In terms of core issues around key notions of maximal engagement with Aldapuerta’s The Eyes (1996), a coupla corely key counter-cultural conundrums coalesce compulsively in the crania of all competent committed contemplators of the Counter Culture…

The first (of course) is that of why all Aldapuerta acolytes are so slim, good-looking, intelligent, imaginative, neurosis-free, psychosis-free, rigorously abstemious from drink, drugs and pornography, and inflexibly adherent to William S. Burroughs’ keyly core counter-cultural commandment of “Mind Your Own Business and Leave Other People Alone…”

The second (also of course) is the ultra-esoteric, über-exciting and endlessly enticing enigma of Aldapuerta’s identity…

I myself spend six or seven hours every day on a daily basis contemplating this core counter-cultural conundrum… “Who is Jesús Aldapuerta?” I ax myself on repeat.

And I think – I think – I’ve finally cracked it.

The supposed Spanish writer Jesús Aldapuerta is really the undoubted English writer and former politician… Jeffrey Archer.

Here’s the proof…

The initials are identical: J.A.

Jeffrey Archer = J.A.
Jesús Aldapuerta = J.A.

Coincidence? No. This is the literary equivalent of leaving your monogrammed handkerchief at the scene of the crime.

Both spent time in prison

Archer did two years for perjury. Aldapuerta allegedly had several stints in Spanish jails for offences including petty theft and micturating on nuns from a second-floor balcony.

Both love extravagant lies

Archer invented CV details, fake charities, and imaginary meetings with the Queen. Aldapuerta invented an entire biography (born 1953, tortured by Franco’s secret police, ate his own manuscript, etc.). Same inclination to pathological mendacity.

Both vanished at convenient moments

Aldapuerta “died” in 1988 and no identifiable corpse was ever photographed. Archer “retired” from politics in 1987 after a tabloid sex scandal. Translation: he needed a gap year in Madrid to write necrophile sestinas under a new passport.

Shared obsession with eyes

Archer titled one novel A Prisoner of Birth — birth = eyes opening. Aldapuerta’s masterpiece is literally called The Eyes. Both men clearly have an Oedipal eye-fetish that Freud would need a bigger couch for.

Aldapuerta was never seen in the same room as Jeffrey Archer

Classic doppelgänger logic. Whenever Archer is signing books at Harrods, Aldapuerta’s ghost is allegedly pushing daisies in Madrid. Suspiciously convenient.

The ultimate smoking gun: the lost manuscripts

In 1992, Archer claimed he accidentally burned an entire unpublished novel in his garden. In 1988, Aldapuerta supposedly ate his only copy of The Eyes sequel. Only one man could be that clumsy with priceless manuscripts.

And there you have it. Jeffrey Archer is Jesús Aldapuerta, and the transgressive literary world has been punk’d for four decades by a Tory peer with a fondness for disembowelment metaphors.