Jan van Mersbergen

There’s no mistaking it – Tomorrow Pamplona is a very masculine novel. It combines boxing and bull-running with two men on a road-trip; but thankfully, there is much more to it than just those testosterone-fuelled scenarios. With these subjects, you can’t not compare it to Hemingway, but more of that later. Themes of love and obsession, running away and, finding oneself have equal measure in this short novel, published today.

Danny Clare is a promising young boxer;he’s landed a show more contract with a big promoter to go and fight in Germany. It’s complicated for he’s in love with Ragna, who belongs to the promoter, and at the start of the novel something appears to have gone wrong, for Danny is running away, fleeing the town. Robert is on his way to Pamplona. A family man, he makes the annual pilgrimage to reclaim his self in this most dangerous of events. He often picks up hitch-hikers on the way, and this year it’s Danny who is soaking wet in the rain. Although Danny is rather taciturn, Robert tries to make conversation telling him about Pamplona …

"Robert laughs. He pauses before continuing: I have a family and a house and a nine-to-five job, he says. Five days a week, all year round. Except for that one week in Pamplona.
So Pamplona’s your escape?
It’s more than an escape, Robert replies. And it’s not just about the kick. You’ve got to have your own reason for running with the bulls."

The conversation continues until Danny asks ‘How far is it to Pamplona?’ He’s hooked. Robert plans to drive through the night, down through France. As they continue on their journey, Robert continues to try and draw Danny out, explaining how being a family man sometimes makes him feel inadequate …

"That’s another thing you can’t imagine, he ways. It’s something you have to experience for yourself. Do you know what the problem is with childbirth? You can’t do a bloody thing. As a man, you be there with her, but there’s sod all you can actually do. …
… All that time, you’re just sitting there. And you know what? You’d rather be facing the bulls. At least then you know what you’re dealing with. When you’re sitting there by the bed like that, you might as well be invisible."

As the journey progresses, apart from Robert’s ramblings, we gradually find out Danny’s story, which is the reverse of Robert’s. Danny mentally reviews his life in flashback. We explore the sweaty world of the gym, the relentless training, and then the excitement of falling in love and the obsession it will bring. Eventually they will reach Pamplona in time for the bull run, and the novel’s climaxes. We find out what really happened, and what the two men have to go home to.

I’ve read a few novels by Hemingway, including Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises, his debut, which I enjoyed very much (regardless of any debate on bull-fighting), liking his simple and direct ‘tell it like it is’ style and snappy dialogue. This novel is written/translated in a somewhat similar style, with short sentences that drive the complex emotions that bubble underneath. Given the monotony of the long road journey, this style also helps the story keep rolling steadily along, revealing its secrets as the miles pass.

There are also similarities between Jake in Fiesta and Danny in this novel – centred on their love for a woman they couldn’t have – but whereas I liked Jake, I didn’t really warm to Danny who is very self-centred and at war with himself. Robert, I could sympathise with; clearly in the full-blown throes of a mid-life crisis, needing to prove that he was still a man, with his own will.

This is yet another short novel of quality from Peirene Press, who continue to bring great modern European fiction to English readers, but ironically, it does make me want to read more Hemingway too. (8/10) show less

“A boxer is running through the city. He heads down a street with tall buildings on either side, darts between parked cars, runs diagonally across a junction, down a bike path, crosses a bridge and follows the curve of the tram tracks.”

And now the killer line, “Anyone passing would think he was in training” but he’s not, his breathing is fragmented, out of control. He is wide eyed, being chased by the echoes of sentences shattered, haunted by words disconnected from their show more surrounding, all this accompanied by a bell incessantly ringing, ringing, sounds come at him distorted before clarifying to a simple command to stop! and with the only volition left to him he lashes out.

This is our introduction to Danny Clare, a professional boxer, who up to this point in time appeared to be reasonably successful, going places, but now he’s running, running from a love affair that has left him battered, running from some deed that will dog his every step. Into this tale comes Robert, who takes pity on this individual he sees soaked, standing at the side of the road. Robert is a family man on his annual pilgrimage to Pamplona, to take part in the encierro (Bull run) as a way of escape from his 9-5 routine, the dull lethargy of his suburban existence. This book has been described as a road movie & it’s easy to see it as such, the prose, the tight, short sentences that pull you forward like the engine of some muscle car, as we follow this strange pair, Danny, brooding and curt with a suppressed rage so immense you can feel it burning off the page, and Robert, the friendly, talkative family man who feels the need to risk it all, to chance his life in the bull run. As the car takes them ever onwards towards Pamplona, we also follow the route backwards, becoming aware of the chain of events that led to Danny running, to a moment so explosive and powerful, a climax shocking, but with an inevitability that mirrors the bulls and their stampede.

http://parrishlantern.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/tomorrow-pamplonajan-van-mersbergen... show less

I loved this book! Told in a simple, but effective style, it draws you in to it's web and you are unable to put it down. On the surface, it has been compared to "a road movie in book form" and, like most road movies, there is so much more to be gleaned from the story.

