Fernando Alfaro debuts in the novel with ‘Mundo turbio’: “There is no beast as ferocious as memory”

2024-02-21 09:40:21

Fernando Alfaro (Albacete, 1963) debuts in the novel with ‘Mundo turbio’ (Contra), a work in which, he says, he imposed himself “the challenge” of transferring his songs with Surfin’ Bichos, Chucho to “a linear narrative” and alone. The structure, furthermore, had to follow the chronology of the songbook. “It was impossible,” he continues, “for each chapter to have to do with the songs on the corresponding album, but each chapter has a lot to do with the spirit and emotional moment of each album.” Almost all of the characters created by the author in his musical pieces parade through the text. The book, subtitled ‘A novel and all the songs’, indeed includes the lyrics of all Alfaro’s songs. As it could not be otherwise, being the writer who he is, ‘Mundo turbio’ is ‘hardcore’ literature.

‘Mundo Turbio’ narrates an entire life on the wild side, a territory long ago cornered by culture, not to mention society. Why has he entered the cursed zone?

In one of the notes that Ángel Turbio [el protagonista] takes and then draws stories speaks precisely of “hyper-healthy individuals in a dying world”, or something similar. It is the opposite of what he wants to tell and what he lives. He dedicates himself to his art to the point of experiencing in himself everything he wants to tell, which is a bit of the excuse that many of us have had to live what you have called ‘the wild side’. A certain experience to go to the end, to try to find the truth in some way. What goes against the ‘zeitgeist’? Completely. Although it is not a reaction to the kind of moral or moralistic neatness that we live. It is a book that tries to tell how people of my generation have faced life.

Reading ‘Mundo turbio’ is an experience that is always intense and, in many places, suffocating. Has the writing also been?

One of the novels that I have liked the most in recent years is ‘No Beast So Fierce’, by Edward Bunker. He refers to the human being, I would apply it to memory. There is no beast as ferocious as memory. Bringing back my songs meant bringing back memories and that was in many moments an emotional shock, although also pleasant. I’m going to resort to the topic of childbirth. It has been like carrying the novel inside for a long time, to the point of running the risk of it dying inside for fear of the pain that I knew taking it out would cause me. It took me a long time to get going, but then everything went quickly, even a little feverishly.

I didn’t want to write lightly about prison because it is a serious topic. I intended to be ultra-precise

In the literature In crime, it is especially important to create an authoritative narrative voice, and even more so in prison literature. There are both in ‘Mundo Turbio’. How have you managed to be credible?

I did not commit any outrage so that they would take me to jail and thus give truth to the narrative. I have had and have many relationships with people who have been in prison one or several times with situations similar to those recounted in the novel. Although people who have been in prison do not usually talk about it, I have been able to do so for many years with acquaintances and even friends. I didn’t want to write lightly about prison because it is a serious topic. Just as in aspects like geography I wanted to be imprecise, seeking a kind of myopic view, with prison I wanted to be ultra-precise.

It also accurately describes junkie rituals and routines. Aren’t you afraid of scaring away readers?

I don’t think about it in these terms. I have a theory that I do it a bit as a self-provocation. I am a very apprehensive person. Ángel, too, but at the same time he enters into that carnage that comes with being an intravenous junkie. It’s similar to what I’ve done in my life. I know it may cause rejection in the reader, but if you are looking for massages, don’t come here.

Is ‘Muddy World’ in part a salute to the fallen?

Completely. It is the memory of a survivor. I have made an important mistake in the novel; I knew from the beginning that I was going to do it because we are talking about a survivor. One of the titles I considered was ‘Survive’. I thought it was a neologism of mine, but no, the verb exists. It just means survive, but to me it sounds more like: surviving with a super life.

I went to a priest’s college and I had phases of my life in which I was a very believer. This determines you, for sure, even in stages when you are at the opposite end of Catholic beliefs.

Does Catholicism have anything to do with the stormy current that runs through your songs and also ‘Mundo turbio’?

My composition as a person is very marked by religion. I went to a priest’s college and I had phases of my life in which I was a very believer. This determines you, for sure, even in stages when you are at the opposite end of Catholic beliefs. I think that this sentimental education has influenced me more than the aesthetics and language of the wild stories told in the Holy Scriptures; I wasn’t such a regular Bible reader either. In an author like Nick Cave this influence is much more evident. Although at the beginning of Surfin’ Bichos it was quite present, partly also because one of the core influences of rock and roll is American roots music and there religion is very deep and has that lunatic, almost profane thing, that attracted me in times of youth rebellion.

Where and with what lifestyle did you write ‘Mundo Turbio’?

I would have preferred greater mental, emotional and geographic stability. I wrote a large part of the novel in my apartment in Albacete. But I also wrote in town if we were going to spend a weekend, because when you do a move like this it ends up being a little addictive, that’s why you do it. My partner traveled here and there for work reasons and if I went to see her, I would take my computer with me. Then I was going to see my daughter in Barcelona and, since I was studying for the MIR exam, no less, I had to go to the library to be with her. That was very good for me because those days I wrote ten hours a day. It was quite an itinerant and bumpy writing.

Of course it’s embarrassing, but without putting all my effort into it I wouldn’t have picked up the pencil.

Do you find it difficult to have your daughter read to you?

I have two daughters. In fact, one of them was having dinner with me here at home last night and I gave her and dedicated a copy of ‘Mundo turbio’ to her. I have a very sincere relationship with them. You never tell them everything, but you never tell anyone everything, not even yourself. It does not worry me. I think that going all out is the only way to write something worthwhile. My brothers, and there are eleven of us, are going to see screwed up issues in my biography reflected. Of course it’s embarrassing, but without putting all my effort into it I wouldn’t have picked up the pencil.

Do you have a tendency to take yourself too seriously, as Ángel Turbio is sometimes accused of?

I had it, I had it. I think it is a common ailment in youth. When you mature, and particularly when you have children, you lose that solemnity, that gravity that sometimes grips you. It is one of the few things that life presents you to compensate for the fact that you are getting old and dying. The final chapter of ‘Mundo Turbio’ begins with a walk next to the cemetery at dawn that could be epic and dark but ends up caricaturing the character, who gets scared and wets his socks. The narrator laughs at Ángel.