We want a monologue, Empar Moliner

BarcelonaIt seems to me that the event had been announced as the presentation of Empar Moliner's latest novel, but no: the thing ended with the writer performing a monologue worthy of stand-up comedy, standing up, telling a story that she assured could only have one ending to be good, a bang-bang ending, the kind she also uses in her columns for ARA, in her stories and, I see, at events. The audience laughed because they felt honored by their favorite writer who, in fact, ended up inviting everyone "to a free hop" at the party we're having for subscribers next week at Damm.

Moliner immediately treated those present with the familiarity that comes from having been read and commented on the web for fifteen years –"The readers of ARA are more handsome," she told them, praising "the intelligent gaze" typical of "the strange endangered species that still reads newspapers"– and announced that this Wednesday's event at La Central del Raval would be something else: "Book presentations are on the decline because no one wants to listen to praise, and instead, book clubs are on the rise, and I find that interesting".

What they did with the deputy editor of ARA, Ignasi Aragay, is explain the ins and outs of the columnist's profession, which is the daily job of Moliner and the protagonist of Instruccions per viure sense ella (Grup 62). The writer warned that "writing articles is something that can be learned, but cannot be taught," it's not like a sofrito. To those present who want to try it at home, she only gave them one recommendation and one trick. The recommendation is a registered trademark of Emili Teixidor: "Keep a diary. Not a day without a line," said Moliner. And the trick is to avoid "oversentimentality". "Everyone can detect yellow journalism. But not everyone detects cheesiness, when the author tries to be poetic –and here comes the trick—. The bad columnist abuses the full stop, because it's like the magician's "}tatxan" or the slow motion of a bad movie. They leave the final sentence there alone, to finish them off. Never trust full stops: they are only used to change the subject".

For Aragay, the key to our columnist is that, in addition to a lot of skill, "she has something very simple: a universal curiosity." That's why they send her to cover now the Pope in Montserrat and now the Tour in Barcelona, because they know she jumps into any assignment with enthusiasm. "It's a mix of curiosity and boredom. Because you don't want to be bored, you have to write. Curiosity is like taste, it's training. More important than knowing are the desire to know," she said. For Moliner, the "quill has to have a somewhat peripheral vision, look for a different angle, and he gave examples of novelists, like Vikram Seth or Kazuo Ishiguro. They scattered some literary references like corn that the listeners caught with our beaks.

Aragay cited the letters with an open hand that Oriol Bohigas wrote, while Moliner praised Espinàs' "facts and people, but good". Fuster, Pedrolo and Monzó. Both agreed on a single writer whom they detest as much as they adore one of his masterpieces: Vargas Llosa and The Feast of the Goat. Moliner did not escape Aragay's reprimands for articles like those from this very week, which she claims are based on real events: "There are times when you just have to copy, sign, and get paid," admitted the author, taking advantage of Esther Vera's absence from the room. "Whoever says they suffer..., listen, it would be worse to work!".