Looking into a mirror: when the writer speaks to you

 

(Me smoking in an attempt to look like a character from the book)

Fourth entry;

A book will always spark a reaction from us. This is as certain as own mortality. It is practically an axiom. Anyone who claims they can read any book objectively, completely devoid of reaction, is either lying or not quite human. We naturally react strongly to themes that resonate with us. In fact, it could be argued that the very purpose of literature is to touch the reader's feelings in one way or another. That would explain what a clerk said to me a long time ago, when I first bought a book with my own money: "There is always a book for everyone, a story that resonates with yours, don't forget that."

Such is the case of Onetti and myself.. My first encounter with him was through a collection of tales of his. My favorite is "The Face of Disgrace". After that, he became the standard I would follow when it came to judging a writer's use of a language or a story's emotional weight; Unsurprisingly, it has become increasingly difficult for me to find any author that impresses me the same way Onetti did. But it is not only because his masterful writing, but also the topics he touches what make me feel so drawn to his books. Having lived in a time where Latin American literature was all about denouncing social injustices, discretedly critizing the military dictatorships or highlighting the local traditions and costumes, Onetti ignored all that and went on writting about deeper, more intimate topics such as the meaninglessness of life, the imposibility to love or the pain of nostalgia. 

Having said this, The Shipyard stands not only as personall all-time classic, but also as a place of solace when life becomes too overwhelming. As I have mentioned in previous entries, this novel's core topics are failure and how the lack of a sense of purpose drives people to madness, two feelings I, for personal reasons, am sadly all too familiar with. For the longest time, I have wanted not people tell me the usual, sugar coated words to cheer me up. I do not need them, for optimism is only a white lie to cover the irremediable wrongness of things. Instead, I wanted to know there was someone somewhere who went through the same situations than I. And it happened that, as I read this book and knew more about its characters, I felt more and more related to them as the situations described in the novel, save for some literary differences, were a reflection of what I had been through. Eventually, it became so personal I felt tempted to think I was reading my own biography (note the irony here). This personal connection to the book made its reading some type of catharsis. 

But, to end this entry on a more positve note, I find it fascinating how stories written by other people, perhaps from a time way before we were born, can still resonate so deeply with us even today. Onetti is a prime example, but countless authors have spoken to me across the years, each offering a unique perspective that resonated with the person I was at that specific moment. This only proves literature is capable of trascending time and space to reach the least expected person and serve them as a compass to navigate through the ups and downs of human experience.