Manuel Vilas (Barbastro, 60 years old) says that poetry probably ruined his life. But that doesn’t matter now, as he admits in the prologue to Una solo vida (Lumen), his latest anthology. Fortunately, there is no remedy for this, otherwise we would have lost one of the most unique voices in Spanish literature. Vilas does not lament his condition because his vocation has caused him to fail as a writer or stumble without trade or benefit. But because this drive has led him to become obsessed with the beauty that a tire or a fork can radiate, that magnet not always found in sunsets and that poets dig through the rubble to either find hope or Attesting to landslides Vilas has been like this all his life, when the alcohol drowned and triggered his verse and his narration, or later, sober, when he has enjoyed success since the publication of the masterful Ordesa (Alfaguara). Previously, in the 1990s, he had begun to make a name for himself with El rumor de las llamas, followed by Autopista, Resurrección, Gran Vilas, El sinkimiento or Roma and parallel, narrative, with works such as Spain, Our Air, The Immortals, The Luminous Gift and later, in a different phase, the extraordinary Ordesa y Alegría. Then came Los besos y ahora nosotros, this year’s Nadal Prize winner, a Gothic novel with sunshine and Mediterranean wetting in which he tells us that the basic condition of great love is pleasure. This is Vilas, open to the grave, open, lyrical and bestial, as you will see.
Do you think you’re a better writer since you stopped drinking?
man yes Ordesa I already wrote it without alcohol. I stopped drinking in June 2014 and started in May. I wrote it drunk for a month and the rest, the whole novel, completely sober.
Was it lost before and has it been found since?
Yes, Fernando Marías told me, may he rest in peace: “You will see how much happiness giving up drinking brings.” Almost like a prophecy. He has commented on it in the literary field. What you want, what you’re looking for, will get better because that fake alcohol rumor, that kind of euphoric illusion you think you’re conveying, is a lie. INCORRECT. Therefore yes. In my case, I’ve been writing better since I stopped drinking.
This euphoria, what was it?
I had it as standard. I thought it was caused by alcohol. But when I left him, I knew he had that love of life in him.
As you write in the foreword Only one life, his last volume of poetry.
My euphoria is based on passion for life. And you see it more clearly. Alcohol doesn’t give you that clairvoyance. This is a wonderful discovery.
And cheaper.
And cheaper. And you live longer. you are smarter
“Capitalism has achieved enormous precision through the price of things,” say author Ximena and Sergio
In this prologue he also acknowledges that poetry may have ruined his life, but it no longer matters.
I can extend that to my entire work. Literature gives you an alternative existence, you see everything on this level. They look for beauty everywhere, like Irene, the protagonist of Nosotros. A passion. In the matter, in everything, a touch of beauty. This can ruin your life because it creates a very intense obsession.
Why are you disappointed when you can’t find what you’re looking for?
Yes, by constantly chasing a magic, a mystery, a voice…
Even in the plum jam…
For example. Even in a plum jam… This obsession invades you. Living like this is always very exhausting. Express reality to get the gold that hides it.
Also in money? That obsess you, beyond metaphor.
Yes totally. Because money is precision. If you want to know what’s in front of you, ask how much it’s worth. When a friend tells you they bought a condo on the beach, what do you ask them? how much did it cost you Capitalism has achieved enormous precision through the price of things. A house, a pair of shoes, a watch. The novel attempts to reflect love under the weight of capitalism.
But he also uses money as a breakout against hypocrisy. Against the puritanism that makes us believe how bad it is to talk about these things when everyone is thinking about them all the time.
Oh yes. What a novel cannot contain is hypocrisy. They are already imposed on us by societal conventions to keep the gears working, but in a novel one expects to find the truth without borders or rhetorical obstacles. When I use money and talk about how much things cost, I do it to attack this hypocrisy. Especially in Spain. It doesn’t happen that often in other places.
Where?
In the United States for example. Here capitalism seems inhuman to us, but in private everyone calculates. Everyone has their own conversation with capitalism. Then we attack him, that wild face of him. The left disguises it by giving it a social veneer.
And do you know how to do that?
As?
With money.
