Arià Paco: "I have the best time at local festivals, and it's when I'm drinking a wine I don't particularly like."

BarcelonaPhilosopher and novelist Arià Paco (Igualada, 1993) has found in fiction the medium to explore the relationships of his generation. After receiving the Roc Boronat Award in 2022 for Coward, old woman, so wild (Amsterdam), the writer has been awarded this year with the 10th Anagrama Books for his third novel, Game theory, which traces how a Catalan millennium lives and thinks – and overthinks – guilt and desire.

In Game theory A tile appears with the motto "Wine and friend, the best is the oldest."

— I don't know much about old wines, but this particular tile – which exists – strikes me as interesting.

Even if it's not vintage, do you have a favorite wine?

— I would say no.

No recommendations?

— I'll say Blanco de Pacs, which is what they drink at home. But I have the best time at local festivals, and it's when I drink a wine I don't particularly like. It has something of a ritual, a liturgy.

Do we have a ceremonial relationship with wine?

— At Igualada's Fiesta Mayor, there are several communal dinners, with cheap wine on the tables… It's a ceremony: sharing a drink with friends, even if it's a hard drink, and knowing we could afford something better, and that we could take better care of ourselves, and at the same time knowing we won't… collapse. We wouldn't make that up these days. Besides, they require a lot of work to maintain.

So when you decide to drink bad wine with your friends you're working?

— I imagine it doesn't matter so much whether the wine is good or bad. But yes: the sacrifice of going to the village and keeping the festive liturgy of the celebration alive, making the things that touch Within the party, even if it doesn't quite fit in with your summer plans... It's important. Lately, I've been thinking about the community model we embrace in the summer, which is ultimately the time when we have the greatest choice about our lives.

What community model do you choose, in this sense?

— I'm betting on the people and ancient ties. At the other extreme is the individual journey of discovering the world...

The trip to Thailand to find yourself…?

— He has never called me.

During your time in Arizona for your PhD, did you try any wine?

— In Arizona, I drank a lot of craft beer. There were five to try in each place. It was a slow process, and I ended up liking IPAs. I tried wines at a few department parties, at one of the parties at the big houses the professors have there. But outside of ceremonies, I try to avoid them.

Because?

— The wine hangover is worse. It hits the weakest areas more.

In Coward, old woman, so wild You talk about "morning drunks."

— I wanted to paint all the layers of drinkers: not just the group of friends, but also the solo drinkers you sometimes find at the slot machine. I was interested in talking about this in the novel as part of the world of small towns. It's a world that can be very tricky: it can end very quickly, you can find yourself without a path, you can get lost. Some friends from small towns in Lleida explained to me that as they get older, there are many more girls than boys left behind, because many kids have lost themselves in various ways.

The low presence of alcohol in the adolescence of the protagonist of Game theory.

— It was a matter of the camera angles in the novel. Alcohol is involved in a character like Ernesto's adolescence. His first binges were at sixteen...

Why do you think younger people are quitting drinking?

— An ethic of productivity is beginning to solidify. I see it more in people in their twenties than in those in their thirties. Perhaps it's a consequence of a more impoverished society, more aware of the differences under capitalism. The idea that everything is an investment, that every day is an opportunity to compete to be the best, and that every small margin can be what defines whether you end up in one class or another goes against the spirit of the party.

What is it…?

— Today I won't make money, today I won't take care of myself, today I'll get closer to death. Generally, being able to go against everything, even one's own health, as a tribute to something higher. I've used the word before. sacrificeAnd yes, I think the party is a sacrifice.

And do you believe that "some nights are too important to be given over to alcohol" or just the narrator?

— It's a crazy phrase. But, joking aside, I'm always vigilant. There are nights that are going really well, and you get drunk and you no longer have any energy. It's the well-known alcohol curve: being able to distinguish between when the night is empowering you and when it's not. Just as you don't drive when you're drinking, you may not be in the best position to interpret what's happening in a conversation. Well... I don't know if it's true or just a neurotic's judgment. In fact, something I'll end up writing is that perhaps traditional masculinity protected men in their relationship with neurosis.

In what sense?

— Traditional masculinity is a code that prevents you from constantly thinking about how to behave, because you only have to imitate men. Once that code disappears, you become a philosopher of yourself.

Do you think the same thing has happened with women?

— I don't know. I think women have done a lot more work figuring out what to do when the benchmark has fallen. There's a more articulate discourse. They've written many books. However, men haven't done any work. They either copy an old model, or get defensive, or are out of touch...

How does masculinity relate to drinking?

— I've been thinking about my relationship with drinking lately, but I never serve as a role model for masculinity. I drink because I'm neurotic and shy, and with two beers I'm much more socially amenable. But this doesn't apply to all men. I don't know exactly what connection men have with drinking that women don't, but I'm sure there are differences in the way they relate to women.

In an interview, you said that Barça was a place for men to embrace each other. Does getting drunk do something similar?

— You're right. I have friends who are generally very masculine and who reach a point of drunkenness where they're love bones.

The bar of Coward… It's called El Faro. Have bars been beacons in your social life?

— Absolutely. The fact that the Casal Popular is the center of social life, and also of a certain shared political vibe in Igualada, makes the city much easier for me. Now that I live in Barcelona, I miss it terribly.

Haven't you found any similar space?

— I thought perhaps the Ateneu Barcelonès could serve a similar purpose. But that's not the case. The Casal Popular in Igualada is a hub of inertia: if you go, you know that's where the people will be, that if things get done, they'll have the Casal as their origin. And it's a safe place, a haven where you'll find people who won't judge you and will make you feel at home. I think places like the Ateneu Barcelonès are much more project-based than going there. Don't get me wrong: I really like the Ateneu; I think it serves many purposes. It's simply not a village bar. There's no primitive, inertial socializing.

We understand that you are not the 1 in 4 millennials who try not to drink.

— I am a teetotaler.

Ah!

— No, but it would be fun. After what I've written... One thing I've learned is that my novels would have more merit if I hadn't experienced anything like this: if I were a incel locked in my room imagining all the relationships… I'd be a genius, I guess!

Why haven't you written a memoir?

— The truth is such a heavy thing! The moment you say "I'll stick to the truth," it's in charge, and everything else is secondary. I think it's much more useful to make the necessary twists and turns so things do what you're thematically interested in. I think that, literary-wise, you do the reader a favor and that what you write has much more value and power when there's character work behind it. For me, this is the most important part of being a writer: taking the material and turning it into something that makes sense as a novel. It would have been easier to write a memoir that would have been longer and less interesting. The arrogant answer is that I wrote a novel because I've had time to do it better.