Julio Llamazares: "What depopulated the countryside is the car"

"

addresses many issues. People are left with

. It is the most obvious, because it is what the novel tells: the disappearance of a people, but it is the least important to me. There are others that interest me. more:

to express feelings, to live without blaming anyone for misfortunes, to understand ...

speaks of all that

below the main anecdote, which is the end of a people and a world ".

The speaker is Julio Llamazares, the author of the novel

, that book that in 1988

, hopelessly, of the helplessness in which villages in a large part of Spain were failing. It was before the whiplash in

(2016) by Sergio del Molino and after the novels by Miguel Delibes. Llamazares does not want other names to be forgotten, such as José Antonio Labordeta or Avelino Hernández. All, each in their own way, draw the attention of a world that is dying.

The book by Julio Llamazares (Vegamián, León, 1955), reread now, not only has not lost its vigor but its lament is deeper.

The reader, or the spectator who goes to the Sala Margarita Xirgu of the Spanish Theater, will witness a landscape of

.

And oblivion and rust.

of those who have been dying who return to their homes, to the fire, where once, together, stories of other times were told "to drive away the cold and sadness of winter."

All surrounded by silence and the past.

The adaptation and direction of the Llamazares book is the responsibility of Jesús Arbués, but it is Alicia Montesquiu and, above all, Ricardo Joven who fill the stage (until December 12) with voices, memories and dreams.

The expression

refers to the passage of time, so effective. To the fall of the leaves, to the vanilla color that the old photographs are acquiring. It also appears in the book to reflect an evil:

."

All that collapsed universe achieved, in 1988 and later, an unexpected repercussion. Llamazares believes today, he tells EL MUNDO, that it was because

, not the one that appeared in the media." The Spain of Guadalajara, Soria and Teruel, which the writer had already traveled before arriving in Ainielle. He loved the name of the town of Huesca, which was then the province with the most abandoned towns.

says the author of books of poems such as

, novels such as

, the travel book

or the two volumes about his visit to the 75 Spanish cathedrals (and six more temples). Thus, Ainielle is, above all, a metaphor for desolation.

The countryside in Spain continues to bleed out and it seems hopeless. There was some hope during the first months of the pandemic but it remained in just four cases, I think, the field continues to empty because it is an irreversible process, there is no going back. It responds to a change in the cultural, economic and anthropological model, I would dare say. And it is global. It is occurring all over the planet. So to speak of reversing the depopulation of the countryside is to mislead people. It will not happen, whatever the politicians do. And with less money. The millions of euros from the mining reconversion are not in the mining towns, they are in flats in the cities. And the same happens with aid to agriculture and livestock to a large extent.Many farmers and ranchers already live in the capitals of the provinces and go to work in the villages as teachers, doctors, veterinarians, priests ... What depopulated the countryside is the car. Before, people lived in the villages, next to their work, because they did not have a car and could not come and go every day, but now ... People want to have services, opportunities, social life, company, and that in the towns more and more is more difficult. That is why they are emptied, not because people have suddenly become urban. Regarding those who returned to the field with the pandemic (I did) that is a drop against the current in a process that is unstoppable because it has to do with the current economic, cultural and social model. Another thing is what happens in the future. The abandonment of the field has a greater depth than it seems: a way of living,of being in the world, a way of working. There are plenty of appearances. Well, there are other problems. It is not all gold that glitters.liter. It happens as with urban life. The key is knowing how to be in both places, handling both languages, choosing based on what one wants at all times. Whenever possible, of course. And luckily I can do it.

And, in fact, it does. Llamazares recognizes that he "needs" to live in the country and in the city, that he alternates them. Not in Vegamián, the Leonese town where he was born and which has no longer existed for decades because it was buried by one of those reservoirs designed by the writer Juan Benet in his capacity as a Roads, Canals and Ports engineer.

In

there is also a respect for the rural world that today, rather than despising, is ignored. The rural world does not exist, it is an urban coinage. There is more

in many neighborhoods of our cities than in our towns and, conversely, more

in these than in many cities. Among other things, because a large part of its neighbors come from the rural world and preserve their culture and their way of relating. Television and the car have homogenized everything and the social fabric is what it is: most of the inhabitants of the cities are of peasant origin and in the towns many already come from them. What is urban and what is rural? Regarding respect, I don't see it that way. I believe that the protagonist of

does not respect its environment and its memory.

On the contrary, in his desperation and his obfuscation to defend them he destroys them and, incidentally, he destroys himself.

It happens often in life with many people.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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