MEXICO CITY.
Literature without pain. That is the premise of The other adventure, the book that brings together the life, work, reviews and anecdotes of writers such as Fernando Savater, Samuel Beckett, Carson McCullers, Cesare Pavese, Raymond Carver, Fernando Pessoa and a hundred more figures from the universal literature.
The volume bets on the dissemination of literature, but from a conversation between friends. “What we want is to open doors and windows, bring authors, present books that can change our lives, books that can explain something about the human condition or that can tell us something about who we are ourselves,” explains Rafael Pérez Gay (Ciudad de México, 1957), one of the authors.
It is a popular book, but done with seriousness and rigor. Those who read and browse it will tell. Also, the subtitle is pretty clear.
They are stories of writers, literary recommendations, great beginnings of novels, chronicles, diaries and some fragments of essays that I have written over time, by some of the leading authors such as Samuel Beckett, Honoré de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert, among others”.
Its realization was born from the homonymous television program in ADN40, in which the work of Bibiana Camacho, Mauricio García and Alfonso Pérez Gay J.
The compilation, which includes old and author photographs, is divided into 32 themes ranging from memories and eroticism, to suicide, hotels, cities, travel, soccer, vices, madness and humor, among others.
And within these topics we include 10 books that seem important to us, that is, if you take the chapter dedicated to memories, you will find In Search of Lost Time, de Proust; Look whereby Savater; The Book of Restlessness, from Pessoa; Reminders, by Marguerite Yourcenar; Illumination and night glare, de Carson McCullers; Diary of a writer, by Fyodor Dostoevsky and The job of living de Pavese, to name a few.
With this compendium, Pérez Gay abounds, “we present a mosaic of authors and works on the aforementioned topics, so that you can open it on any page, read a review and open the door to read that book.
And if you don’t want to read it, you will have the review. It is also the opportunity to read some of those great principles, such as Pavese’s diary or a McCullers story ”.
The other adventure it is an invitation to read and it is a book for dissemination, a way of getting closer to books and their authors. So it is far from being a book of literary criticism, ”explains Pérez Gay.
Nor is it a book that attempts to explain the deeper reasons for the important works mentioned here. However, that does not mean that it is not or tries to be a book of depth, reflection and dissemination ”.
He acknowledges that sometimes literature is accompanied by a bit of a show, “because you want to see the great authors, take their signature, and that is also part of the lyrics. It doesn’t scare me that someone chases Vargas Llosa to have a signature or that someone wants to approach Savater to see him and tell him something, as we see him at some book fairs ”.
And that is also about The other adventure, “From the stories of writers, to a review, the summary of a book, the story of a writer, the beginning of a great work and a set of books that can make you more cultured,” he says.
ERROR WHEN TEACHING LITERATURE
The teaching of literature in Mexico has always been a mistake, ”says Rafael Pérez Gay.
For example, if you give a 14-year-old boy to read the Sing of mine CidYou’re going to keep him away from literature for the next eight years, because he’s going to say that if literature is this, frankly it’s better to watch football or go to video games.
Even if you give him three chapters of He Quixote by Cervantes, “you are going to take him away from the letters. I was a relatively late reader, I started at 16, although I have friends who started at 11 or 12.
Then I discovered that I was interested in knowing and reading things that had to do with my life, with my interests, my anguish, my fears, and in literature there are very great books that touch on these issues.
This is how you could start learning literature and then, as you grow older, when you are old, you can read The Quijote or a few chapters, or the Amadís de Gaula”.
And that is why I took the title of one of the magical pieces of journalism that García Márquez wrote in the 80s, entitled Painless literature, because he said that it should not be read by obligation or forced, but rather look for something in the book, not only pleasure, because sometimes it does not give us pleasure, but it reveals terrible things, but that book that we choose has to be a book which we enter as another life, another existence, or as this same world. That is why this book is proposed as literature without pain ”, he concludes.
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