Tempus fugit
When one reaches a certain age (it doesn’t matter, whichever one decides) begins to calculate how many books he has left to read, how many to write, how much time to dedicate to series without getting lost in filler products, which films to select, which musical novelties to decide between and in what proportion we distribute the time dedicated to family, work, sleep and leisure. Too stressful—this is the great paradox—for that period of life in which a logical change in the distribution of tasks begins to be seen.
And then one chooses, forever putting aside rereadings that one should have done a long time ago (poor Marcel Proustso relegated to the desired reincarnated life), denying opportunities to that new fusion group, dispensing with that Nobel Prize little known or the latest film by the Oscar-winning director who is already on his third or fourth disappointment. It’s about not wasting time on trifles when we presume that we have 20 or 25 years ahead of us, some of them perhaps far from our best state of form.
The estimated reading time of a book is calculated from the number of pages and the average reading speed in Spanish, established by those who make this type of calculations at 200 words per minute. Thus, to take as an example an author whose sales have been activated after his death, it would take us six hours and three minutes—assuming we did nothing else during that period—to read each other. Baumgartner(256 pages), the latest novel by Paul Auster. The most read book in Spanish in April in Spain, The crack of silenceby Javier Castillo, it would require a little more than ten hours straight turning pages uninterrupted. The most universal Spanish classic, Don Quixote, a little more: 37 hours and 46 minutes. As a result of half an hour a day, we would invest a little more than two months in enjoying the adventures of the nobleman of La Mancha and his squire. The Bible, 48 hours and 15 minutes. Do the math. It is, therefore, about carefully choosing the books, the authors, the plots, the titles, the covers, the genres.
A few years ago, a spirits brand triumphed with an advertisement that tried to explain to us that we didn’t have that much time left with our loved ones. The advertisers used a fairly reliable algorithm, according to which, based on the time we spent at the end of the year with our parents, children, partners, siblings or friends, it turned out that the sum of all those hours led to a sad and sad time. disturbing. Some had just a few weeks left with the people closest to them, just days, a few months, a tragedy when compared to the hours we spent on public transportation or waiting in line at a health center.
With the arrival of spring, antique book fairs proliferate in Spain. It is a wonderful experience to dive into an edition from 200 years ago, even if it is a Latin dictionary or a treatise on urban planning regulations of Salamanca. It is an exciting exercise to reflect on the history that this book has experienced., the owners it has had, the moves and wars it has survived. Handle it and smell it. When we die, our books will still be there, in other hands, in other houses, ready to resurrect their stories and characters. But the issue is the same: time.
The fan often fantasizes that his most beloved objects (books, records) talk to each other. It’s like the pediatrician’s excuse, the one that reassures children about night noises: it’s the chair that speaks with the table; the dishwasher that tells a story to the washing machine; a Beatles album that pairs with another by Dylan; Cervantes who tells Proust that the owner is not going to read to him after spending twenty years on a shelf in the domestic library. Unlike us, our objects can afford to wait. The album, to the next listener; the book, to the next reader. And end up in a fair in two centuries. There is no greater luxury than the time left ahead.
