Friday, November 24, 2006
Nose candidSpanish writer and IMPAC winner Javier Marías chastises Spaniards for their foolishness from his pulpit in El País Semanal once again (we “progres” [1] don’t need to go to mass, we have Marías instead). Our weekly sin: “pharisaic” and “grotesque” hysteria in the face of celebrity drug consumption. I am used to Marías whipping his readers to a contrite pulp every Sunday [2], but I wasn’t expecting this revelation about his own drug consumption:
With regards myself, the few occasions in which I have taken “something” have been those in which I had to make a great effort or work longer than I could without a rest (give ten interviews without a break in one day after a sleepless night, for example). Unfortunately, I haven’t had the opportunity, then, of feeling “euphoric” or of “hallucinating”… (Yes, I confess that I have been interviewed whilst “on drugs”; or “on dope”; or perhaps “out of my head”; but nobody, I’m afraid, noticed anything at all, a pity.) (My translation)
To my knowledge, the only other Spanish writer to confess publicly to snorting “something” was Camilo José Cela, although, in his case, the “something” was water, and the orifice used was not a nostril. I let you work out the rest for yourselves. Let’s just say that his rare talent for water absorption did not make it into his Nobel Prize acceptance speech. [3]
Somehow I cannot imagine John Banville opening up (ahem) to the same extent.
[1] “Progre”: pejorative term for “liberal”, projecting more scorn than the word “liberal” pronounced through clenched tobacco-and-gunpowder-stained teeth by a Texan redneck after being offered a spliff and a blow job by Hilary Clinton’s homosexual twin brother.
[2] Marías has found a pitch all of his own in his weekly op-eds for El País: a rare combination of fury and common sense that I find more terrifying than the Sermon in Joyce’s Portrait.
[3] Sadly, Cela's "watergate" is the best thing I can say about him outside of his literary talent. Let me just summarise his personal record in three words: Franco. Callous. Asshole. (Hold on, I am repeating myself with this last one.)
posted by Diana Perez Garcia at 7:35 PM | link |
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