The path of the English

The Path of the English is a novel written by Antonio Soler and awarded the Nadal Prize in 2004.

In 2006, Antonio Banderas made a film adaptation of the same name, with the author of the novel.

Argument

Set in Malaga in 1978, it tells the story of a group of characters who experience the transition to adulthood with apprehension. Their only refuge is their friends, being in a group the rules are isolated from the outside world and the characters capsize between maturity and innocence, while dreaming of a chimerical future.

The adults with whom they live are also within that atmosphere of change, the novel shows one of those seemingly inconsequential points in life but from which life follows a totally different path.

Criticism

We are facing a novel with a Proustian tone, it reconstructs past events that were decisive for the narrator, confirming the well-known Azorean sentiment: to live is to see return. Soler's work are good little stories that cover past events, a decisive vital moment from the perspective of the protagonists' future; That is, they are subject to definitive meaning and judgments.