Monumental! A maze of nested narratives, a maze of stories that intertwine at different times with a multitude of characters. Confiteor requested 8 years of work to Jaume Cabré has delivered a book of almost 800 pages. Who can claim to summarize such a mountain? As much tackle Everest bare hands. So what is it, really? Comfort the beauty of the arts face of evil that eats the hearts of men, of the Inquisition to the death camps? Among other things. In the historical magma that threatens to engulf the reader Prancing reaches out with the portrait of a man, Adria Ardévol, engaging, helpless, pathetic and, most of all, terribly human in his doubts, his mistakes, sorrows and contradictions. And with the love of a woman, complicated and tumultuous relationship; and friendship, too, which is never safe from betrayal. This novel "monstrous" is an unfathomable riches. It depletes, disorients, destabilizes. A second reading is probably essential to grasp all the subtleties. Yet despite its many ingredients and length, reading is not (too) difficult. Because the Catalan novelist uses a limpid style, occasionally trivial in his dialogues with a scholarship that will never yield to any pump or pretension. When one can feel lost (it happens), it catches up with us in a jiffy (thank you to cowboy and Indian shares childhood and conscience, and violin, symbol of the transmission with all its ambiguities). Confiteor is a great trip. In the history of Europe and the existence of an individual. With an intimate resonance as universal.
