2023-11-06 18:43:15
Before the celebrated novelist author of Patria that everyone knows, and also to sign books of stories, essays and translations, Fernando Aramburu was a poet. A young vate with curly hair, a libertarian spirit and a love for surrealism who belonged to one of those groups, between culture and activism, that flourished in the Transition, and which in his case was called CLOCK. The members of CLOC (the acronym, if such, has not been explained) wanted, according to the author, “take the literature off the desk and take it to the street“, and so one day they broadcast a radio soap opera from Radio Popular in San Sebastián, another they launched leaflets with obituaries during an electoral campaign and another they came second in a literary contest thanks to some other people’s verses, no less than from Neruda. Little to do with the Aramburu with a serious expression and professorial attitude to which we have become accustomed, even though humor and a certain provocation have continued to be present in some of his works.
The poems that he wrote at that time, starting in 1977, and that he continued to publish in small provincial publishing houses until the first two thousand, have now been gathered in body symphonyan anthological volume that is already part of the respected poetry collection who publishes Tusquets, New sacred texts. “This facet to which I dedicated years, intensity and many hours remains unknown compared to my facet as a narrator.“, said this Monday morning, during the presentation of the book in Madrid, the San Sebastian writer, who also admitted that, in his case, “poetry is a vocation, while the novel is work that requires a series of skills and knowledge ”.
Both the editor of Tusquets, Juan Cerezoas the writer explained that the idea of publishing this book did not come from them, but from another poet, Francisco Javier Irazoki, who is joined by an old friendship with Aramburu. “This book is a dream of Irazoki, who wanted to see my poetry published in this Tusquets collection,” said the author of Patria. “Without telling me anything, he dedicated himself to transcribing my poems into a computer, because they did not exist in a Word version, they were only on paper. But my friend not only transcribed them, but also, with enormous love for my verses, he found the cover illustration, wrote the epilogue and corrected proofs, revised them… I don’t know a better antidote to typos than him,” he joked. Irazoki, he continued, “took care of everything with the desire not only to make me happy, but to make potential readers happy.”
Even the title, which corresponds to one of the titles contained in this volume, the one that included his work in verse written between 1981 and 1983, was suggested by the Navarrese poet, and according to Aramburu it expresses well the tone and intention of the book. . “The symphony is the search for a style, more or less musical, that takes into account the poetic properties of the language. And the corporal, because my poetry is essentially physical: in it we often talk about physical love, eroticism, and also about the opposite part, bodily collapse, decrepitude, death….” In this book “I am whole and true,” declared Aramburu, “while in a novel I may have written about matters of interest to me, but without leaving my small, humble personal truth there. Not here, here I am. And In fact, I had some fear of being embarrassed when rescuing ancient texts. But that has not been the case.”
Prose writer vs. poet
Regarding the difference between his poet past and his fundamentally novelist present, the author said that “he does not emerge unscathed from the circumstance of having been a poet. I I had to spend a year depoeticizing myself”. To let go to escape the tyranny of rhymes, metaphors and the obsessive care of the word. But, despite this process, he recognizes that “in reality, I have never left poetry. Thanks to those years of dedication I developed a poetic sensitivity that allows me to find it wherever it occurs. For example, in the work of others. “I have continued to read poetry assiduously, and in fact it is the last thing I do every day: read two or three poems by an ancient or current author.” It is, he says, his daily dose “of harmony, of beauty, of density of thought.” A drive that he defines as a basic need of the human being, and that, from his titles, is present in a very evident way in the one he followed Patria, Self portrait without mea book of ‘poetic prose’ that “contains more poetry than I have recognized, although what it does not contain are verses.”
Regarding republishing a book of this genre, without nuances, Aramburu said that he believes he will do so, although in a long time. “If nothing goes wrong and I manage to survive a decade or two, I would be very pleased if my last written word were poetic”. It could be a last project “that would not have to be published during his lifetime.”
Cerezo celebrated that the author who has brought the most joy to his publishing house in recent times decided at one point in his life to switch to prose, although “he could have perfectly been a poet with a great future. The books show that he was full of talent and that he had prodigious compositions already from the age of 18.” Those books published in his youth, the editor added, “they illuminate, clarify and dialogue fantastically with his usual themes, with the themes that the readers of his novels and his stories recognize in him.”: a concern for the social environment and for the time in which his Basque Country lived, but also things such as the relationship with the father, with the mother, the moments of plenitude tinged with melancholy, the tone of many of the poems, very autumnal and very rainy… And then that wonderful thing that is love, and its celebration with very beautiful verses”.
Asked about more current issues that concern him personally or the future of today’s world, Aramburu has expressed his concern about the progress of Europe, which after decades of prosperity and well-being is now facing concrete dangers. “You only have to watch the news to realize that we are surrounded by fires,” he said. He has clarified his position in the controversy surrounding the documentary about Josu Ternera, insisting that he has not opposed it existing or being seen, but rather that it be presented “at an international event without putting a moral basis before it.” And, regarding the latest film adaptation of one of his books, Avid pretensionsconverted by the director James Chavarri in the film The golden applehas been blunt: “better ones have been made.”
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