We met in ‘the trench’. In the sector. The book sector. A battlefield with crossed interests where booksellers and publishers form a necessary pairing, but with conflicting interests in many cases. She and I, figures with very different roles, but with the same devotion: the vocation for service, the total conviction that public money is sacred, the dedication to energizing the cultural sector, the so-called cultural industry. She was the general director of Culture and Heritage of the Generalitat Valenciana – she has been until a few months ago -. Me, the modest technical director of the Fira del Llibre de Valencia, of the Gremi de Llibrers.
If I am convinced of one thing, it is that putting an artist, a writer, in charge of public management must seriously affect their creative process. The endless meetings, the administrative consultations, the thousand and one bureaucratic impediments that make “their” project, that of public office, take years to be carried out or, sometimes, make it impossible. During her mandate, Carmen published two works: “Enamorar (se)” (Destino, 2016) and “Basta con vivir” (Destino, 2017). Quite a feat with a packed agenda and tremendous projects in its general direction.
San Miguel de los Reyes saved her. The headquarters of the Valencian Library, a former monastery, later a prison, which, in addition, was her place of work during the eight years of her public performance. When we met, the feeling upon entering that space was one of absolute peace. It’s evocative. He has a magic that only those of us who have walked on him in silence know. No tourist visits. On a foggy rainy day. It’s like taking a leap through a time warp. In Carmen’s case I think it was her lifeline. The exorcism of her. She shows it by making it one of the axes of her new novel: “The Reckless Heart.”
In the work, the writer Carmen, leaving behind her role as the political Carmen, uses San Miguel as the guiding thread of a plot in which the characters, at an advanced stage in their lives, question everything. The great continuums of literature make an appearance: love, memory, forgiveness, jealousy, the wear and tear of couples, friendship, fidelity, infidelity… That mix that we always want, but with a tone in which, Carmen speaks, Carmen narrates, in a register that is absolutely identifying with her. To read her is to listen to her, with her words, with her reflections on life, her innate goodness, her sense of humor, her worries, her recent pain over the loss of her elders. family, the mental imbalance that weighs us all down so much. She touches us by proximity in the generation of the protagonists, she seduces us by the proximity of spaces and settings. In this case I recognize my lack of objectivity because many of these scenarios have been my own life.
Carmen refers to a quote from the universal Gabriel García Márquez, who said: “I became aware that the invincible force that has driven the world is not happy loves, but dissatisfied ones.” The actors in this play are characters that would fit perfectly into García Márquez’s universe. A narrative of everyday life made entertainment. A fiction that might not be. Questions like who keeps the flame of love when the other is busy with other things. If it is worth breaking up in couples where you spend almost your entire adult life together. Starting from scratch again. My environment tells me no. At least not women. Faced with a case in which rebuilding their life with a new partner is an option, the majority choose to maintain the existing one or, in the worst case, return to militant singleness. New opportunities are presented to the protagonists. Passing trains. Trains that can be the antidote to routine, boredom, as Amoraga says. I leave the final outcome to encourage reading a work that, in my case, has stimulated the desire to reread the author again.
