Friday, October 15 A HUNTER
I take morning coffee in my exile from the Colonial. At the client side called the attention of the books I have on the table (the first harvest of the day, evening will others): Letters to the Duchess of Aveiro , John Joseph Viola Cardoso. "I know," he says, "in Ancares have hunted deer, and rabbits in the harvest, near Albuquerque. May I browse it? ". Turns the pages, smiles before a piece, I read a paragraph: "Hunting, Duchess, has the gift of taking some time to those who practice in places where other mortals would not think to put your feet, and find, into the world of God, incredible subject. " "How right he is!" He added after leaving the book on the table and record the title and publisher. ----
happened to me once one of those games that you can not tell anyone if you want make you mad. I had been away all day and had not achieved even one piece. It was December and I was in a vast, cold moor in northern England, where I lived for some years. Fleecy clouds, announcing snow descended on the moors, the leaden night began to fall on the fields, and I was afraid I missed. There was not a column of smoke or a fence, or a herd, nothing that could guide me. I continued walking with the gun on his shoulder, the snow began to fall. Soon the darkness was complete. I remembered those travelers who walk in the snow until they fall exhausted to rise no more. After many miles up, was about to lie on the ground to accept my fate when I thought I spotted a light. Disappeared at once, but I was to where he had shone and, not long after I met with a dark mansion. I jumped the fence and a dog pounced on me immediately. I would have broken if a voice had not stopped. The portal was a man with a gun pointed at me. "Who are you? What do you look? ". Not very good grade, when I told him my situation, agreed to let me pass. In the kitchen, a silent servant gave me dinner. I remember it well: a plate of eggs and ham, a slice of rye bread and a bottle of excellent sherry. I've never eaten more appetite: from breakfast, a coffee alone, she had not eat anything. I was then, before lie on the mattress that I had intended in the kitchen to thank the owner of his attentions. I was in a strange room, next to the fireplace, there were shelves full of great tomes, on the other, a small organ decorated with colored figures of saints and demons in a closet with the door ajar, were crucibles, retorts and pharmaceutical jars, on the shelf of the fireplace, filled with objects, a world map, many of the walls were covered with strange diagrams, there were books and papers scattered on the floor and a large wooden bar, it seemed wise cabinet or a medieval alchemist. I thanked him my name, my profession as an engineer, my address in England and Spain, but my host did not look up, which was fixed on the fire. I moved closer to him, thinking he was asleep, but suddenly turned toward me, irritated. "What right do you dare to bother? Return to the kitchen and leave my house as the snow stops. " I stammered some excuse and got ready to go back to my corner. That's when I noticed the fire in the fireplace. The hypnotic dance of the flames always I was fascinated, but there was something else. I saw myself lying on the snow, bleeding, surrounded by vermin, I saw my wife, black, at my funeral, near here, in the church of San Juan. "Now you know everything," said my host. "Welcome to the realm of the dead. Now go to rest. " And the funny thing is that such was my mood that I'm not surprised those words. Returned to the kitchen, I drank another glass of wine and slept like a saint. When I woke up wearing a bright sunshine, the snow had melted almost completely and at home, which seemed abandoned long ago, there was nobody. I started walking and soon meet with other hunters. When I arrived at the residence he shared with several engineers I was surprised that nobody asked me anything, they were not worried about my absence. They felt they had been long absent, but it was the same day that had started at dawn, just as I like to hunt at times, to clear my head. One day in December, announcing sunny, had lived up to its promise and had been one of the most beautiful of the year, as I confirmed. This story is never told anyone. Twenty years later, after having taken many turns in the head, I still find no explanation.
Saturday, October 16
NORMAL PEOPLE
It's back. Back, many years later, the movies of my childhood, Mary and Martha , miraculously still open in the baroque mansion that Palacio Valdés placed one of his novels, but lost to Mary on the road. Since there are few cinemas and, on the street (my street Rivero), without the wrapper of a mall.
I see social network , David Fincher's film about the origins of Facebook. A Facebook me with what happens to me with Belén Esteban: I see no interest in any part but is sure to have it, millions of people is confirmed every day.
Is the origin of Facebook? A Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, to avenge a girl who rejected him, it occurs to hack into the computer files of the University and organized a contest in which students are compared with animals. Belén Esteban's origins appear to be no less picturesque: he was married to a bullfighter. Millonarios
accident is called the Ben Mezrich book on which the script. And an inexplicable accident, for me, is that Mambo Kings becomes a student does not take off the nose of your computer and a pert housewife. What interest that a woman can have loud public vent their trivial family conflict? What interest can have a bunch of friends or acquaintances tell me what they do or send me photos of your holidays? For me, none, for most people, it seems a lot.
The truth is I have a reputation for strange, but I'm afraid it's an undeserved reputation. Because for rare, but rare, indeed, normal people.
Sunday, October 17
STILL
"Something is missing the man who does not know the disease, disgrace or prison," said Emmanuel Mounier. More-precise lacks self- the man who has not known happiness.
I have known and even though lately it seems to me turned back and still has, from time to time, give me a goodnight kiss before.
Monday, October 18 PRAISE OF PESSIMISM
Being pessimistic does have its advantages. Whenever I try something, a business or love, I assume failure. So I never surprises me. What always amazes me is success. Suddenly, the clouds black these days, the sun rises. "You know you have exactly three times the age that I have? I too was born on June 17. " What
I know too well: I add, subtract, multiply and divide. And close your eyes when it suits me and enjoy the present, without past or future, that suddenly occurs to me.
Tuesday, October 19
THE IMAGINARY LOVER
"You keep telling stories. I think all your love is imaginary, "a friend tells me skeptical. "Well I think that all loves are imaginary, except perhaps the imaginary," I reply.
Thursday, October 21
AWARD
I interviewed in a corner of Reconquista and me on Amin Maalouf gives the impression that even the two radio announcers without too many listeners are the questions I hear what I say. And no wonder I can only say what kind banalities? But then mentioned other awards and see my favorite monster. "What think you have been granted to Metro Eduardo Mendoza?". ----
Planet is never wrong. Mendoza's last novels ever had any interest, the award certifies that the decline is irreversible. I remember at a meeting of the jury of the Prince of Asturias, they spoke of the eternal candidate, Juan Marse. "It is incomprehensible that a novelist in its class has no award," Who said I do not know, maybe Rosa Montero. "It is true that has no prize, has the Planet," someone answered. Then I: "But that's not an award, but a disgrace." From my right from my left I felt two killer looks. It turns out that when I did that grace was seated just two Planeta prize, and Fernando Sanchez Drago Delgado, two famous novelists, as is well known. The story of the alleged prize is pure surrealism. Will soon be in court on charges of plagiarism against Camilo Jose Cela. But the strangest thing is that he is accused of having plagiarized, not any work, but an unpublished novel submitted to the same award that was granted to him. Planet of novels specifically handle a renowned author and often delivered after the deadline is not no secret. I was a direct witness to one of those cases. "Martin, Martin", I telephoned a young novelist who now looks more plump in front of the programs on national television, "that the Metro will be next to me," Martin, Martin, that the first chapter he liked Carlos Pujol. " "Martin, Martin, now I have almost finished," I said two months after completing the delivery. Is normal (normal for the executives of Metro) that a novelist has lost its ability to tell stories, if they ever had, but his mannered style, will facilitate the plot canvas for one of their stylish fantastic, but you pass one of the unedited original presented at the same prize that seems intended to give that goes beyond any level of stupidity. But in the end, everything is possible in an award that is never wrong, even if they give a good writer (sometimes happens), surely is his worst novel.
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