Instrucciones para salvar el mundo (review)

Rosa Montero's latest novel, Instrucciones para salvar el mundo, offers a brilliant analysis of the four very distinct characters that comprise the book's plot. Much like her prior writings that address human relationships, the novel relates how these four disparate people are somehow connected in an otherwise alienating world. She delineates current society and the inherent difficulty in communicating with others in spite of all the advanced technology available. Nevertheless, this existentially themed novel offers a more positive outlook as the four characters are able to bond in key moments.

Matías, a taxi driver who recently lost his wife, Rita, to cancer, seeks refuge in his loneliness and the protective covering of night. Rita, thirteen years older than he, had been the anchor in his life and his reason for living. Matías blames poor medical care and specifically the carelessness of the doctor, Daniel Ortiz, who had sent Rita home instead of examining her when she complained of aches and pains. Daniel works the night shift in the emergency room and feels his life is a failure both professionally and emotionally because he is trapped in a bitter marriage and has not progressed as a physician. He finds consolation in the virtual world of Second Life, an online interactive video Web site where people can invent a distinct personality and physique. One evening, Daniel treats Fatma, a young prostitute and a refugee from Sierra Leone, who has arrived in the emergency room severely beaten by her pimp. Fatma, in turn, searches for sanctuary in a bar, aptly named the Oasis, near the brothel where she is employed. The Oasis is where Matías often goes at night and the two strike up a friendship, gratefully appreciated by Fatma, as the taxi driver is one of the few people who expects nothing sexual from her. This small bar at the side of a highway also serves as a safe haven for Cerebro, an older woman, who was once an accomplished academic and researcher, but is now an alcoholic. She spends her nights drinking and expanding on scientific theories of talented investigators whose hypotheses were rejected in their time but later were deemed to be correct. Matías is her willing audience and finds solace in her theories of coincidences.

In a moment of utter frustration, Matías kidnaps Daniel so that he might suffer as Rita did in her final moments. However, events do not turn out as expected, and the four principal characters, Matías, Daniel, Fatma, and Cerebro, are allied when Fatma's life is threatened by her pimp, Draco. The novel's strength is that Montero is convincing in her description of the relationship between the key players. Although the four could not be more disparate in their social backgrounds, they are able to communicate and form a team.

Another asset of the novel is that Montero relates the future of the characters in key moments so that the writing has continuity and the audience can understand each character with all of his or her psychological nuances. The reader learns that a hoodlum who dangles Cerebro over a bridge to scare her will later become a judge in a children's court known for his inflexibility and lack of compassion. Montero provides psychological observations of each character that are worthy of a case study and are a fascinating look at human behavior.

The novel addresses contemporary themes such as immigration, prostitution, euthanasia, the treatment of the elderly, and alienation in society. Daniel's neighbor, Rashid, is an illegal immigrant from Morocco who refuses medical help because he is terrified that he will be expelled from Spain. Even the way the author depicts the young Moroccan as he walks home, head down, walking silently close to the wall, afraid to look anyone in the eye, emphasizes the human aspect of such a polemical topic as illegal immigration. Montero admits that the novel's title is meant to be ironic, because she doesn't offer any...