Suena el telfono temprano con la urgencia de las malas noticias, y el narrador escucha a su hermano anunciar que su padre est infartado de camino al hospital. El hombre, admirado y amado por su hijo, haba ido perdiendo la cabeza a manos de la ingrata vejez, y ese olvido y esa mirada extraviada despiertan en el protagonista la necesidad de contar la historia de ese trabajador humilde. Historia que no se puede contar sin la del barrio que los vio crecer a Gilmer y a sus hermanos, y la de sus habitantes que lograron eludir la fatal cuadra y sus improbables devenires, tan cargados de realidad colombiana como ningn otro. Aranjuez se convierte as en el escenario de vidas complejas a las que la mirada sensible de Mesa dota de dignidad y esplendor, en la medida en que nos comparte el dolor profundo del hijo que observa los desvaros de su padre. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION The phone rings with the urgency of bad news, and the narrator hears his brother gives him the news that their father has had a heart attack and is on his way to the hospital. The man, admired and loved by his son, had been losing his mind to an ungrateful old age, and that forgetfulness and that lost look in his eyes awaken the protagonist's need to tell the story of that humble hard working man. It is a story that cannot be told without also telling that of the neighborhood where Gilmer and his brothers grew up, and the story of its residents who evaded the dire circumstances and unlikely twists, laden with Colombian reality like none other. Aranjuez thus becomes the setting for complex lives to which Mesa's sensitive gaze endows with dignity and splendor, as he shares with the reader the profound pain of a son who observes his father's wanderings.
Suena el telfono temprano con la urgencia de las malas noticias, y el narrador escucha a su hermano anunciar que su padre est infartado de camino al hospital. El hombre, admirado y amado por su hijo, haba ido perdiendo la cabeza a manos de la ingrata vejez, y ese olvido y esa mirada extraviada despiertan en el protagonista la necesidad de contar la historia de ese trabajador humilde. Historia que no se puede contar sin la del barrio que los vio crecer a Gilmer y a sus hermanos, y la de sus habitantes que lograron eludir la fatal cuadra y sus improbables devenires, tan cargados de realidad colombiana como ningn otro. Aranjuez se convierte as en el escenario de vidas complejas a las que la mirada sensible de Mesa dota de dignidad y esplendor, en la medida en que nos comparte el dolor profundo del hijo que observa los desvaros de su padre. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION The phone rings with the urgency of bad news, and the narrator hears his brother gives him the news that their father has had a heart attack and is on his way to the hospital. The man, admired and loved by his son, had been losing his mind to an ungrateful old age, and that forgetfulness and that lost look in his eyes awaken the protagonist's need to tell the story of that humble hard working man. It is a story that cannot be told without also telling that of the neighborhood where Gilmer and his brothers grew up, and the story of its residents who evaded the dire circumstances and unlikely twists, laden with Colombian reality like none other. Aranjuez thus becomes the setting for complex lives to which Mesa's sensitive gaze endows with dignity and splendor, as he shares with the reader the profound pain of a son who observes his father's wanderings.
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