Pérez-Reverte and the fascination with the West's decline

Pérez-Reverte: the end of the West as a spectacle

Arturo Pérez-Reverte, at 74 and with three novels in the past year, has lit the fuse again. "Watching the end of the West is a very interesting spectacle," he declared. The remark, released on August 10, has drawn a chorus of criticism accusing him of arrogance and of revelling in disaster, or even of being part of it.

A well-timed provocation

The writer arrives at the debate with strong commercial backing: 'Misión París', 'Enviado especial' and, from October 20, 'La hipótesis más peligrosa'. In parallel, he has praised Pedro Sánchez as "fascinating" and warned that "casting the old aside and sidelining them is a huge mistake we are making, and one we will pay for." Two fronts, one character.

But his words on the twilight of the West are the ones that have stung the most. Some argue it is the classic pose of the intellectual enjoying the show from the sidelines; others go further and suggest that his own career is part of the very decline he claims to be watching. Crocodile tears, some conclude; clear-sighted vision, insist the few who think he is right.

The cost of prophesying decline

The awkward question is whether Reverte is describing an uncomfortable reality with the only weapon he has, the written word, or whether he has simply found a profitable audience for the apocalypse. At 74, he is still selling. But, as his next novel suggests, perhaps the most dangerous hypothesis is not the end of the West, but the possibility that he might be right.