I would like to get tired of talking about books, of that business of reading, of turning pages every day, of getting excited because I find something strange, a story that freed me from anguish, of an author who is little known; but I can’t, the words of books have built my life, to eliminate them would be to disappear, to vanish, to lose what, without intending it, has made me happy.
Every time I write this column, I embrace the books as if they were orphans, I think that the most important thing that people should be doing, more than keeping an eye on the politician who said something new or who sowed a little tares here and more hate there in the last conflicts, people should be reading, reading as if they were going to take our books away at dawn, as if today were the last opportunity to stay listening to what the books say in that wonderful dialogue of humility. Thinking about books is also thinking about silence, and I love that, especially these days when there are so many very intelligent people wanting to talk all the time so that the cameras and social networks realize that they exist. They don’t know what to do with anonymity, with the delicious anonymity of life. If you ask me how I would like to wait for death, without hesitation I would say: Reading!, so I wouldn’t have to explain how I feel.
Antoine Gallimard, the “lighthouse of French literature,” as he has been called, once remembered something from his childhood and adolescence that I loved. “You don’t have to be overly nostalgic, but it was a great time. At that time there was still more talk about literature than economics.” Imagining it made me feel so miserable because today talking about books at a table seems extremely strange. Sometimes not even in conversations with editors or writers, literature seems to be important, and that hurts, because it is as if current events have devoured us.
On several occasions, I have told my journalist colleagues that books can not only be the protagonists when there is a book fair or when an author wins an award, the book, for me, in a country like ours, much more so in A country like ours, with all the problems and miseries we have, should always be the protagonist.
If I had a daily column, would I continue talking about the same thing, would I use it to talk about books, the act of reading, how life without stories is practically useless? The answer is a resounding YES, because despite everything that happens in our country, the sadness that daily life gives us, the pain and hopelessness, we will always and at any time have reading, we will have books, the healthy illusion that they will once again be the big news on the table.
2023-11-10 05:03:55
#books
