At the end of last year, he made a huge mess when, in the best libertarian style of Bertie Benegas Lynch, questioning compulsory schooling,
Hernán Casciari
- who it is -
came out to say that reading was a completely disposable activity
, without any meaning and he even seemed to regret it. the existence of promotional campaigns that do nothing more than romanticize reading by comparing it to "travelling", "dreaming" and all that.
“I don't believe in literature, much less that it is read,” the writer, editor and content creator dropped the bomb. “Literature was something for a man who came at seven in the afternoon and had enough time to sit on a couch with a 550-page book, the first 25 of which were the description of the character. That was great when there was nothing else.”
"My daughter is six years old," he continued, "and obviously she is not going to read, why? Tell a seven, eight-year-old boy that he has to spend three, four hours looking down with all his senses concentrated on one thing." , which on top of that is a paper with ink where a guy wants to explain to you what that character's face is like... poor guy! Why are you going to do that to the guy?
A provocation, a way to shake the eaves of the mind with cicadas. The author's excuse for that viral statement could have been the premiere of
La Uruguaya,
a film directed by
Ana García Blaya
and based on the novel by
Pedro Mairal
. It was the first audiovisual production by
Orsai
, a factory
made in
Casciari that was able to start as a magazine and publishing house and that is now nothing more than a whim for multiple and recreational uses. Is it called multitasking?
Without being Andy Warhol, the writer who most denies his condition managed to achieve quite original and lasting fame. A comedian said that if you learn to speak in public, you will never lack work: lobbyist, lawyer, stand-up artist, revolutionary, fourth-class politician, DJ, etc.
Casciari is not one to be afraid of people
. Zero phobic, he knows how to address people and, if necessary, crowds.
But to read or not to read seems not to be the question. When asked why she said what she said, she would prefer to talk about the typical "cut" of a radio program. "
It's very fashionable that cuts that are over-edited and then you just listen to that, the cut
."
They came out to cross it badly from the publishing ecosystem. It didn't come cheap. "Casciari was never interested in literature, only telling jokes. That was always evident. It's good that he makes it explicit now," posted Maxi Papandrea, editor at Sigilo.
Another, Hernán Vanoli, author of
American Folk Art
, tweeted mercilessly: "Horrible to have to choose between the whale seller Casciari and the broken asses of literary religiosity fleeing the world. Literature is something too important to be left in our hands." of either one."
Regarding the controversy, months later and from Spain, Casciari - who arouses hatred and jealousy in the style of Osvaldo Soriano in the '80s - takes time to return to the topic via WhatsApp: "The other day Mario Pergolini said something that seemed very interesting about it: he said that the only thing the journalist does is mention the cuts and no longer even pays attention to what was actually said.
Is he telling us? "In other words," he continues, "not only literature is worn out, journalism is also worn out."
Theater with mom and the Gasalla effect
In May,
Casciari will be standing on a stage recreating fictions that come from his stories
. The press release tells it like this: "Casciari arrives at Corrientes Avenue, with
The Lady Who Birthed Me
. Premiere: Wednesday, May 1. Performances: Wednesday and Thursday, May 20. Paseo La Plaza, Sala Pablo Picasso, Av. Corrientes 1660. Tickets: Plateanet or at the box office.
Apparently, and continuing with the work,
never before has a national writer allowed himself to be humiliated by his mother live
, with the obvious exception of Borges, so after a long tour of the off circuit, the writer will perform a piece "unfortunately based on real events", with the stellar presence of Chichita, his real mother, on stage.
-I read that you are going to work with your mother. Does she dare? Tell us, what information are we missing about that lady?
-Well, my old woman is the protagonist of the little novel that I wrote on the internet in 2003 (
More than I respect that I am your mother
, based on the weblog
Diario de una mujer gorda
, considered the best in the world in 2005). She wanted to be an actress when she was young. She always wanted to be an actress. Later she got married and went to live with my old man in Mercedes. In Mercedes she tried to do theater and since it was a very small town, my dad was very embarrassed that mom dedicated herself to that.
It's not that he didn't let her do it, but he gave her face and then he gave up. When I returned from living in Spain, a few years ago, I suggested she do something and she loved it.
She is one of the most professional actresses I know, she never fails. And I'm not telling you this because she's my mom
.
-What would have happened to your life if Antonio Gasalla did not take "More respect that I am your mother" to the theater?
-Gasalla was incredible. It was the first time that something of mine went into three dimensions, in this case to the theater. I couldn't believe that something written by me worked outside of the imagined format. That was obviously thanks to him. The three-dimensionality that Antonio gave it and making people laugh was very important for me, because he confirmed to me that what he did was right.
-Did you come to him or did Gasalla come to you?
-Me to him and it took us a while to convince him. Bah, the producer called him thinking about the book and believing that no one but Gasalla could do that. She reached out and
he immediately said no, no way, no, no. He responded to that without even reading a page and arguing that he did not write other people's texts
. He spent a year, a year and a half and got in touch saying that one day he had come across the book in a bookstore, he had bought it and said “ahhh, I would like to do this.” We talked and he told us that he wanted to adapt it.
We couldn't convince him. He was convinced by the book
.
The past, stepped on
-Have you ever stated that you wrote while smoked and corrected "careta" or sober...
-They are very 2008 quotes.
It has been many years, six, seven years, since I stopped writing, I stopped smoking joint, I stopped living in Barcelona and I stopped making those kinds of absurd statements
. I am very calm living during the day and without any vices, I even eat without salt...
-Don't you write more?
-I had a heart attack at the end of 2015 and they told me that I should stop smoking. Smoking was very linked to writing, so I stopped writing. Since 2016 I haven't written anymore, although last year I started again, just a little. I released a book called
Tales Against the Clock
, which has texts written in two hours on the radio, something I did more as a
hobby
. But I stopped writing almost permanently.
-What would happen to Borges and Bioy today, if they were contemporaries or generational?
-Hahaha, Borges and Bioy, or at least that's what Bioy tells it in his posthumous book called
Borges
, record a lot of encounters between the two throughout their lives. There you realize that they lived on the internet. The thing is, there was no internet, what I mean is that they spent all day looking for quotes, gossiping, speaking badly about people, bad things about writers.
Borges and Bioy were Twitter
. If you think about it, it's wonderful how those heads worked around literary envy and music. That book is fantastic because it preconfigures a little how the Internet would work. I would say that Borges and Bioy were chatting.
-There is a trend of writers who, in quotes, go on stage almost with impunity: Cristian Alarcón, from the magazine Anfibia, winner of the Alfaguara novel award; Mariana Enríquez is like our literary rockstar and Félix Bruzzone I think he made a biodrama...
-You're talking about serious writers.
Cristian Alarcón, Mariana Enriquez, Félix Bruzzone. They are writers. I am an idiot
. I don't know how to write very well. It seems to me that mine is more entertainment. What I do is in no way literature.
-Are you good at talking about books you haven't read?
-I'm not even good at talking about the books I read, and I don't even get into a conversation with people who read books and who talk about the books they read. I'm quite anti-literary circle and all that...
-Who do you consider yourself famous as?
-Like the cartonero Báez, hahaha, what do I know... First of all, I don't feel like a writer. I already told you, I'm a person who tells stories. With all due respect,
I am much closer to Luis Landriscina or Héctor Gagliardi, who if you don't know him you can Google him, than to a writer
. Mine is telling things. I count things, then I write them down and then I take out books. But Elvira Romei also publishes books (we should Google Elvira).
There are more people taking out books than people reading them
. Nor, in any way, do I feel famous. I live in San Antonio de Areco, in a small place where people greet me, but they greet me because we are from the town.