“Every summer comes to an end” speaks of things as serious as friendship, loss of youth, and death. But it does so with a lovely lightness and tone of humor. The fact that the author had a brain tumor removed before writing may have something to do with this tone. Ray Loriga (Madrid, 1967) “For me, a sense of humor is very important when writing and reading—says. Questioning everything a little bit, turning your gaze, letting the waves wash you… Also, as a result of my personal adventures, which I only use as a catapult for fiction, you make everything very relativistic. After months in the hospital, you begin to see everything, especially death, as something more mundane, not less dramatic».
The narrator goes through the same personal adventures as you, the tumor in the head and all its consequences.
Yes, among other things, because all those months between hospitals and doctors and illnesses, filtering everything through literature helped me have something to think about. Doing fieldwork was like doing something useful. It wasn’t just for survival, as he would spend several months there.
He dreams of having the tumor removed and suddenly becoming the author of self-help books.
I was hoping to be a very smart guy when the “crayon” was removed like Homer Simpson. But that didn’t happen, I’m still the same idiot… But it was always clear to me that everything I hated and all these kitsch things about looking for a ray of light on personal motivation and despair seemed even more. In that case it is cheesy to me. In any case, he would be the same fool again, not a different fool.
The protagonist, Yorik, works because there are no other options. What do you think about continuing to work after what happened?
Of course, there are men and women who will change jobs or stop working if they win Euromillions. But I was going to keep writing, so I guess there is a profession or a passion. I probably wouldn’t have gotten so promoted or wasted ten years to write a poetry book. I would definitely do these with much less pressure.
The novel also talks about the freedom to die.
I think there are so many marked areas of society, they tell you three doors to go to, as if you were on a plane. Life shouldn’t be like this. We must always be more free than we are, respecting the free will of others. But unfortunately we are not like that, there are so many determining factors in our iron work, social and family structures that make us wonder if we have any intention left for life.
Isn’t it for the rich to commit suicide out of boredom, as Luiz tried?
Yes, it’s just a thing for the economic elite. But it’s not just boredom, it’s the fear of something worse. It’s like someone is writing the novel of their life and wants to have a happy ending. Unfortunately, life will not offer us many opportunities for a happy ending. Misfortune, obsolescence, loss of talent and dignity often precede death… What Luiz wants is to get where he wants to be, as calmly as possible, without suffering or sadness.
Do we idealize friends rather than lovers, as Yorik did with Luiz, or do we understand them better?
I don’t know, it depends on friend and lover. Any formulation of love – and friendship is so – is an involuntary exaltation that the other does not demand. Friendship is having an empty pedestal and waiting for someone to step out and say, ‘Now I adore you and you will do whatever I expect you to do. Fortunately, there is no single label for a personal relationship because all relationships are a pile of things and nuances.
Do you miss your friends or lovers more?
I try to keep them both close so I don’t have to miss them. A good friendship requires lowering emotions and expectations, but it is inevitable that we tend to create goals and achievements in every couple, and that creates tension and ruins many things. Like my characters, like Borges and Bioy Casares have, I fight for that friendship, knowing the other exists and disturbing it as little as possible. Return to calm, sometimes quiet peace, years later, without seeing the same spot.
Did you avoid labeling Yorik and Luiz’s relationship? He says they were friends, but he could also say they were lovers.
I avoided giving them names that only serve to secure other people’s criteria. I don’t care about curiosity and curiosity to describe what these two men are feeling. It is something so profound and so intimate that it requires little external explanation.
What is the goddamn writer doing when they say you’re writing about quiet Swiss cafeterias where you eat pastries?
It happened to me with this book that I had conceived during a long illness and a long recovery, almost exclusively from bed to bathroom and from bathroom to bed, when I got out of it, the pandemic came. I went from isolation to isolation, so I wanted my characters to travel a lot to beautiful places and places where I was happy.
But is there an escape from yourself and the image of the urban and belligerent writer?
No, there is a normal development. First, because I was never the goddamn person I was told. I did some things at 20, some at 30, and now at 60 I have a much quieter life. And if I look very far back, the most I’ve ever done in this life has been sitting at a desk reading and writing.