These days, many students can "improve their grades" by reading a book chosen by their literature teachers. Ana María Matute or Lorca, in Spanish; Rodoreda or Moncada, in Catalan, from what I see.
Reading is the verb I used, but it's not exact. This is the intention. What students who—and this is a lot—want to get a better grade do is look for the audiobook. And this is still the case. They put it on at double speed, while doing other things, like looking at their phone. The voice of the actor or actress reading speaks like the messages they send each other. Like a puppet.
"It's just so cheesy," they tell you. And they give you the example of some metaphors. Obviously, out of context, and especially without context, even the mythical metaphor of Hopscotch "We kissed as if our mouths were full of live pieces." It would seem like a snail's nest. The lagoon is so stratospheric that they haven't even been able to laugh at Sabina.
They laugh at books about the Civil War, but from another, lighter place than ours. To laugh is to know and, in a way, to love. Your mockery of spherifications, which you know and can compare with other ways of cooking, is not theirs, so old-fashioned and sisterly: "It just leaves you hungry."
They pick up a book and don't read its synopsis. They don't know if the author is alive or dead, and if the work takes place now or in Ermesenda's time. They have experienced diversity (very good things, average things, and very bad things) in all other areas: music, food, TV series, clothing. They are critical of all this, but not of books. And I repeat, once again. We won't save him unless we get it into our heads that the only solution between them and us is reading aloud.
