Lennon and McCartney
With a little help from my friends
The gathering unfolded in Cartagena, centered on a teaching moment about Montaigne. The speaker was Francisco Jarauta, a philosophy professor, and in the audience sat colleagues from nearby universities, including Javier de Lucas and Sami Naïr. The scene is described here in a light, intimate way, as if accompanied by just a bass drum and cymbal rhythm. From that encounter arose a clear proposal: to write a book about friendship. The idea received a practical push and the trio began their work. The guiding condition was simple: literature in all its forms would be their shared ground. The notion echoed a line from Ursula K. Le Guin, who observed that businesspeople tend to name numbers rather than people. Following that spirit, each author drafted their own list of names and titles, titles not necessarily shared, and they plunged into a terrain where writing and reading meet without a map.
Developing a strategy that keeps the discussion from drifting into frayed, indeterminate scars is essential. In literature, conflict often marks significance, and so the solution begins with identifying the other side of the story. This mirrors a conversation explored by critics who discuss how the reading self must rise to the level of the writing self. The trio draws inspiration from the idea that the self can be seen as another, a concept rooted in the works of Rimbaud and Montaigne, among others, and admired by the participants as a guiding principle for their exploration of friendship.
Material choice matters because good writing bridges the gap between what is read and what is written. Jarauta opens with selections from Moby-Dick, Heart of Darkness, and Jules Verne, while de Lucas adds a roster of authors including Shakespeare, Swift, Conrad, Kafka, Orwell, and Philip K. Dick. When friendship is framed as a serious art, it embraces the risks and intimate exchanges that define genuine connection. Sami Naïr completes the group’s conversation with a focus on the dangerous yet essential bonds that emerge from human closeness, revealing the depth of humanity when tested. The contributions of Simone de Beauvoir, Elizabeth Lacoin, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and the presence of Edgar Morin and José Saramago also surface, enriching the dialogue about friendship as both a personal practice and a social force. Reading such texts deepens the reader’s own sense of identity as one traverses familiar stories in new, unexpected ways, feeling the music of these words moving differently through the page.
One shared thread among the chapters is inequality. The critique centers on how capitalism tends to dehumanize, and the writers propose paths to recognize the other in concrete, everyday terms. In discussing Melville’s work, a line about transformation suggests that a person can imitate a thing or become its very essence. This reading invites reflections on Verne’s travel literature and on how power relations shape human experiences, guiding readers toward a more compassionate view of social struggles. The book then ties these reflections to the broader idea of political commitment fused with literary creation, highlighting human solidarity and a humane ideal as core to both life and art.
In considering a modern film reference, the dialogue points to a scene from Blade Runner, where a human and a replicant navigate questions of identity, memory, and recognition. The discussions extend to Philip K. Dick’s exploration of what it means to be human, and the way elective affinities shape power dynamics and social bonds. The trio examines how personal loyalties and collective ideals interact with the humanist goals of awareness and responsibility, underscoring the link between political engagement and literary work, and the enduring value of shared humanity in contemporary life.
Three writers arrive at a common conclusion: a book that revisits Montaigne and Aristotle, among others, through the lens of friendship and mutual recognition. The core idea is simple and enduring—recognize the other and meet in friendship with people of goodwill. The text argues that friendship is forged in good company, and that good times can arise even in challenging political moments when neoliberal forces threaten social bonds. The emphasis is on keeping the human at the center, even when the world tilts toward tension and disagreement.
A thoughtful reminder surfaces: true understanding requires stepping into another’s shoes, not to crush them but to see through their eyes. In this light, there are books that achieve more than entertainment; they validate the necessity of recognizing the other. A conversation in Cartagena between three friends ends up offering a compelling invitation to write about friendship as a meaningful practice in an era marked by unrest. The ending echoes a note of hopeful resolve rather than mere nostalgia, a testament to the enduring pull of friendship in human life.