2023-06-10 21:30:59
In Taormina, the land that looks like the sea, on the way to Greece, I asked Nuccio Ordine three years ago what our destination was, where it was taking us. He took us to the sea Cavafis, he said, and then he began to recite, walking, the verses of the Greek poet. I was behind him, as if those verses about the island that ultimately we all are fell from his black pants, from his shaved head, from his soliloquies. At the end of his poetic speech, he looked back and took a few steps until he asked me: “Doesn’t it look like Cavafis is with us?”
When I met him, in Malaga, with Fernando AramburuHe was already the author of ‘The Usefulness of the Useless’, he was preparing other books, he was always preparing other books. It seemed to live with passions that belonged to others, of the classics, but that he had made his own, one by one. These books are underlined that he gave to a society that was surprised not so much by his erudition but by his love for what others knew before and that today he used to tell how the conscience of the world was locked in words that were already written.
When he walked around Taormina, as if Cavafis spoke through his language, the poet was there, telling her words that were then on the shelves, carried by him, encouraged by him, arranged by him like carpets of stone polished by the waves. He was himself a poet transmitting, like a boy, what he had just learned. His brief path through this life is full of love for what has already been written, but without him, as classical world entertainerwould not have reached the actuality that he gave to what is now part of a collection that bears his name and surname.
Here I have, next to him, as if he were leading them by the hand, some of his books: ‘Men are not islands’, ‘Three crowns for a king’, ‘Classics for life’, ‘The usefulness of the useless’… Cliff has been his editorial, Sandra Ollo picked up the baton from Jaume Vallcorba, that editorial is part of the furrows that the writer from Calabria was opening to explain to the world, from his land to the ends of the oceans that he also crossed, from Spain to Latin America, to explain to what extent the classics are not memory but clarity, they are not memory but actuality.
The prize he had just won in Asturias was much more to him than an award, something he found in the middle of a race through Taormina or the beaches of Calabria. It was the consequence of a trip that led him, editorially, to the Spain of Cliff, perhaps the publishing house that best understood the cadence of his philosophical and literary productions, and from there to all the countries of Latin America. it was right now a philosopher in our languageattracted by specific translations that made him speak clearly, transmitting philosophy, in the entire scope of our culture.
When that news broke, the last great news that Nuccio received Before the fatal news that already found him without voice or life, he was the happiest person in the world. He would read to his friends over the phone what he intended to say to the journalists when they called him to find out what he thought of the current moment in letters and science, since he intended to say that governments and countries, the entire world, had to return the view to teaching the classics so that young people would embrace another way, not so urgent, not so banal, of seeing life.
I was happy as a boy. Then he had to go to Milan for a minor operation, he said he was in the best hands. I told him, because it was to me that he called to give him that hospital admission newsthat years ago I saw there, returning from the hospital, his teacher Leonardo Sciascia, his countryman, and we were talking about that Sicilian and about himself, as Italian parts of a life of geniuses, among whom were Pavese, Calvino, and he added proper names, such as Natalia Ginzburg, Pasolini or others that came from older. And then he assured that everything was going well, everything would go well, and he gave us regards for the great friends and great teachers he had, that he had, in the Spain to whom he owed gratitude, for the prize and for the publishing house and for the life. Don Emilio Lledó was the main light of that firmament of friendship that he most wanted.
For those reasons that only become apparent when andthe bad news comes rolling like black stones on turbulent seas, after that call of waiting, and of hope, he sent a spoken message, now without conversation, as if it were a word hug. In this last friendship message, she spelled out experiences we had had, recent gestures from one or the other, and ended, as if he was initiating a premature farewell that then my blood would run cold. He thanked, with those pomegranate words, everyone who came to his mind at that moment for what each one has done to make his life so joyful. Now it seems like a farewell amplified by the sadness that reality always returns, a wave without mercy.
He was a unique character, a person of an enthusiasm that can only be narrated by referring to his books. Outside of his books, in everyday life, he exercised a calm, youthful teaching, recounting what he learned, without pedantry, with the conviction that he was learning as he delved into the books. He was a progressive citizen, aware that “neoliberal politics has neglected the pillars of human dignity”convinced that “it is necessary to look at history to understand the present and foresee the future”…
Under the dome of the Palace hotel, in Madrid, he met at the end of the pandemic with his teacher Lledó. He would bring Don Emilio chocolates for his granddaughters, he would bring words to express your admiration. The two had met to talk about the philosophy that unites them, and they seemed to be, Nuccio dressed in his sports shoes, Don Emilio resting his face in his teaching hands, disciple and teacher on the stairs of a university, sharing a light that spread it has turned off the man who from Calabria told the world the essence with which the classics taught him to spread enthusiasm. The root of his work, the foundation of his joy.
Joy is what you gave us. Years ago in Madrid I introduced him to a friend who was already common, Mónica Margarit, the daughter of the poet Joan Margarit. She was the one who transmitted a piece of news a few days ago that seemed like a stone thrown against the heart of life. Nuccio is sick, a stroke, after the operation he underwent in Milan, has him between life and death. As it is said in the poem ‘Requiem’ by José Hierro, as it happened when it began to be true that Javier Marías was about to die, this time the news conspires so that crying is the only possible underlining of sadness. Writing about Nuccio Ordine in the past tense is like breaking the drum in which he kept the future essence of his talent.
#Nuccio #Ordine #horizon #Cavafis