— Your finest works are published in Spain.
— Works from other Latin American countries, you mean.
— Have it your way, said García Pardo, but countless Latin American writers seek to have their books published in Spain.
— The economic crisis in Latin America has affected their publishing houses, I said. Spain has benefited, but the literature produced by Spaniards themselves is very uneven.
— Hombre, there’s a bit of everything, García Pardo pointed out. However, there is a whole cohort of important authors now, with complete bodies of work, with translations into several languages.
— And plenty of third-rate literature, Noreña interrupted.
— Which you’ll find anywhere, García Pardo retorted.
— But in Spain, it gets published by the bushel. You get tired of reading the same book over and over again.
— What do you mean by that?
— The publishers resort to the same formulas, Noreña explained. And they only have two or three: lots of foreign literature, which is their most substantial contribution, if it weren’t so often so badly translated; then books by the usual suspects, or their substitutes from the new generation, with variations on the same offerings.
— Although much of what you say is true, I don’t think the case is as devastating as it seems to you.
— This situation is literature’s worst enemy, and you Spaniards are on the front lines, Noreña explained.
— It’s not so awful. I don’t think you’re being fair.
— It isn’t about being fair, and anyway, literature has never pretended to be; it’s not a civil code or a democratic regime. The reader also inhabits a geography, which creates a politics of passions. Literature is still one of the few arenas where it is possible to practice an elegant and constructive terrorism.
— The time of politically committed literature is long gone.
— That’s not what I’m talking about at all, Noreña hastened to clarify.
— The novel is free from that burden. Fortunately, people read now for other reasons, García Pardo explained. In a sense, that makes it harder for the writer, who is no longer read simply because he is in political communion with his reader. Now tastes are broader and by the same token more diffuse and demanding. Those are new challenges.
— In other words, we’re all victims of the laws of the marketplace, concluded Máximo.
— Of course, García Pardo replied. It’s inevitable. We don’t like to admit it, but that’s the way it is. Writers compete with television, cinema, video games. We can’t deceive ourselves.
— A centuries-long dream from which we have awaked into a nightmare, I said.
— Perhaps just so, said the Spaniard. But one must consider that living a dream was not helping us, either. We were all deceiving ourselves.
— But look, I said, you can hardly keep your eyes open reading most books. Spanish literature seems poor. It isn’t captivating.
— Hombre, captivating, truly captivating work, hardly anyone is doing that anywhere.
— But Spain has high aspirations, I added.
— I don’t know what gets over here to you, said García Pardo.
— The same books you have at the Casa del Libro, Noreña put in.
— You should bear in mind, I said, that here we get books imported from many countries. Apart from Spanish publications, we have books from Latin America and full access to the English-language press, aside from what is published inside Puerto Rico. This affords us a perspective that isn’t limited by a single culture or a single language.
— I don’t think you’re up on the current situation. Today’s Spain isn’t the Spain of Valle-Inclán.
A group of guests had congregated around us, attracted by the tone the debate was taking on. García Pardo’s last sentence had produced, because of the tone in which it was said, a bit of alarm. Carmen and Li were watching us with growing concern, fearing that our conversation with the Spaniard might be standing in for talks we weren’t having with them, which would have had little to do with literature. Someone had taken our glasses and gone to refill them. The rector of the university was watching from his armchair with the resignation of a man who was, yet again, witnessing a problem arise.
— Come on, let’s clear this up. Why are you here in San Juan? Máximo Noreña suddenly asked.
— I came to present The Angels of Montera Street, my latest novel.
— But how did you get here? In other words, who organized your trip?
— My publisher, who has a branch here, and also the Book Office at the Spanish Ministry of Culture.
— That is, nobody invited you, Noreña concluded.
— Hombre, if you put it that way.
— Don’t misinterpret me; what I’m getting at is a question of facts. I’m trying to show that there was no group of readers fascinated by the works of an exemplar of current Spanish literature. It wasn’t even a university or a cultural institution that brought you here. They don’t have any direct connection with your presence here. Your trip was paid for by a corporation with assistance from a ministry that invests in publicizing Spanish culture around the world.
— Is there anything wrong with that? asked García Pardo.
— That is a matter we could explore later, answered Noreña. My point is, this same advertising structure is what asserts that the great common Hispanic culture of which you speak should be taken to mean the Iberian Peninsula and a few select countries in the Americas. This same structure is what asserts that the biggest selling book is the best.
— You fellows could work with my publisher if you wish. Some Puerto Rican writers have done so.
— That isn’t the point of my reflection, Noreña cut him off. What I want to show is how the reputation of a literature gets inflated. Publishing in Spain means nothing and guarantees nothing. It has even come to be a smoke screen. If it meant something during the final years of the Franco dictatorship and the early years of democracy, now it does not have even remotely the same value.
— There’s nothing I can do regarding that. It’s natural for me to publish my books in my own country.
— But you’re part of that framework. What’s more, let me tell you, and I’m well aware that I’m being polemical, the worst thing that happened to Spanish literature was when the Franco dictatorship ended.
— Hombre, how can you say such a thing! That’s such a platitude, it’s ridiculous, García Pardo exclaimed in annoyance.
From the way I had observed Noreña closing in on García Pardo, I knew that the result of this exchange would be a mood of dismal gloom. What he said made the border line surrounding us that much darker, separating our words still more from the rest of the world. It was so easy for the Spaniard to dismiss us. Máximo’s passion was handing it to him on a silver tray, yet at the same time, I understood perfectly well why he insisted on doing it, why he couldn’t say anything else. Centuries of belittlement animated Noreña.
— When Franco died and democracy was established, he explained, Spanish literature couldn’t continue justifying its defects and could no longer keep on overvaluing its writers on the basis of their politics. Almost overnight, protest songs vanished. Since that time, the writers under democracy haven’t had a mantle to protect them and have even proved themselves inferior to the postwar writers. In one generation, faced with the conceptual vacuum created by the end of the Franco years, Spanish literature has done nothing but flounder and show this allegedly common culture its uselessness.