On Saturday, October 21, the Ondara House of Culture brought together more than 60 readers from the different reading groups of the Marina Alta. As in previous editions, the reason for the meeting was to hear first-hand the author's explanations about the book that everyone had previously read. On this occasion, the selected novel had been La mira de vidre (Bromera, 2019), for which Anna Moner (Vila-real, 1967) received the 2018 Ciudad de Alzira Prize.
Mónica Palacios, a renowned storyteller from Marina Alta, shared a story of Nigerian origin on this occasion, highlighting the universality of traditional narratives and the importance of sharing stories.
Then, Moner wanted to start by projecting some photographs of Barcelona at the beginning of the XNUMXth century. The author's goal was for readers to be able to relate the images to the descriptions in the novel. It was a selection of photographs of the main streets of the Catalan capital that, as Moner pointed out, allow us to contextualize aspects such as clothing or the way in which the different social classes of the time interacted.
To continue analyzing The Glass Look, Víctor Mulet and Llúcia Boronat, librarians of Gata de Gorgos and Ondara, respectively, wanted to ask Moner about some aspects of the work, such as the sinister darkness and atrocity present in the story, which even, as confessed some of those present, it tested the readers' ability to continue with the book. Based on these and other questions from the audience, Moner explained that she has complete trust in readers and, therefore, treats them as she likes to be treated as a reader. For this reason, the novel seeks discomfort, traveling through the Nietzschean abyss, into which one must look but try not to fall. This darkness, which includes revenge and evil, is, according to the author, where subliminal beauty is found, that is, that horror that is pleasant to the reader. Furthermore, he recognizes that his intention is to test the reader, but literature has that great potential to safely approach unwanted situations, since at any time, and unlike reality, everything ends with a simple closing of the page. . As Moner confesses, she was first a plastic artist and then a writer, so it is inevitable to relate this artistic training with the aesthetic treatment of her work, in which the dichotomy of light and shadow prevails. A plastic treatment that has also been transferred to the illustration on the cover of the book, which has been a joint work of her and her partner Sebastià Carratalà.
