Speech For 60th Birthday

Context and literature. Cases of Muñoz Molina and Carver.

"P ara understand Antonio must be of Úbeda "comment on the work of Antonio Munoz Molina his countrymen. Muñoz Molina is discouraged by this comment, because he chooses to have his literature is universal. opts to have their books, despite being based in the recesses of his childhood, can be understood by people throughout this world. If his latest novel "The Wind of the Moon" again investigate the origin, his family and focuses on relationships with their parents and grandparents, of course not meant to understand that only people who have lived the rural, unhygienic and brutalized their children, but anyone who has suffered oppression and the need to fly still teenager. Although it was toward the moon.

I agree with Don Antonio, and I can not imagine that, all your loyal readers, both civilians and foreign. I have not had a childhood without running water, and my father did not have those hands calloused by spades and ropes of straw, but able to determine the optimum point of ripeness of a tomato. My father was an inveterate reader, and I passed that crowd slowly and deliberately, and without meaning. But I've lived many years just a few miles from where did the childhood of Muñoz Molina, and I know what he's talking. And without wanting to naught, I think so, I am able to understand him better, as they would be more my school friends who collected coal for the hearth in the neighborhood drugstore, or were responsible for sacificio and uncomfortable the last litter of the dog tied to the door of the farmhouse.

For the same reason, the stories of Raymond Carver , though universal and capable of transmitting a concern and hope confused and bitter, should be more readily understood by those who have lived in the worlds he describes. And I do not mean you have to be alcoholic to understand a novel about alcoholism, but the social environment in which they develop their stories. This habitualmete the western United States, large and sparsely populated regions, where usually no lack of work. Cities full of possibilities for the diligent and hardworking man, whence the American dream every night, but where there is also the abandoned, the so-called "white trash." Many of her characters are engaged in work unknown to anyone who has not lived in America. The context, for foreign readers, is almost unknown. Is it possible to accurately interpret the will of Carver without the prior knowledge?

I would answer yes, Carver, his literature, simple and hassle-free semantic grammar is directly the minds of his characters, usually devoted to manual labor, many of them with dull lives, marriages waste and sprawling family. Carver, who suffered the alcoholism of his father and himself, once divorced, knows those feelings. Carver's brilliance lies not in and suffer, but to transmit them in a transparent manner to someone who lives thousands of miles from Oregon. "Cathedral" , collection of Carver's stories I just read, is in itself a wonderful example of this literature that reaches every single human hearts. Their stories, all narrated in first person, they invite us to think about the loneliness and isolation we suffered in life. No need to have financial problems or be the third time in a center rehabilitation to realize that despite all, are human beings solitary, almost abandoned children, who file their stories. Carver, meaning "cutter" or "carver", contains in itself and in its literature, the metaphor of its name.

"Cathedral" consists of a dozen stories that cross oceans and cultures, backgrounds and borders to enter our hearts. Carver can make it happen, and Muñoz Molina also.

Strep Throat And Gums

fish madness. Politics and literature.

ste E last summer has been a bit peculiar: I have not read any novel. I have not read any fiction ... well, I lie, because I took to reread Praise of the Stepmother . I did it because I wanted to remember the Mario erotic literature, and compare it with that of Mischief the bad girl . Indeed, after all these years, in this respect are similar books, like a delicious eroticism. Excluding this parenthesis, I have been reading the volume of criticism of the complete works of Julio Cortázar. This is precisely what interests me most about the work of Cortázar, because I know her and her fiction, and I needed some personal views and ideology to interpret itself many of the assertions made in the interview that he spent in TVE. I've talked about it in this blog ...

