The pandemic, says the writer Enrique Vila-Matas (Barcelona, ​​1948), is revealing that there is a single evil that afflicts us, "a formidable and universal stupidity", in the midst of an uninterrupted sensation of suspended time, in a profound gray atmosphere of paralysis.

In conversation with Milenio , the author of some thirty books evokes his walks through Veracruz and Coyoacán, the horror of common places, the solidarity of the citizen of Spain and his "uneducated and lazy political class." The fall of King Juan Carlos, he says, is "a reflection on the power vacuum."

Enrique Vila-Matas, illustrated by Rapé.

There is an undeniable predilection of you for Veracruz, first with that novel in which you tell us about the youngest of the Tenorio and later with that tale of the girl who dreamed of his death. What about Veracruz, with that "Mexico of celebration and despair", as you say? Could it be an influence of Sergio Pitol? Without the involuntarily protective figure of Sergio Pitol, the enthusiastic impulse that accompanied me throughout my first trips to Mexico at the end of the last century cannot be explained. I went there knowing that I would see Pitol, but without knowing on the first trip that the Mexico that awaited me was going to create contradictory feelings in me: a powerful mix of fascination and horror, of seduction and strangeness at the same time. The country made such a strange impression on me on that first trip that when I returned to Barcelona I told myself that I would not return there, but when a few months after my return I opened a letter in my mailbox and saw that I was invited in a very timely manner back to the capital, I jumped for joy in front of some astonished neighbors of my property. After the third trip - to Guadalajara, the year Arreola was given the Rulfo - I wrote a text that this morning I read again with emotion: With Mexico in the heart . There I wrote, among other things: "Mexico fascinates me because, in its lost paradise of masks, I find myself adrift and paradoxically at home. So I tell myself that I am from Veracruz." It is the same Veracruz, teacher, in the that Nabokov writes that Lolita was begotten, that is, literally, begotten by her parents, not by the author of the novel. Is Veracruz your favorite place in Mexico? Not exactly, although I was immensely happy in Los Portales feeling like a fictional character from a revolutionary novel through which Malcolm Lowry, the real Lowry, would have crossed at a certain moment, not the one from the legend . But today my favorite place is perhaps a corner sometimes more serene: the Plaza de la Conchita in Coyoacán, a place that, for reasons that are not relevant now, has something of an enigmatic point, as if it were the center for me of an infinite moral crossroads. I must confess that I was surprised by the opinion of one of his characters, who assures that Mexican taxi drivers can be disconnected if they are asked a certain question. Because I must tell you that it is almost impossible for a taxi driver to be silent, speaking of traditional taxis, at least in Mexico City. I read your article online (it refers to the column Fusilerías of last April 20 in MILENIO), so I'm glad I can answer you. This true anecdote is directly related to my horror of phrase-ridden conversations, a horror that often explains the literary style of my early days. In fact, that horror has led me to spend half my life leaving certain taxi drivers - not only Mexicans, but from all over the world - disoriented and silent, who have insisted on telling me about the weather. I get into a taxi and I hear the driver tell me that it is going to rain, for example, which, in view of the cloudy sky, is obvious, and then I mislead that taxi driver who says it is going to rain by telling him that we have actually been in those that always rain at the same time. Yes, at the same time, I emphasize. And unfailingly a silence follows. A small personal triumph, like my literature, on the topic and boredom. A game, too. A game that consists in that, if it is within my reach, I immediately smash any set phrase, any conversation with too many common places. How does Vila-Matas deal with literature? Perhaps deep investigations, do I think of your book 'Exemplary Suicides'? How is that process of creation, teacher? I am dedicated to the art of walking aimlessly. Actually a typical process, if I'm not mistaken, of medieval narrative. In the first part of my last novel, This senseless haze, the narrator is dedicated to wandering in search of a lost phrase around his house next to the abyss. Does he have a spoiled character? Do the characters have a life of their own or do all their actions depend on the author's decision? In my books, as far as I know, no one moves without my authorization. And woe betide anyone who tries. What future do you see for the printed newspaper after the pandemic? I would prefer that, next to the silver breakfast tray and with a lot of time ahead, I continue to find printed newspapers in the morning ready to be displayed and read voraciously. And I also wish that I didn't have to pay to read digital newspapers (I'm starting to have to put up money to even be able to read my own articles!). But it does not seem that things are going to go that way, surely we are going towards the disappearance of the printed newspaper. I began to sense that future of disappearance when I saw that on airplanes, between your seat and the seat in front, there was no longer space to properly unfold the newspaper, because suddenly 2020 also takes away a traveler like you, a wandering writer, that possibility, just like everyone else. How does the adventurous Vila-Matas face the confinement, I dare to call it? Lately I have been saying that the pandemic image par excellence is that uninterrupted sensation of suspended time, paralyzed that, lacking a visible future, allows us to end up living -between projects canceled and memories of old afternoons - in the present of the past, reviewing in an inexhaustible and absurd loop what in other days we did and read. That, I think, is the deep gray atmosphere in which we find ourselves. Actually that atmosphere has always been there, but it seems that we did not see it as much as now. Spain, his country, is embroiled in a fierce political debate not seen perhaps since the terrorist attack in Atocha, in March 2004. And that movement seems open cracks in the traditional forces to give way, dangerously I believe, to nationalisms and expressions of the extreme right, such as Vox. How do you see it? The country is one of the best in the world to live. For example, for the solidarity of the common citizen. The horrible thing is that we have to live with the most uneducated and lazy population in this land: the Spanish political class. As the great Manuel Vicent pointed out the other day, culture only needs freedom and prestige. Culture is born from a collective euphoria in which writers and artists inspire each other to create a creative climate. But the culture of a country is always riding on its economic and political hegemony. And in Spain you will tell me what can be done if, for example, there are only about five thousand people who read. Some speak of the brutalization of the populace, but this is spoken of in unfair terms, because rather what should be done would be to enlighten, culturalize, educate the ignorant political class. And who is going to be the handsome one who tries it? Are the monarchies once again playing the great role of balance, be it Spain, be it England, where politics boils without rest, or their own scandals are now bordering on a Rather an ornamental space? The story of the emeritus King Juan Carlos reminds me of an extraordinary story by Francisco Ayala, El enchanted , which Borges rightly said was one of the most memorable in Hispanic literature. It is a very sharp reflection on what we could call a "power vacuum".

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