ordesa It was a turning point in his literary career. And now very Wewinning Nadal Award 2023. Returns with this lost romance novel Manuel Vilas (Barbastro, 1962) will begin the Maestral Literary Evenings in Alicante on Friday the 10th at 20:30.
love again…
Well yes. Again, this issue was always there because it was very important. It’s a fundamental issue in human identity, genre, and we continue to explore what love is, that mystery that remains a mystery. Love will continue to be talked about until there is an evolutionary leap and man finds another way to find meaning in life, to find fulfillment. But I did not choose the subject. A writer, at least I, does not choose the subject, it is simply to observe what is in life, what obsesses and determines its existence, and there are two things: love and death. Then each manages it in a certain way.
Do we all identify with a romance novel?
I think so too. We readers are very voyeuristic. You see the sincerity of the characters there because basically a romance novel is about knowing some people’s intimacy, their fantasies, their deepest desires, and that will have something to do with yours as well. Falling in love, desiring, building love, a couple, living together, struggling with loneliness… Behind the theme of love is loneliness because we couldn’t live alone and we need others. Unless you choose him with all his fears and all his pleasures. People need a us, they need to build a plurality, a couple, a family, a group of friends. People need first person plural.
“If there is no pleasure in love, there is nothing. But pleasure is not seen in society”
“We who love each other so much should break up, don’t ask me anymore…” he says at the beginning of his book. Did the Panchos really inspire your novel?
A heartbreaking bolero because a loving utopia is there: finding the mystery of life through love. The novel has the idea that there must be pleasure in love, a discovery Irene makes in the novel until she realizes that if there is no pleasure in love, there is nothing. However, pleasure is not seen very well in society. The accepted moral elements in love are loyalty, trust, respect, complicity, two payrolls to pay off a mortgage…the idea of pleasure is absent in those values. I believe that couples break up because there is no longer any pleasure in the different possibilities. And it’s unspoken, it’s intriguing because it continues to scare us.
To talk about this topic, he put a woman as a hero.
Yes, I was fed up with men and it seemed like a literary challenge to me. I think there are many writers who have a feminine side. Sometimes I don’t know if this radical gender divide is biologically real because I believe there are men with feminine parts in their sensibilities. From Madame Bovary According to Flaubert, there is a tradition of writers who want to know deeply about the female psyche. This is legitimate and also good. Just as there are female writers who can create male characters.
The story is about the life of a perfect couple, with their own world collapsing when she dies, and who must figure out how to live in a reality alien to her. You say the novel is a literary fantasy, because there is no such idealized and perfect love?
The novel has a brutal script turnaround, where what seems to happen turns into something else. When I started I had the idea to tell the perfect love story. But it is slowly cracking. Everything seems perfect in their marriage, they make love every day for 20 years, but then you read the novel and you know what it is. This annoys the reader. What I think exists is the defense of one’s achievements. There is no such thing as perfection, but people believe that what they have achieved is the best. And many people believe their relationship is perfect because they want to believe it, just like faith. The novel places you in a mirror for the reader to consider what their relationship was like.
“People need us, they need to build a plural, a couple, a family, a group of friends”
Unable to bear her loss, Irene finds a way to continue to share her life with him. I don’t know if we are ready for life and love, but are we ready to face death?
This way to continue with her husband is to sleep with a man and she sees Marcelo when she has an orgasm. And no, we are not ready to die. I believe we continue to read novels because there is no hypocrisy, with literature and cinema we continue to find the truth, as close to what it could be. The Head of Government is not going out talking about love and death.
Love brings out the best and the worst in people. It turns into a real drama for young people, and suicides are unfortunately increasing in that age group.
Because there is a bad education. It needs to be solved in institutes. There is no training in mental health and life management. You teach them a lot, but you don’t build weapons to manage a disappointment. Something unimportant. At that age, something is so important that when you grow up, you realize that it is not. It is also important to remove the jealousy necessary to put an end to this still existing machismo. This should be done in the institutes so that citizens who can manage their emotions emerge. Same thing with death. Where is it said that we should all remember someone who died with sadness and tears? You can dance in front of the corpse of a loved one, as this week with a man dancing in front of his wife’s box. They are superstitions.
There is always something autobiographical in his books. In this too?
No, not in this one. I gave Irene my watch obsession…
He was a finalist for Planet. Happiness and now he has won the Nadal Award. Is there a before and after of such an award?
It is also a happiness and a responsibility. You are happy the day they are given, but the day the novel comes out, you realize that you have to convince the readers. Having three editions already and having someone read your novel is already a success. As a reader, if I don’t like it, I quit. The victory is in capturing the reader’s attention throughout the 320 pages the story goes on. That’s our job as writers.
“A lot of people believe their relationship as a couple is perfect because they want to believe it, it’s like a belief”
Ordesa, Sevinc, kisses And We. Why one word for your titles?
It is a search for a word that symbolizes the novel, a little talisman, and a little bit of modesty. In a word, many things fit. There are titles so long that the reader has trouble remembering them later. It is a little humility and courtesy towards the reader.
Have you thought about the next one?
No, I’ve already come a long way when I got the title. The computer is always on there, but…
He already specializes in Maestral Literary Evenings. was with him Kisses And now, this Friday, he’ll do it We. What did you like most about this experience?
What I love most is the celebration of friendship in two fields, gastronomic and literary. It’s like celebrating life. Good food, good wine and a good novel. This is everything. There is not much in life.