Jacobo Bergareche (London, 1976) does not like to say goodbye. “And who does?”, he asks himself during his stay in Mallorca on the occasion of the Magaluf Extended Literature Festival (FLEM), in which he has participated. “If there has to be a farewell, I prefer it to be short and, above all, that there be the promise of a reunion,” he confesses to La Vanguardia.
Grief, the comings and goings in relationships, infidelity, separations... all of these are topics that he addresses in his new book, The Farewells (Books of the Asteroid), which has just arrived in bookstores and which narrates the life of Diego , a man who reunites with a woman he met at the Burning Man festival seventeen years ago and who helped him overcome the traumatic death of his cousin.
"Is a love and I can not. She doesn't know if she will remember her, but she did mark him because she found her at a vital moment in her life. “He wants to see her, talk to her, feel her close to him, but he knows that this will force him to give uncomfortable explanations to her wife, Claudia,” advances the author, who meditates a lot on whether or not there is a midlife crisis. age. “At 40 you could say that you have reached the middle of your life and you have to think very carefully about what the second part is going to be like. It is a time to renew or not renew the subscription for all the things you have. And sometimes, we do crazy things.”
The wear and tear of love is something that has been on the author's mind for years and was also reflected in his previous work, The Perfect Days (Asteroid Books), in which a journalist reconstructs the memory of his love affair and reflects on her tedious marriage. “Cutting is a trauma, it costs a lot. Relationships always last five years longer than they should because people are polite. And also because separating is scary and very expensive. You stop being able to access things and a lifestyle that you could only have with a partner and to which you cannot reach alone.” The book begins with the verses of the Prisoner's Romance, which Bergareche recites by heart. “It speaks a lot about the disconnection with our environment. It is a metaphor for what is going to happen in the book.”
Nepente is a word that is repeated a lot throughout the story. “It is a drug that Helen of Troy uses in The Odyssey to give to her husband and Telemachus. It helps them talk about what hurts them without being sad. And in my book, that foreigner that Diego meets again is a bit of his Nepente. She is the person who knew how to find the key to how to let off steam and see life with different eyes,” he explains.
The son's admiration for his father also permeates its pages. “For little boys, their father is everything. You always seek his approval. But there is a moment when the tables turn and it is the father who wants the son to look at him favorably. “Sometimes we get too obsessed,” he admits. Can it be changed so that it always happens? "It's almost impossible. You only change if life gives you a huge shit. Changes always come from outside. We all have the desire to be different, but the levers that activate it are very difficult. An accident, an illness, someone that you have met and drives you crazy or a death”, as happens to the protagonist when he loses his cousin Tomás.
“Death sometimes brings guilt and grief. I have examples of them, like that of a friend who went to Burning Man after his brother's suicide. The book is not inspired by him but we did talk a lot while I was writing it. Tomás is based on people I have known throughout my life and reminds me a little of Seymour Glass, J. D. Salinger's character in the story A Perfect Day for Banana Fish. Hypersensitive people, who suffer a lot, and who at the same time are absolutely brilliant, but who often do not function in the world we have built,” he muses.
Bergareche warns of the chronic nature of grief and its consequences. “There are people who believe that pain is a way to retain someone who is gone because, as long as it hurts, it means that they are present. I think you have to let go and accept that there are days when you won't think about the dead. But you don't have to suffer, they always come back in one way or another. When my brother died I couldn't stop thinking about him. He had a constant buzzing in my head. But there was a day that disappeared, although it takes time. You forget one day, two, three... then a song comes on or you read a book and you think I wish it were there because he would have loved it. Life is a little like that. Overcome obstacles and remember those who are gone, and also lost relationships, with a smile and not with a pang in the heart,” he concludes.
