There is a subtle invisible line that goes from the first book of our childhood to the book of condolences of our funeral, passing through the book of good love, the book of the jungle and the book of life, the one we write with our work and days. , as Hesiod says. Fortunately, paper can withstand everything, or almost, so on the same pages where ideas are found there are also emotions, regardless of genre and form, time and space. Each line, each frame, each measure is the result of what we have experienced or what we would like to experience.
Today is Sant Jordi, the great day of culture. Culture comes from cultivation, but also from worship. It is a day to taste the vintage of this year’s creation, to lament the bad and mediocre pages, but also to surrender to the good ones, those that we end up worshiping and incorporating into our life journey. Today we think about the authors, but we should also think about the readers, who should be the main protagonists of the day. Without pages to read there are no pages to write. It would be appropriate not to forget in the corridors of publishing houses that, deep down, we owe ourselves to the reader.
In the beginning was the Word, say the Christian gospels. Reading or life, Primo Levi would say. Writing is the photocopy of life, Terenci Moix would say. The language or the style doesn’t matter: let’s write the best story with our lives. Or let’s escape from everyday life by dreaming through the pages of others. Everything in life is a dream, Calderón would say. Sales figures, editorial marketing, label management, literary criticism, cultural policy… all of this is meaningless if someone does not put two words together and if someone does not read them together. Today is the day when those who do not write would like to see themselves signing books. And the day when, whoever signs them, thinks about making money or going down in history.
However, unlike paper, shelves do not hold everything. What is written emerges like a cork or falls under its own weight. And what remains of the day, as Ishiguro says, is what manages to amaze us, captivate us or, even better, move us and admire us. All is not lost: good, as Cervantes says, will save our species; beauty, as Dostoevsky says, will save the world. There is an ethical function beyond aesthetics, the next step of which is mysticism. Today is the day of the royal academies, of literary salons, of reading clubs, of literature awards, of sales tables, of full shelves. Today is a day of legends and reality, of books that smell like roses and roses that smell like books.
Today is, par excellence, even for a day, that of the Republic of Letters, whose citizens we are all, where everything is yet to be written. The slave dreams of being a master and the master dreams of being a slave. Today is the national holiday of Barataria and Redonda. Today is the day of unwritten books, the holiday of all those who would have wanted to write. Or the day of all those who would have liked to know how to read. It is also that of the memory of persecuted writers, even more so, that of the Politkovskayas who die for what they have written. But he is also one of those who have died without being able to publish. And the day of the forgotten literary characters who were everything at one time. It is also the day of books burned in the bonfires of intolerance, business or fashion.
Today, on the feast of the most knight of saints and the holiest of knights, as another of his namesake Jordi Farré would say about Sant Jordi, who sought holiness, is also the day when, as another clergyman, Benito Feijoo, says , “I, a free citizen of the Republic of Letters, neither a slave of Aristotle nor an ally of his enemies, will always listen in preference to any private authority to what experience and reason dictate to me.” And the emotion, Plato would add. Let’s read, dream, listen, talk, live. Let us make the monologues of Sigismundo and Cyrano our own, let us complete the pages left in the middle by Ferrater and Bolaños. Bon Sant Jordi, happy book day, good day of culture.
