The umpteenth article about influencer María Pombo

BarcelonaDear readers of this column, I hope you had a good summer. Like most of you, I suppose, it seemed short to me. I've also read less than I thought I would, but I did devour one of the books I mentioned in my last article before the holidays: James, of Percival Everett (Ángulo, translated by Jordi Martín Lloret). It is very good to recover it now, as some friends have asked me if I would dedicate this first article to the controversy of the influencer María Pombo for his statements about reading.

I don't know if there's much left to say, and in any case I agree with what Empar Moliner wrote a couple of days ago.: María Pombo is right, those of us who read are no better than those who don't read.However, Moliner listed some (indisputable) benefits of reading. He also quoted a quote from Emili Teixidor, who said that readers are more beautiful. It's funny, because when I heard Pombo, I thought of the Mallorcan writer. Biel Mezquida, who often exclaims, with his inherent enthusiasm, "Reading makes you beautiful!" This summer I discovered that it was a phrase he had coined with the writer and social activist Xesca Ensenyat i Seguí. More than fifteen years after her death, she was declared an illustrious daughter of Pollença, and Mesquida gave a speech in which he recalled several slogans they had written together for theEspira Magazine. "Read: reading makes you beautiful. Read: reading makes you happy. Read: reading makes you flirt. Read: reading makes you lose weight. Read: reading makes you vote. Read: reading gives you a tan. Read: reading makes you intelligent. Read: reading civilizes. Read: reading makes you beautiful." We could make t-shirts.

I return to Everett's book. The American author, here, rewrites The Adventures of Huckleberry FinnMark Twain's The Story of Huck changes narrator: the one telling the story is no longer Huck, a white boy, but Jim, the Black slave who escapes before his "owner" can sell him at market. His perspective further highlights the racism of the time in the American South. One of the things I liked most about this book is what Everett does with the slaves' speech. When they're in front of white people, they construct very simple sentences, sometimes using the wrong words. They try not to seem particularly clever. However, they express themselves perfectly among themselves, using a very rich language. They have this knowledge, in part, because James sneaks into his owners' library, where he reads everything he can in secret. "Every time I've sneaked in there, he's asked me what the white people would do to a slave who had learned to read. What would they do to a slave who had taught the other slaves to read?" I suppose I don't need to say more. Whether María Pombo reads or not is of no importance. I myself have a friend who, every time we talk about a book, tells me he'll have to wait for the movie to be made. It's hard to believe, but I love her just as much as the rest of my friends (but maybe that's because I read, which has made me more empathetic. Who knows). Jokes aside, the Pombo controversy will blow over in a couple of days, and I'd like to believe it won't have any significance. What we really need is for us to keep in mind messages about the power of reading and knowledge, like the one Everett delivers so clearly in just a couple of lines. "More Everett, less Pombo" would also make a good T-shirt.