The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

The Still Gaze (by Pérez Galdós)

2022-05-17T02:26:10.487Z


When reading 'The still gaze' I felt again that mix of emotion, astonishment, agreement, gratitude and desire to share live with loved ones


The writer Mario Vargas Llosa presents his book 'The quiet gaze: (by Pérez Galdós)', this year in Madrid. Europa Press News (Europa Press via Getty Images)

The first Galdosian I met was called Norberto Díaz Granados, he was Colombian and “in that remote time” his job was that of telenovela script writer.

Epigones of Pedro Camacho, the immortal character of

La tía Julia y el escribidor

, by Mario Vargas LLosa: that was just what Díaz Granados and I were in Caracas at the end of the 70s of the last century: soap opera writers.

It happened that a president of the republic succeeded another of the opposing party – something that has not happened in Venezuela for almost a quarter of a century.

A former news anchor, a former lover of the new president, used what remained of her influence, perhaps by way of severance pay, to fill some vacant positions on the payroll of the state television channel with friends.

A good friend of the former mistress was a young stage actress.

She once had to play a character called Bibi and that's how she stayed.

I should have said earlier that Bibi was a theater woman and not just an actress;

a woman of integral theater: she designed sets and costumes;

she appeared in the secondary cast of the forever incipient national cinema;

She acted, production tasks did not slow her down and at that time she cultivated the desire to become a playwright and work as a television scriptwriter.

The directors of the channel cured their health—who wants to fight with someone who might reconcile with the Boss?—by giving Bibi a basic contract as a screenwriter.

They counted on the fact that she would limit herself to collecting her salary fortnightly, without ever being seen on television, while she continued acting in plays by Enrique Buenaventura with a theater company subsidized by the Ministry of Culture.

They were wrong from half to half: Bibi wanted to bring a work by Pérez Galdós to the small screen:

Fortunate and Jacinta

(1887).

That was why the management had called Don Norberto and me: Bibi had also requested people experienced as

colibrettists

.

I did not personally know Don Norberto, a legendary name whose fame dated back to the days of radio.

He liked me very well.

He didn't know Bibi either, although he admired her from a distance for her beauty and her activity in the theater, but in a matter of minutes we all became friends forever.

The glue was the frankness with which Bibi, when we were alone, confided in us, without pretense but obviously very concerned, that she had only seen Angelino Fons's film (1969) once in her life, in which Emma Penella played Fortunata and Liana Orfei de Jacinta.

He had liked it so much that, without being able to explain why, he proposed to the channel to make a version of it.

However, confronted with the four volumes of Editorial Losada that she borrowed, she realized that she was in a bind.

"I've only written very short sketches for

Sopotohundreds

," she said, very sad.

Sopotohundreds

was an educational program for children.

—I don't know where I got this adaptation of

Fortunata and Jacinta

.

Pérez Galdós is a lot of nightgown for

Petra

.

It makes me very sad, it makes me want to give up.

Don Norberto said: “Let go of the pods: you need your job”.

He took ownership of the case and went to talk to the managers.

He came back very soon with a solution for Bibi.

He had made them see that Bibi was a

chamita

[young girl], talented, yes, but still too

jojota

[little experienced] to run the two miles two hundred.

He acted as if she were his agent and promised that in about ten days, Bibi would deliver an hour and a half of soap opera to them.

—Adapt

The Letter

[1927], by Somerset Maugham.

At home I have a ream of versions.

If you want, I'll lend you the script for a radio drama by Félix Pita Rodríguez, a Cuban author who never misses a beat.

Now let me tell you about Pérez Galdós.

This is how my reading relationship with the colossal work of Benito Pérez Galdós began, a hobby that surely will never be extinguished because it is an incomprehensible literary mass.

And it is that Don Norberto proposed to go to lunch at a

trattoria

in La Carlota and, making his way on foot, began a seminar on the work of Pérez Galdós that lasted as long as our friendship lasted.

His profusion and enthusiasm led me to read not only

Fortunata and Jacinta

, but also everything that bore his signature.

Nazarín

(1895) and

Tristana

(1892) were his favorites.

I still keep the copy of

La de Bringas

(1884) that he gave me, before losing sight of it forever.

Bibi died in Madrid, some years ago.

These memories, and many others, all close to the happy memory I have of Don Norberto, of my youth and of the first job I ever had and that I learned in a time without computers or "content managers", have been assaulting me since that just a few days ago I finished reading

The Still Gaze (by Pérez Galdós)

(2022), by Mario Vargas Llosa.

I don't know how to review his book.

It happens to me with Vargas Llosa's literary essays that I can remember not only the places where I came across them for the first time and the times I have read and reread them.

Also the bit of page in which this or that unforgettable revelation appears.

When reading

The Still Gaze

, I once again felt that mixture of emotion, astonishment, agreement, gratitude, and the desire to share out loud with loved ones that I experienced reading

The Journey to Fiction: The World of

Juan Carlos Onetti (2008) for the first time.

This time the same thing happened to me when I read his novel

El Hablador

(1987), more than thirty years ago.

Every so often he murmured: "Oh, if Don Norberto were still alive and could read this!"

Subscribe here

to the EL PAÍS América

newsletter

and receive all the key information on current affairs in the region

Exclusive content for subscribers

read without limits

subscribe

I'm already a subscriber

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-05-17

You may like

Life/Entertain 2024-02-18T18:30:36.484Z

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.