One of my flaws is that I have enough bad memory. Or maybe I have a selective memory. The point is that I am to point things out in the agenda, in a thousand papers that I am spreading everywhere and I go with alarms on my mobile. There are memories that I have because they have been explained to me and I have put the imaginary ‘props’, but I am a bit of a disaster when it comes to remembering, with great detail, vital episodes. I suppose that that’s why i write, because that’s how I process it and translate it into a place where I can return when I need to. One of my favorite writers, Marta Sanz, with this persevering generosity that characterizes her, she gives us an insight, in her latest book ‘Part of me’ (Anagrama, 2021): “that there are letters below the letters, that we write with the body and the body is also blood and musculature, that under the epidermis the voices of others are hidden and resound ”.
I like to write as I like to read, and sometimes one is more uncomfortable than the other. Or the other way around. There is literature and red books, like those of Sanz, Zafra remedies, Martha Rosler o Eva Illouz; and there are many, many, that are colorless but they are not transparent. These are the worst. And they are the ones that are sold the most, the most talked about and those who enjoy the most visibility, because they fit with the predatory logic and fast of consumption. Cultural, yes, but consumption.
Related news
When I say that those books are red and these are colorless, it is precisely because of what Marta Sanz also said at the last Biennial of Thought: because they are “easily digestive books”. And it is not only for the eyes (not many pages, covers and suggestive communication campaigns …), but for the mind (little depth, gnawed reflections …). In these books the voices of others do not resonate, they do not refer to each other, there is no body or musculature, there is broken egos and calculators Benefits. I like to read and I like to write and I have a bad memory, to remember, I need body, muscle and strings to stretch. I find it in my particular red books, I hope you also have yours and that they are not colorless.
– .
