Opposite is the boring dream of millions of people. And the Spanish fashion writer has made him a book

“I tell the people I appreciate, he said, so I also tell you, that the important thing in work is security,” says the official Beni to her young interim partner Sara, thus encouraging her to oppose.

We could change those names for almost any other because, although they are the ones he uses Sara Mesa In his latest novel ‘Opposition‘They are the reflection of a reality. And the writer captures the thought of the majority of the Spanish population with her last work: the tranquility of a stable work is synonymous with a public square.

Once again, the writer of the awkward truths tells us about a fact that floods the conversations and the future of the population. The study ‘State of the discomfort: the labor turn towards the public sector’, prepared by OPPOSITATESThe states that seven out of ten Spaniards would leave a stable job in the private sector for a fixed position in the public sector. Besides, it makes clear Who would lead that change; 72% of women would abandon the private sector because of that dream of conciliation and stability that seduces the official, something that especially captivates the strip between 18 and 24 years.

All this added to the duration of the working day, the possibility of accessing a better retirement or the good eyes of the banks when admitting a mortgage of a public worker. Being an official in Spain looks like a vital option More than attractive.

In addition, the pulse of society is marked by social networks, and it is clear the interest among a sector of the population to oppose when there are many Dedicated videos To this on platforms like Tiktok. Give advice for the study, what you should know before starting, hauls of material … All this enjoys great success Within the vertical video platform.

But there is even more revealing fact and that it seems that Sara Mesa drinks in ‘opposition’: the 42.4% Of these young people between 18 and 24, they confess that they consider opposing or are opposing for the fear that the employment situation raises.

A writer who radiography to society

Sara Mesa has become In a key figure of literature in Spainwith a work that challenges you and many times it bothers you. His narration feeds on what defines us as a society, of what blushes us as individuals, and becomes that internal voice and at the same time that is installed in your thoughts, moving as a dictation, word by word to the paper.

That theme that frames us and places, in this case in the world of oppositions, serves to talk about many issues and set a photograph of the now. Already in ‘Scar‘(2015) tells us about a disturbing love story, but also of guilt, submission or consumerism. On the other hand, in ‘Bread face‘(2018) faces us without surroundings with the taboo and with the discomfort when narrating the relationship between an adolescent and an older man, exploring and exploring the issue of maladjustment.

With ‘A love‘(2020) and its subsequent adaptation to the big screen by Isabel Coixet, tells us obsessions and drives, shows us a little explored place of female desire in its most primitive form, while reflecting on social classes or types of male. With the interesting elections made by Coixet in its adaptation of 2023 we can see in image that internal dialogue of Nat, as well as the roughness and acidity of the work.

Already in 2022, ‘A family‘, repeated the pattern of addressing a topic that would already give for books and books such as family relationships, but took the opportunity to touch insecurities, emotional education and how power within relationships is an actor who forges and molds them.

Its wealth is that, despite the variety of stories, the magnetic pen, dark and polished table is not lost at any time; Like your star theme, incommunication. Word after word we see on paper a complete breakdown of human relationships in the purest style Sally Rooney; immersing ourselves in the cause of the beginning of that personal connection between the characters, and the uncertainty and knot in the throat that holds the end of it.

The terrifying hope of knowing your future

On this occasion, ‘opposition’, it is a precise portrait of the pressure of a society that offers the opposition world as the only profitable future. The author introduces us to Sara, a young woman who has achieved an interim post in an administration office and who considers that the opposition may be the next logical step in her future. We find a reading of the public institutions that shows enough sneer, but without forgetting to be truthful and scathing.

Sara arrives at a job where he literally has nothing to do, immersing himself to the Kundera in the unbearable lightness of the administration and thus beginning the doubt, tedium and discomfort. Those rigid hierarchiesthe hostility of the environment, the absurdity of many of the tasks of the official and unconditional obedience are wearing the protagonist, which is strengthening in his psyche the idea of ​​moving away from that day of the Marmota that replaces Bill Murray’s bed with an immense building that catches you and tries to expel you.

The anguish of what your day to day will be after the opposition is another cause of restlessness. What is left of life is going to be like that? It is the question that, as a ghost, is around the protagonist daily, and what most likely is the same issue that much of the public staff is done and, why not say it, also the rest of society. Face to face we face what we are willing to give up To submit to the rigidity and stability it offers, such as a siren song, the public administration.

It would be perhaps a more simplistic story if we only stay in that layer, speaking of boredom or monotony, but table reverses it from another prism using it in favor of the narrative. The boredom as a trigger for our rebellion, endorsing another of the meanings of ‘opposition’ that has nothing to do with these marathon studies and recitals aloud of agendas: action and effect of opposing or opposing.

Here begins the narrative pulse. Thanks to that boredom and frustration that produces both his work and the study days, Sara exploits her creativity and takes her imagination, to the limit. Starts To sabotage yourself In your workhe is dedicated to the exhaustive and acute analysis of the countryman’s country, as well as relationships; In fact, he cultivates more than ever his vocation as a poet. It is fascinating how the author plays with the generic and sterile of the administration to give life, reaching extremes as particular as giving free rein to Sara’s creativity through Dadaist poetry.

“I understood that when I deformed the words it was not to build something new, but to avoid their meaning and denaturalize them. As a way of seeing them from the outside without implying me, of not appropriating them” Sara Mesa ‘opposition’ ‘

Given that schematized future to which we seem committed, as in many of its novels, Mesa proposes that between so much unease and crack, there is an apex of light, an escape option. That pessimistic halo of all his work always ends up taking us to a more positive place or, at least, his hope. It is in the hands of the reader what meaning of ‘opposition’ they choose for their future.

Image | Denise Jans

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