no doubt that writer Julio Cortazar was a committed left-wing ideas. In his literary work is less obvious, but for some little stories, especially the latter, and his creepy Manuel Book. In his critical work, Cortázar attempts to defend himself of certain intellectuals, usually very young and impulsive, and some writers, about their political inactivity. Julio Cortázar defends his work as a writer: no one can imporner anything, especially him, that, as mentioned many times, is more Medium that writer. His words flow through his body onto the paper and pen in an intuitive, somewhat unintentionally, almost magical. It is not a politician, and policy writing is to be a politician. Nor was the barricades, but he volunteered if the time necessary to do so. In one of these round tables is rebuked, and also assists Mario Vargas Llosa, Cortázar even says the revolutionary power of City and dogs. in the literature can be done with little mention revolution. Even dare to say that Fidel Castro would agree to that statement. To each his own, if the opportunity arises to write a revolutionary pamphlet, and will

Reader For a century, is a bit shocking this important support to the most revolutionary left, Castro and Che Guevara. Not for nothing but the prospect of the moment. Latin America was a hotbed of revolutions and military dictatorships, and the illusion of liberation turns out to deceive so many citizens of these countries that are battered by history and by their leaders. Vargas Llosa, if anything was ever on that side, has corrected his thought, now considered liberal. García Márquez, another of the founders of Hispanic boom continues with the sympathies Leftists and not many will laugh thanks, although he has not changed over the years.

need not be left to deny the dictatorship in Argentina of the seventies, we must not be right to understand today that Castro is abusing its people. Nicaragua has taken a different course, and revolutionary ideas seem outdated, but certainly not useless. Have shaped much of the politics of Latin America, and one can only regret them so much blood shed for anti-revolutionaries and revolutionaries. Especially the homelands of the saviors of coups, whether or not self-styled Bolivarian.

Are we in the pragmatism of the century XXI to similar phenomena? Let's jump the pond to return the eye of the hurricane of the English national policy. Here is nationalism and terrorism that defines the intellectuals of certain regions of Spain. If before it was supposed to be a writer was being a lefty, is now supposed to be intellectual in Catalonia or the Basque Country is a nationalist. But it is not necessary to be "English" to deny the ETA terrorist. A Basque writer is, therefore, always subject to continuous review, it is always expected a response to the latest attack, the latest statement of the political party of the terrorist and genocidal. Fernando

Aramburu, being Basque writer, has been subject to that expectation by society. Aramburu was born in San Sebastian, and lives in Germany. If you call Perez, was born in Cordoba and lived in Germany, no one would question him about "the problem." But one is not born where you want, and inherits the names you want. Fernando Aramburu, however, did not respond to these issues. He was quiet, waiting to emerge when he spoke of Cortázar. We can see in some of his previous novels certain signs, ridicules nationalists (in lemon Fires are a few examples), does not write in Basque (that word is that he uses) and it was considered a bit suspect in the people.

But it's time to do so, to issue a verdict. fishes bitterness is a collection of stories about violence in the Basque Country. It is a mature work, written when the author was willing to do, when I was ready to make it clear once and for all the denial of the violence and absurdity of nationalism, but in a way that I am sure, would have liked Cortazar. Because Aramburu not talk politics, does not mention or describe slogans rallies, shows only the lives of people who suffer without knowing why. Characters marked by the greater madness perpetrated in Spain after civil war. And so from the ground, dismounted and well-equipped with reality. Living in Germany was not kept uninformed.

Pacifists maintain that if the soldiers of the opposing armies will meet, talk and discuss, would end the war. Because wars are directed from above, by people who are not stained with blood. If someone is able to read these stories and not feel grief, because it is one of those who cause the violence that resulted. How different is the approach to that of Bernardo Aramburu Atxaga. Both seem to disagree with terrorism, but while Aramburu shows the guts of the innocent and the cruelty of presenting the mask of victims and executioners about others, Atxaga, by comparison, is lost on practical considerations, possibly necessary, but cold and empty of humanity.

If ever a foreign friend asked what book to read about ETA terrorism, encourage it. Fish of madness on the loose, slippery and difficult to catch, skip and jump into the water searching for the ocean, but do not know they are on a roll. Intellectuals may come now "left" to say what they want, but has everything Aramburu said.