One of them returns great authors of the american lettersand he does it with a novel twilight focused on his reference character throughout much of his work, Frank Bascombewhich we have been watching grow (and age) since The sports journalist (1986) to Thanksgiving (2006), going through Independence Day (1995), award-winning novel Pulitzer Prize.
Now, Richard Ford presents us with a Frank Bascombe almost the same age, seventy and many years old, who will face the disease from his son Paul, diagnosed with THE A and who will accompany him to a clinic in Minnesota for an experimental therapy.
The death will plan for a good part of the novel, although that does not mean that it is a regretful read, since the prose is flooded with the characteristic sense of humor of the author and his refined way of approaching the reality of our time through its characters.
“I have never been afraid of death. My father passed away when I was 16 and in my arms, and now that I’m 80, I don’t feel sorry for her either. It is ridiculous to think that we will live forever, it is better to prepare to abandon any conventional notion of fear“, says the writer in a meeting with the press in which he was present Infobae Spain.
In that sense, we asked him if he was clear that he wanted to address the senescence of Bascombe. “It’s just something that happened. When I wrote the first book I thought, well, that’s it. Then the second one appeared and I thought that was the end of it. And when you get to the fifth volume and the character is almost my age, it might be time to give it an ending. But Don’t think I knew how. He only knew that I couldn’t die, because he is the one who tells the story. This is not like twilight of the gods, that the protagonist is the narrator once dead. “That doesn’t suit me,” says the author with his sharp irony.
And, do you have dear to the character after five books? “Let’s say that honey is not the word, but I do like to write about him. Perhaps we could say that I have affection for himbut I don’t like to talk about characters as people of flesh and blood, because what I like is that they surprise me, that they do unexpected things.”
That Richard Ford is considered one of the great bastions of the ‘great american novel’ has to do in part with the sagacity with which he has portrayed the society of his country at different stages, in a territory that oscillates between everyday life and the mythical. Therefore, the policy has always been present in one way or another, sneaking through the cracks of his novels and giving a vision of the changes that took place in North America.
In Be mineIn that sense, the presence of donald trump it’s constant. Do you think that in these times of populism Has the mass become the protagonist? “I don’t know if it’s populism or demagogy. Now one thing goes hand in hand with the other, but when I was young, populism did not have a negative connotation, and now it is a kind of curse. As a writer, I consider myself a kind of ‘keeper of words’, I believe I can turn the useful wordsand when populism is synonymous of ‘do not think’, it is no longer useful and must be reactivated in another way. I think it’s one of the interesting aspects of being a writer, ‘renegotiate’ with the language”.
Be minein addition to talking about death, also reflect around the concept of happiness. The book, in that sense, begins precisely by talking about her. “I have been a very happy man, it would be difficult for me to choose the key moments in that regard. The first would be the day of my weddingI have been married to my wife 55 years. The second, when I won the Pulitzer, the truth is that I was very excited. Also when at 20 years old I enlisted in the marines and when I found out that Bruce Springsteen had said something good about one of my novels. Then I thought, wow, I can die in peace now. I think that happiness is something you have to invent”.
Regarding the current situation of the USAdo you think it is a country in decay? “I think the United States is in slopeIn fact, especially in different aspects: there are a lot of people homelessthere is a total inability of the Government when it comes to responding to the needs of the people poor. Public education is in a sorry state, trust in institutions is zero and the character of our leaders It’s disastrous. And that has generated a huge division about what is morally right.”
Despite everything, Richard Ford does not lose optimism. “While the public institutions can survive, as long as we can keep voting and express our discomfort without being punished… The only thing that scares me is that, unfortunately, what usually unify to the population are the misfortunes wave violence. It would be best if we realized that we are fed up of Donald Trump, that we boring and that the change was more gradual.”
In the novel, the journey between father and the son to the Mount Rushmore, one of the great emblems of the history of the United States, in which the figures of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln are carved. What value symbolic Is this place for the writer? He is emphatic about it, and already in the book he states that it is a place so majestic as ridiculous.
“All the National monuments They seem ridiculous to me. Sometimes they are beautiful, but they tend to simplify very complex ideas. I was born in Mississippi and was full of statues of generals of the Civil warand it is something that seems to me offensivebecause in reality they are badges of African American suppression that try to wash away the idea that this race had nothing to do with slavery. And the same goes for Mount Rushmore, which was also a sacred place for the native people”.
The writer, who teaches classes at Columbia Universitybelieves that the new generations are more fear than the previous ones, especially when creating. “They are afraid of inconvenienceof being punished for writing about other genders or races that are not their own. There is like a kind of censorship in the environment. I believe that we have to cross all those cultural barriers to talk about everything we want. I have always had a motto: be sure to offend to the people suitable. “My students don’t want to offend anyone.”
Richard Ford says he doesn’t believe anything anyone tells him. He’s that skeptical in that sense. But yes believe in the human being, believe in the lovein goodness, in God and, above all, in the imagination. “I also believe that we can all do things better.”
