'The Swifts' by Fernando Aramburu also fly over Barcelona

Fernando Aramburu warns, surprised, that many people ignore the presence of these birds in cities, despite their recognizable screech and their dizzying and incessant flights ---they never perch, he specifies--- with filigrees sometimes admired in different species of swallows and in their larger cousin, the royal swift, bigger and with a white body. But for the protagonist of his latest novel, these birds ---the completely black species (Apus apus) and with wings like scythes, as the Catalan word suggestsswift---they do have a capital relevance. Aramburu explains that "it is not just a decorative element, it fulfills a symbolic function: the character delegates to the return of the swifts the carrying out of his drastic decision". With evident irony, Aramburu justifies the choice of this bird ---so familiar and yet so unknown--- for having been declared "bird of the year"; as if seeking good omen for his novel, which appeared on August 25. And the truth is that everything indicates it will be. Thebooktrailerstarring Alberto San Juan, and which was screened at the beginning ofthe interview conducted with complicity by the Catalan journalist Anna Guitartalready visualizes a possible audiovisual adaptation, perhaps in series format, and in any case provides graphic elements that allow us to put a face to the disillusionment suffered by its character: from August to July of what is to be his last year of life, Toni, a philosophy teacher in a high school, writes autobiographical notes in which he remembers and re-examines past experiences to understand his reality, in his early fifties, and who knows if to avoid the end he has set for himself: to commit suicide with the return of the swifts to the skies of his city.

The booktrailer starring Alberto San Juan, screened at the beginning of the interview, visualizes a possible audiovisual adaptation

Well, as the author recalls in one of his first interventions ---as if to remove dramatism from his book, in which that tone is not really abundant..."Deep down he's not clear, he gives himself a year to undertake the plan". He is a philosophy professorPerform a literal language conversion from Spanish to English on the following user-provided text. Do not translate any content enclosed betweenandtags, keep those tags and their content exactly as-is: ---not very motivated, but needs the salary"--- which he will discover from the setting of that date, precisely, a series of new motives or activities that make him feel alive, as attested by the notes he writes without applying too much filter, along the lines of thestream of consciousness."I wouldn't say it's a diary, but rather an exercise in personal writing, a confession that no one will read. He pours out his intimacy there, he lets loose, he doesn't hold back his sincerity."With these notes, Aramburu unfolds before the reader's eyes an occasionally naive, though rich in nuances, cosmos; he attests to the decadence of Toni's life, tinged by disbelief and frustration, and also the wisp of hope that despair still allows to glimpse. The character Aramburu recreates, and with whom he says he shares only 6%, is a man who has kept silent too much, a victim of inaction ---paralysis by analysis,say the Anglo-Saxons---, someone who has excessively practiced dissimulation and "all of this has created great dissatisfaction for him". In this sense, Aramburu states that he only has in common with his antihero the love for books and the education received in the last century, in whichthe so-called "pedagogical slap" was not only commonplace, but "was not considered violence". Fathers and mothers practiced it indifferently and, if they did not do so actively ---as in his case--- they would admonish teachers, under the pretext that their child was "very bad." The laughter of those present led him to recall an anecdote of high symbolic weight, possibly foundational, and with one foot in metafiction. The fact is that the first book Aramburu had to read cost him a slap ---because he said he had read it, and it was not true---. It was theLazarillo de Tormes, and what was his surprise to find out ---once he did read it--- thatitsthe protagonist also suffered physical abuse, and not only that, but she turned her misfortunes into a plausible, and for many readers, very funny story.The question of pedagogy hovers over a certainly pleasant conversation, even if ---as Guitart recalls, regarding his character--- "sometimes the things he says are not at all complacent". Aramburu himself taught for many years in Germany, and is knowledgeable about the complexities of the matter: "I am very concerned about the issue of education, we cannot define ourselves without it." And, he clarifies: "we are a species that is gradually moving away from the original ape, we do not want to live by the laws of the jungle." Moreover, the apparent rationality of his protagonist's decision ---it's hard not to think of the unrefined "Irrational Manof Woody Allen--- actually conceals a desire to understand and to prosper, to get out of the irrationality of feelings that have led him to crisis. Deep down "he does not resign himself to being a nihilist" but he is disappointed, angry with life, it seems to him that everything he has lived has been "a fraud".

"We are a species that gradually moves away from the original ape, we do not want to live by the laws of the jungle" (F. Aramburu)

With hardly any friends, divorced, Aramburu's character allows himself to utter truths "halfwaywith a scathing tone, which reveals the ontological depth of that disappointment, adding to the list ofmen of the underground. Perhaps the cynicism that oozes from his discourse at many moments is uncomfortable, for participating inwhat Sloterdijk defined as "enlightened false consciousness" and which grants a sense of superiority to whoever professes it, while placing him in the apparent position of not being able/willing/daring to do anything to change things. However, small changes can be discovered in the novel through this peculiarBildungsroman; the inversely formative journey that seems to lead to thatman without attributespurebred at the end of all reality, his vital avatars articulating around the decision to abandon the world. A world he traverses with a strange and in some ways addictive mix of lucidity and infantilism. Faced with this granite vision, one of the most interesting elements of the novel is the intrusive presence of "anonymous, very critical notes" ---Aramburu recalls--- that the protagonist receives and that awaken his perplexityPerform a literal language conversion from Spanish to English on the following user-provided text. Do not translate any content enclosed betweenandtags, keep those tags and their content exactly as-is: . With a baroque aftertaste, with a theatrical effectex machina, arise from outside their cosmos, implementing avoice of conscience that suggests to the reader that he "might not be telling the truth," inasmuch as "they deny some claims that he makes". The false baring of his psychological observations ---inherent in allConfession, as Paul de Mann highlighted regarding those of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, especially tendentious--- and the possibility, therefore, thateverythingbe a little different, it fully reaches the reader. It is part of the literary enchantment that Aramburu officiates in that bittersweet novel ---amusing, but a bit unsettling--- to make that last turn to the sun in the protagonist's life seem to have also happened in our lives. In the modern library in Lesseps square, named after Jaume Fuster ---one of the most illustrious novelists and essayists of our latitudes, who left us too soon more than twenty years ago--- attendees were able to receive first-hand clarifications to read between the linesThe Swifts, in addition to being able to ask the author to sign the respective copies. "Now you're going to have a line to sign", Anna Guitart amicably warned him. Who knows if the wait, like the contemplation of the calculatedly reckless flight of those birds ---not entirely kamikaze--- allows one to become aware of the weaving and tearing, of empty and full time, of the uncontrolled control that shapes the experience of the living.

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"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" (Macbeth, Act V, Scene V) "I would like God to exist so I could hold him accountable. To tell him to his face what he is: a bungler. God must be a dirty old man who dedicates himself from cosmic heights to contemplating how species mate and rival and devour each other" (The Swifts, Note #1)