Two unfortunate events gave rise to one of the most unexpected bestsellers of recent times. The text is called “Infinity in a reed” (Siruela) and it is a history of the creation of the book, from antiquity to the present, which covers all the trades, materials, protagonists and mysteries that surround this ancient artifact, a symbol of human culture.
Irene Vallejo is its author, a PhD in Classical Philology born in Zaragoza, a regular columnist for the “Heraldo de Aragón” and the newspaper “El País”, who, after publishing several fiction books and essays, wrote this volume, almost by chance.
The first of the unfortunate events that we referred to at the beginning was the scant impact that Vallejo’s first texts had, a disappointment that turned out to be the best breeding ground for this very particular volume. The second, more painful fact, was the serious illness of her little son, which kept her locked up for a long time in her house, away from her usual tasks. “I wrote ‘Infinity in a reed’ for personal therapeutic reasons. I didn’t want anxiety about my son’s illness to invade my life. So, I decided to dedicate some time every day to writing, just to feel safe. The moments in which I wrote were the only ones in which I really forgot. On the other hand, I was convinced that it was going to be my last book. My withdrawal. I thought that the dream of dedicating myself professionally to literature was too great and I had not achieved it.
The text has already been translated into 40 languages and since its publication, it has been a real success.. Charming, deep, agile, the volume builds through short stories, the journey of writing and reading from classical times to the present. Her intention is to demonstrate, in the words of the author, that the creation of the book “is the result of a history of struggles, searches, attempts, of people taking risks to save texts persecuted by censorship, of copyists, of travelers, of writers, readers, librarians; a great collective epic throughout the centuries”.
invited by the book FairIrene Vallejo visited Buenos Aires, the city of one of her favorite writers, Jorge Luis Borges. In a dialogue with NEWS, he spoke about the future of texts, the heroes of antiquity, the dark premonitions of culture and the importance of reading reaching those who have less.
NEWS: What studies did you pursue in your academic career?
Vallejo: My doctoral thesis was on the literary canon in antiquity. I was interested in how the idea of “classic” is configured. The Greeks and Latins were the first to be aware that literature was, in some way, a patrimony that had to be ordered, selected, ranked. In the days before the printing press, when all books were manuscripts, the literary canon was born as an indication of which books had to make that special effort to survive.
NEWS: There is a discussion these days regarding the adaptation to this age of books written in the past. Some authors have even been directly cancelled.
Vallejo: I am concerned about this idea of taming books and literature. As if we recognized the reader’s right to demand that books not cause restlessness and restlessness. I believe that restlessness and restlessness are obligations of literature. So that they agree with us, we already have the screens, what the social networks and the search engines recommend to us. If literature can do anything in our contemporary world, it is precisely to counteract the bubble effect in which screens surround us and tell us what contradicts our beliefs, our convictions, our prejudices. There are also testimonial aspects of literature. Literature tells us of other times, of its prejudices, of discriminations, of the language that was used. And it is good that we are aware that all this existed. The idea that the classics were part of an exemplary age, the pinnacle of civilization; is not true. They were terrible societies.
NEWS: His book fascinates precisely for this reason, for the description on a human scale of figures such as Homer or Alexander the Great.
Vallejo: We feel reflected in the classics. We have used Oedipus or Narcissus to describe our complexes and traumas. We capture his humanity and his weaknesses. Or see the other side of the heroic experience, that individualistic vanity of wanting to solve the circumstances on their own and never being able to give in in favor of the group. Many times they get obsessed, make big mistakes and lose themselves.
NEWS: The great epic tales of antiquity no longer exist. Is streaming today contributing these great stories?
Vallejo: We are beings thirsty for stories, well gifted to narrate them and need to listen to them. So, in each era, ways of accessing those stories are being defined. Before writing were oral tales, fables, epic poems. Each town thus narrated the great events of its past. The Old Testament is a history of the Jewish people in their various journeys, exiles, exoduses, returns, submissions, conquests, and quests. With writing, a new technology is born at the service of preserving those stories. And we keep looking for a way to feed that perpetual appetite. The stories that succeed are those that manage to bring our experience to a symbolic framework. They are clearly not useful for anything, but they help us to interpret, to make sense of events, to see those axes that organize everything that happens to us. That makes us feel less lost in a reality that is very hostile.
NEWS: Many predict the end of books, because of new technologies. On the other hand, there are many people sharing, editing and writing texts. Who will win this battle?
Vallejo: I am very optimistic. The book has survived many changes and is still with us. It is one of the few current objects that has an ancient past. It has always been pure metamorphosis. It has been a roll, a parchment book, then paper. Now we have the e-book. They are all books in the strict sense. Regarding the number of people who read, I often hear that statement, but I always ask: when? Are we comparing it to the 19th century, when literacy rates were rock bottom and only aristocrats could read? There were only libraries in convents and palaces. Never before has there been such a literate population as now. And never before had so many books been circulated and sold as at present. In general, culture always has this catastrophic propensity and books have been on the edge of the precipice for many, many centuries. These discourses intensify in times of technological advances. For example, the classics are read much more now than in the centuries in which they were written. For me, the real challenge is to bring books to all people. That no one, due to their origin, their social class, due to lack of means, is left without reading. And in that we have achieved a triumph that has no equivalent at any other time in history.
NEWS: What is the library that you liked the most of all the ones you knew?
Vallejo: I have visited many. But what excites me the most are those small libraries, in tiny places, in rural areas, where they are the only cultural center. And you see there a librarian who organizes activities for children and is eager to bring authors or has formed a book club. That excites me because I come from a family that couldn’t afford books. Many of us are two or three generations away from illiterate relatives. How the world has changed so that now we can be here, talking about books.
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