Q. As a psychiatrist, is reading essential?
A. It is an absolute necessity. Psychiatry is learned in scientific articles, and in the literature of Montaigne, Proust, Céline, Pascal, Stendhal, Conrad, Faulkner, Pla, Chejov, Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, many Latin American writers… They collect essential observations to understand human behavior , whether pathological or not.
Q. The first reading that dazzled you?
A. I don’t remember a particular book, but I’m sure there must be one. At school there were required readings, some dispensable, but others fascinating. The impact of Pascual Duarte’s family It was huge, and The Quijote It always remains in memory, perhaps in an artificial but true way.
Q. More memories?
R. Yes, in the nebula of the years it is Heart of Darknessby Joseph Conrad, or how pieces by William Shakespeare enlightened us about the human race. Also Plague either Abroadby Albert Camus. Then, Russian and French novels entered your life like storms, stirring.
Q. At school, did they insist on reading?
A. The brother of La Salle who taught us French did so by unfolding the enormous sheets from the pages of The Figaro. We wrote in the school magazine and from there, still beardless, we jumped to a local newspaper. Reading was a necessity and a major entertainment in those years.
Q. Your favorite genre today?
A. I barely read novels at this point in life and I pay a lot of attention to Josep Pla. I prefer observational literature, diaries or diaries, essays, poetry. The Diaries by John Cheever are dazzling.
Q. Reflections that were published after the death of the writer.
A. Yes, and from a psychiatric perspective even more interesting. As The job of livingby Cesare Pavese, or the Diaries by Gil de Biedma. I recently read the first two volumes of Diariesby Iñaki Uriarte.
Q. Among the poets?
A. Among those close to me, Caballero Bonald, Damià Huguet or Miquel Angel Riera in Mallorca, unfairly treated in my literary opinion. TS Eliot, Charles Baudelaire or Paul Celan, among the distant ones.
Q. Paper or e-book?
R. Paper. It is a pleasure to underline and annotate in all the margins, to return to the books and ask yourself why one day, months or years ago, an idea caught your attention, a paragraph that now seems banal to you.