Exactly. We calm the effects of capitalism with money. Investing in health and education. Actually, we always talk about it, even if we don’t verbalize it.
You, or perhaps your generation, have shed your mask in this regard. In other words, he no longer talks so much about ideals or utopias and more about practical issues.
I do it as a principle of reality.
But to the point of writing in a poem that a bank transfer makes him happy, few dare.
Yes Yes of course. It happens to all of us. Heck, I got 750 euros! i can eat now Well, when you say that, you can come across as a neoliberal. If I mention it in a novel…
Now, in a novel, it’s much more common. But not in a poem. It doesn’t occur that much, at least not that clearly.
Yes / Yes. I made poetry.
Is that what sets you apart?
For me it is a principle of truthfulness, a moral task. Be honest with what you see and feel. If a bank transfer will do that to me, why lie? In an area that drinks from such a pure tradition, you can’t touch it, it can draw more attention… But I don’t differentiate much there. For me, poetry and narration coexist in the House of Literature.
Claims the term poverty. So that?
I even do it for the lower middle class dash. That they are poor today. I come from lower middle class with a fear of someone not making ends meet. That will not be erased in life. If you experienced it as a kid and your parents passed that horror onto you… even if you’re doing reasonably well, carry it with you. I imagine that I will have trauma there, and so I ask how much things are worth. Also for being from a village, right? On the other hand, I consider myself very strict.
Let’s see how much was spent today?
Nothing. Today I ate some vegetables at home. Canned chickpeas and two eggs. It does not reach 2.50. I think all of that. In the materiality that it carries within itself. Throwing away food is a total crime. And sometimes it’s hard to pass it on to your kids. take care of things A table, a window, folding clothes, parking shoes under the table.
Does that separate you too much from your children?
It connects me to my father more like a liturgy. Increasingly. It will not go away.
And that other obsession with watches?
This obsession is mine. There are cathedrals of the period that are high end. What Shakira counters in her song, the same thing happens here, in my novel. It makes me laugh. In front of the Cartier that Irene gave her husband as a present, her lovers would later pass by with watches costing 100 euros. Use their clocks to calculate what kind of person is in front of you.
Objects on Manuel Vilas’ worktable. Ximena and Sergio
So who checks the time on their phone, what do you think?
That’s very millennial. I still like the idea of timekeeping acknowledging beauty with a watch.
Is it because he belongs to a generation that had a high point in his life when he gave him one for First Communion?
They gave me two. A Duward and a Thermidor. That was very important. The first clock. And it became the most transcendental. It probably comes from there. Inside the watch was the part of the adult that will already be measuring the time. A step from childhood to maturity.
Do you think that before our first communion we didn’t know how to tell time?
You measured it for us, right? It was left to the adults who decided when we would have a snack, what time we would get up… In that sense, they took a worry out of our minds. The arrival of time in your life is overwhelming. The use of reason was, to a certain extent, having the hours. The child in front lives a wonderful timelessness.
So, basically, did they tease us when they gave us that first watch?
Yes, of course. With that came a responsibility. Also, you had to learn how to measure it.
In a way. Circular. Isn’t it necessary anymore? Is time linear now?
In a mobile phone, it is also accompanied by various functions. In a way it is vulgarized. A clock gives prominence.
Category.
Exactly. Because it is very important in our own life that it doesn’t get involved in many other things.
Pleasure, he says, is a forbidden word. We use peace, calm… or happiness when we raise the tone.
The entire novel is based on enjoyment as the basis of life. I was looking for the intimate connection between love and pleasure. Sometimes we prefer to associate this sentiment with loyalty and complicity, but the idea that pleasure is essential in love isn’t most recognized.
Shouldn’t that be clear from minute one?
Yes man. I mean give him a very intense role. Start and end there. It’s not what’s more socially valued in love. Before that, understanding, loyalty, generosity with the other stand out… They are the most cherished values. If you confess that you put pleasure before these terms, they accuse you…
Frivolous?
Frivolous would be the right word.
If, on the contrary, to consider pleasure as the motor of love, isn’t that an enormous depth and an enormous risk?
That’s the novel, that’s what it’s about. The depth of this novel lies in recognizing him.
Did you discover it with maturity in love?
