young man repressed by his father Amancio, patriarch and founder of the company. This alternation of times gives depth to the psychological portrait of the character, allows it to be nuanced through his relationships as a couple (his girlfriend Esther, his wives Lidia and Patricia) and maintains the intrigue about his behaviour in a transfigured and alien world.

The desire to recover his former life as a funeral goods salesman also involves rescuing the intemperate and brusque Hitler, who has no empathy, and is capable of any atrocity to achieve his goals (a capacity that Tallón rightly postpones). But, in wanting to return to the original universe that we have known in the first part, the protagonist does not bet on the malignant version of himself against the supposedly benign one (since this also has its dark side), but he yearns for the dark pride of having made himself at any price, the dominance physical of the world and, without being paradoxical, his paternity of Irene. Tallón guides the protagonist with effective ambiguity and knows how to remain silent in time so that the fable opens up to a horizon of numerous meanings and the novel closes where it should do so in order to leave the questions dancing in the reader’s head. It even invites us to think about the difference between two endings for the story, the one that concludes the second part and the one that contains the Epilogue, which is, in my opinion, the one that closes it with the opening of meanings to which I refer.

The narrative rhythm has enough pulling power to drag the reader through episodes of very different intensity, with dialogues as abundant as they are credible (including the Mexican and Argentine accents of some secondary characters) and a prose that is agile but in need of some corrections (‘to expire’ is not the same as ‘to breathe out’; nor is ‘wholeness’ always ‘integrity’). The only thing that surprised me was that the focus was not exclusively on Hitler, the absolute axis of this twisted and fascinating fable that perhaps has not reached the level of success of Masterpiece.

You can follow Babelia in Facebook and Xor sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.