Danny is a fairly successful boxer. He is running (literally) from a doomed love affair which has left him raw in it's betrayal. Robert is a suburban family man who is making a yearly trip to Spain for the twelfth time. The two show more men's paths cross when Danny is offered a lift in Robert's car.....chiefly because Robert takes pity on the rain soaked Danny. Their stilted dialogue is wonderfully written and Robert's off hand kindness is so well portrayed, even though trying to extract any information from Danny is like pulling hen's teeth! Robert is off to Pamplona to the festival of the bulls. For the uninitiated, men don white shirts and red neckerchiefs in order to run from at least six huge bulls released in to the cobbled streets of the Spanish town. True, it seems like madness, but according to Robert there is nothing better and every man has his own reason for being there. Does Danny want to go with him? Well he has nowhere else to be, so why not?

Throughout their journey, the author, Jan Van Mersbergen, depicts these wonderful little cameos of ordinary people in everyday situations, but it is the clarity of these encounters which is so absorbing and, dare I say it, addictive. This is impeccable writing and wonderful characterization and is a joy to read. The ending is powerful and shocking, but still leaves the reader with questions to ask. I like that in a book, as it gives you a reason to put your own perspective on the story and guarantees it remains in your memory long after you turn the last page.

This book is the fifth release by Peirene and I truly do not know how they do it! Every title, from all over Europe, has been first class and beautifully translated in to English. "Tomorrow Pamplona" can be added to that faultless record.

Many thanks to Peirene for sending me this title for review. show less

A road trip taken by two men across Europe to the bull-running at Pamplona. The set-up appealed to me: it’s quite similar to my own novel, with two men on a road trip, exploring the strange relationship between them and the mutual search for something more than what they have.

The characters are quite different from mine, though. They start as strangers: Robert picks up Danny outside a service station and offers him a lift. Despite Robert’s best attempts to get inside Danny’s head, they show more really remain strangers right to the end of the novel. Danny is monosyllabic and secretive, a professional boxer fleeing some initially unspecified trouble and a messed-up relationship. Beyond that he refuses to say any more, and when Robert tries to press him, he threatens to pull up the handbrake as they’re speeding down the motorway.

There is real tension in the car, and I was drawn immediately into the story, wondering what Danny’s secrets were. Not much is revealed about Robert beyond the fact that he’s a hard-working family man who goes to Pamplona every year to feel alive. Nevertheless I did feel a sympathy for him – he is clearly trying to help Danny, and perhaps needs something from him too, something which Danny refuses to give.

Through flashbacks we gradually learn more about Danny’s story and his troubled relationship with Ragna, and yet still a lot is withheld. The author never allows us inside the characters’ heads, so we have to rely on their actions and speech, and in Danny’s case this doesn’t give us much to go on. I find it works very well mostly because it keeps things mysterious and leaves a lot of blanks for us to fill in. Where it didn’t work so well for me is in the scenes with Ragna, because with so few words and zero emotional expression, you don’t really get to see the foundation for the relationship between them. It’s just a few mumbled words, and then suddenly she’s got his cock in her hand. Even after that, the main development in their relationship is that they have sex in various different positions. The emotional repression is all true to the character, but still it makes it hard to understand why he feels so strongly about Ragna, which his actions make clear that he really does. It also makes the sex feel a little bit nasty.

There’s a wonderful dreaminess about the passages in Pamplona itself. It’s an experience which is supposed to be visceral and to make them feel alive, and yet Danny seems more detached than ever. It’s as if he’s a spectator to events that are happening to someone else. Even as the bulls are charging, nothing seems real. Afterwards neither he nor Robert can remember much about the whole thing, other than vague impressions of colour.

Tomorrow Pamplona is a novel that manages to convey a lot despite its relatively short length, its spare writing style and the elusiveness of its main character. As Danny is mumbling a one-word evasion or playing with the door of a toy car, we have space as readers to fill in the blanks. As more of the back-story gets filled in through flashbacks, we get more information to help us hone our guesswork, and by the end we arrive at something like an understanding of Danny’s character, as far as such a thing is possible. It’s a satisfying structure, and results in an intriguing novel that reveals its secrets gradually and builds suspense as the car rolls towards Pamplona. show less