I’ve worked in non-autobiographical fields, although they undoubtedly exist. I was obsessed here with inventing the story of a perfect love. A passion of two people who triumph over all circumstances…
“Lust is very important. Touching, kissing, eating sea bass with champagne and not feeling guilty…” say Manuel Vilas.Ximena and Sergio
The world is falling apart and we fell in love like they said in White House.
This phrase recognizes that passion can go against any collective order. It’s a demand for freedom.
Does it also contradict the idea that suffering prevails in love?
Also. We didn’t come here to suffer. That’s a superstition. Socially he is not to be surpassed. We should undergo an emotional revolution in order not to suffer from love. Lust is very important. Touch, kiss, eat sea bass with champagne and no guilt…
And the Mediterranean… You spent some time in Rome recently. What did you discover there?
The beauty.
In the sense in which Paolo Sorrentino presents it to us the great beauty?
Yes, and by Fellini. In the sense that we came into the world to be part of one of their films, with party, passion, laughter, celebration, grotesque.
A somber grotesque, far removed from the Spanish, rather somber?
Fellin’s grotesque is happy without misery.
Has your discovery of Rome canceled your fascination with America?
No, these are the two countries that fascinate me the most. United States, for your energy. This human landscape has influenced us since Lorca Poet was writing in New York. It provokes a lot of literature. But also rejection, helplessness, unease. It can be devastating. The misery there is wild. The homeless don’t ask anymore. In Europe, poverty goes hand in hand with begging; There they are like zombies, they don’t even ask for money, they are stuck in their tunnel.
A novel you titled Spain, Would you write it again right now?
I could not. I wrote it with great rebellion.
do you deny that
I was a rabid iconoclast back then, a punk, a free verse of Sex Pistols and avant-garde lore. He drank from the Buñuelesque tradition, as Aragonese in the sense of wildness, that of Un perro andaluz or La edad de oro, which is impossible today. A celebration of chaos. I also wanted to provoke with the title. We live in a country whose main problem is its own name. Without articulating this politically, simply linguistically. What is our problem in the beginning? The word. The word Spain.
A friend of mine says: “If Spain Spain, what aSpain!”.
I continue with the topic. In Nosotros I speak of this through Quevedo’s sonnet, Constant Love, Beyond Death. If you would let me salvage a page of our literature, that would be it. To show that we are capable of illuminating great works.
They had big concerns Order knowing what his parents, whom he portrays, would think of his work.
It was a metaphysical concern and impossible to solve because they are already dead.
However inside Luck He talks more about his relationship with his children. What did you think?
For them it’s a fiction. Maybe later they will understand it differently. what did i want My dad took me to a lot of places and I don’t remember exactly what the hell we did. I filled it with other stuff. In Alegría I tell my kids what our little one and I did one day in Chicago. So it’s recorded rigorously, with precision, for you to know.
And that tears come to his eyes?
Glad you remember me and don’t have to invent anything. I would have liked that with my father.
He remembers well that they went to places where there was shade for the car.
Yes / Yes. And I believed that he came from a dysfunctional family. I didn’t want to die without telling my father’s relationship to his car. But then I realized that the same thing happened to a lot of people, they didn’t go to certain places because there was no shade to park. I realized that we lived in a dysfunctional country and weren’t that weird. That spoke well for us. We took care of things.
While reading LuckThey were also very concerned about their suicidal thoughts. Still there?
Yes, I have. But they passed me. I do not know why. I continue to be prone to depression, sometimes I fall into wells. But in relation to the other one, I think I’ve been able to negotiate well with myself and I don’t worry that much anymore. In Alegría, my divorce and the dissolution of a family weighed heavily.
When that happens, there may come a time when you decide that the guilt will stay with you forever. You can’t get rid of it, but you have to keep going…
That is. When I wrote Alegría I didn’t know it yet and thought it could be fixed. Since he couldn’t do that, he fell into the hole. Now I know and those tendencies are gone. They came from the dissolution of a family. The life of the four went to hell. Time has passed, it is inevitable. I don’t worry as much anymore. Like the idea of the statutory statute of limitations on crime. There must be no judgment and you remain calm.
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