The readers of half of the books

We writers are invited, around Sant Jordi, to talk about the paper-paste article that we have had the joy and audacity to create. “I haven't finished the book”, Basté told me, apologizing. I know authors who get offended or upset if the journalist hasn't read them. But does the journalist need to have read a book, seen a movie, listened to a record, or gone to a restaurant to interview the author? It seems to me that it's not necessary. That, sometimes, it is, perhaps, desirable. Cultural journalists often make this joke: “We are eternal readers of half a book”. Tomorrow they will have another one, and the day after tomorrow another one. Books should be enjoyed calmly (without eternity) and abandoned if necessary, because sometimes it's necessary, like series. The journalist's questions don't necessarily have to be about the plot. It seems to me that an interview with Melville (I love Melville) shouldn't be about cetaceans, even though, of course, on a day like today we would ask him about that extraordinary video we saw on ARA, which shows that whales, my goodness, help each other to give birth. Interviews are advertisements, and it doesn't matter if the author talks about their childhood or what they think of Donald Trump.

Another thing is a literary interview, in a book club or a university. Then the motivations for a certain chapter or the construction of a certain character are indeed pertinent. But on radio or TV, sometimes it's better if the interviewer hasn't read it, so they ask logical questions. As for the author, they don't need to say, with great pleasure, that “they don't want to explain anything to avoid spoilers”. We can, again, read Moby Dick

knowing what happens at the end. I always remember a gag that made me cry with laughter, by Hermanos Calatrava: one sang Un ramito de violetas; the other kept saying: “¡¡¡It's the husband!!!”