Arturo Pérez-Reverte recreates in his new book, Sidi. A frontier story (Alfaguara), how do you imagine a hero like El Cid , far from Franco's vision and the Matamoros sambenito.

He has focused on his first year of exile from Castile by order of King Alfonso VI after having sworn that he had nothing to do with the death of his brother, Sancho II: the oath of Santa Gadea. With a handful of the faithful, the infanzón becomes a mercenary and offers its hosts to the count of Barcelona, ​​Berenguer Remont II, as well as to the Arab king of Zaragoza, Mutamán Benhud.

The book, with an initial circulation of 145,000 copies , addresses loyalty, honor, knowing how to die in battle and phrases like "against the hugs of fate, no talisman has power" or "often defeat comes when one feels inclined to do only what he can ». Battles, duels, pride, an affair of the warrior of Vivar (Burgos) and detailed descriptions of armor and customs spice up a novel of intrigue and passion.

How did he come up with the book? Seeing the John Ford Cavalry Trilogy I wondered how he would tell our border. The history of the Cid is very told so I decided to tell its first year of exile, when it is not yet the Cid. I have tried to explain his moral, physical, valuable, political ability traits ... How a child of exiled Castile becomes a legend in a year. How much time did he spend? In writing it, a lifetime; physically, a year and a half eight hours a day. What does your private Cid have? This book is a leadership manual, a self-help book. How to handle men, how to convince them, how to create an image, a brand. I have used not only the texts of the Cid, but also all the maxims of Napoleon on command, The art of the war of Sun Tzu, On the war of Karl von Clausewitz, books on command theory ... And the war I know how It is, I have my own memory, I know how the blood smells. "If you, sir, will banish me for a year, I banish myself for two." That is the cutlery. In the Poem of Mine Cid it is said by four, but it seemed excessive and I reduced it to two. Pride. Pride has bad press, it is confused with pride. Pride, when moments of crisis come, of chaos, is useful because it keeps you upright. He is a cousin brother of dignity. Pride not, pride blinds you. El Cid is proud. His calculated cutlery made him special. Do you have any Cid? Don't shy away from battles. Forget it. I've only made a novel about him. What is mine there, each one ... You have to pull the dictionary to read the book. No, no. As in all my novels: Alfalfar, cingulum, arzon, bélmez, aceifa, gonela ... The gonela is the fabric that they carry over the chainmail so that the sun does not burn it. I don't want to overwhelm the reader. Of course, if you do everything with the language of the time it is anachronistic and does not work. You have to look for a modern language but with a scent so that the reader believes that he is listening to speak in classical, and that is complicated. In fact, when I finished the book, I passed it to two friends: Alberto Montaner, a Cid specialist, to see if he had given it up, and to Federico Corriente, the academic and Arabist. In the border novels the world and even speech is mestizo, so here are Castilian, Catalan, Andalusian words ... Who could the Cid be today? They are not times for heroes. This is a good headline. There are no heroes in the Western world. Qurani phrases also appear. I have read it several times. Now I have reread it to build characters. Living together on that border. The word living together is very dangerous because it is abused a lot. There was no real coexistence but a coexistence, which is very different. There was no cultural harmony between Christians, Jews and Muslims. There was a positive contagion, a common space. There wasn't that happy Arcadia that fools talk about.

The academic is silent. «I want to make clear the following: I am from the generation of those who still studied with Francoist books . There was Don Pelayo, El Cid and Franco, an inescapable historical chain. The Crusade, the Reconquest. The Cid that I love as a child is a Cid with a blue shirt. I wanted to make an uncontaminated Cid, detached from the slaughterhouse, a different Cid.

It is difficult to understand Cid's loyalty to the king who banishes him, and to the one who sends part of the loot of the sets. It is not difficult. Every marginal, all outlawed, needs something to take advantage of so as not to feel too much in the open. I have seen it. "I am miserable but I have a woman who loves me," "I have a king to whom I am faithful." A need? Exactly. They need something that gives them respectability. Why doesn't a sausage speak? Because they have survival codes and if you don't respect them you are out. These codes are more rigorous than those of absolutely respectable people. Alfonso VI was a son of the great whore and El Cid hated him because he had been fucking him all his life. But El Cid needed a symbol to not feel alone in the border world. I sell myself but, eye, I don't sell everything. I sell my sword and my life but not my loyalty. That effort to remain loyal above the dirt of being a mercenary is almost touching. Other heroes he admires. I admire I admire very little. The marginal hero interests me a lot. My characters like the privateer Alatriste, Falcó ... although they live in a system, they do not belong to the group to which the majority seems to belong. Maybe because it's my way of understanding life. Maybe I also feel that way because of the way of life I led. I cited some characters. Napoleon, Julius Caesar, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Montaigne, Voltaire, as writer Joseph Conrad, the Emperor, ... El Cid had to be a good strategist .Definitely. At least a good tactician. In fact he did not lose any battle. He had a great strategic vision. He knew how to foresee, use his resources. In the novel the look is very important. People looked at the light, the forest, the wind, the ambush. Trained people see things that others do not see. Defeat the count of Barcelona who has previously asked for work. That is historical. He defeated it twice, although in the novel he founded it in one. Parallelism with Catalonia? Nerd. It is very clear that there are no Catalans here. Here is a border of the Frankish counties that reaches the Ebro and is in the chronicles of the Cid. Here is how a Castilian sees the Ebro up; He sees him as a foreigner. There is no intentionality. He might not have put the count of Barcelona, ​​Berenguer Remont, in history ... Would he have liked to live in the Middle Ages? No, not at all. There was no penicillin, no electric light, no typewriters. Does the Cid's motto: "Oderint dum metuant," "Hate me, but fear me." No, but I really liked it. "Kill not to die or to die killing, ”he reads. The novel highlights something that perhaps shocks the reader today, dying naturally. In the West we reject that death is part of the rules of the game. Do we not know how to die? Western man, no. He has forgotten. Our grandparents yes. We live a cottony world. In the novel time is told in creeds. Five creeds, for example. And the distance in arrows. When I was little, the girl who was at home boiled an egg and prayed a creed because it was the time it took to cook. People, even the illiterate, as they knew how to pray, measured time like this. What book are you reading? I'm rereading for the fifth or sixth time The Magic Mountain. What are you writing? A novel. I will not tell. It does not happen in Spain. It takes place in the middle of the 20th century. But the same in a month crosses another and ... Catalonia? I don't know what you're talking about. I write eight hours every day, I have 30,000 books. Do you think I'm going to waste time? I'm not interested. Are you going to vote? That's my thing.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Arturo Pérez-Reverte
  • culture
  • literature
  • history

The Paper SphereAdelanto from the first chapter of Pérez-Reverte's new novel, 'Sidi'

The Paper SphereAdelanto exclusively from 'The Testaments', by Margaret Atwood

The Paper Sphere Vera Nabokov with a Browning in his bag