Sparer

In the dark Universe of bugs and small insects of Vargas Llosa, with no hope nor joy, there is only one being pulling against the ceiling glass: Lieutenant Gamboa, a stupidly straight and disciplined young man, the only moral being of rectitude. Vargas Llosa was only 26 when he finished writing La Ciudad y los Perros. The story of the novel is succinctly told in the prologue; I found it a couple of weeks ago in the Metro of Madrid, stuck in the wall of one of the trains, out of this program of "come, come close to the books and you'll find out". I bumped into it and bought a cheap pocket edition in the airport a couple of days later, on my return. The novel is excellent: dirty water was never as much fresh, misery never shined as much human and tender.

It is amazing the achievements of certain people at certain age. In the prologue, Llosa confesses that to write La Ciudad he had to read "many adventures books as a teenager, believed in Sartre's thesis on activist literature, devoured Malraux's novels and admired with no limits the American novelist of the lost generation, mainly and above all, Faulkner". I could spend a second childhood reading all that stuff and I would not possibly be able to even scratch the skin of human nature, the nature Llosa dissects masterly. Even more: sooner or later, I would go nuts.

Einstein was also 26 when he formulated the Special Relativity postulates in 1905. T.J.C., a Distinguish professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, was 75 when he beat cancer and, after 40 years of teaching, decided to spend the nights in his office conquering the dream of his life: formulate the essence of the Universe in equations. Like that. I was taking CFD courses at the time and I remembered him coming into class amazed by the brain of a Einstein: how a 26-year old guy could have had something like that in his mind? I was more amazed by T.J.C.

Steven Spielberg was also 26 or something like when he shot Duel and 30 or 32 when did Jaws. And so, and so, with other examples of today.

My good friend A. reminded me the episode of Julius Caesar weeping in Hispania, before a statue of Alexander the Great, because he realized to be of the same age of Alexander when he died and having done nothing in life... Well, Caesar was a quaestor then in Spain, but had not being precisely quiet, and the story denotes precisely his ambition... But Alexander was Alexander... Unsurpassed and unrivaled in all the Ancient Age. Precisely, Paul Johnson dedicates one chapter to both of them (the same chapter) in his Heroes.

At this hour of the night, I look down into the empty, drowsy and forgotten street. It is a magical moment. What have I been doing in life?... Just sparing my life, I mutter... That is! Sparing my life... I am a sparer, beloved and interesting, if you wish, but a sparer. I am ready to take the verdict. The drapes of the stage can be pulled up now: that is my character, my final dramatis persona. A. would say that Destiny is the last micron of my human stature... But real life does not work this way, does it not? We are incomplete, possibility does not imply necessity... I say to myself, Self! Let it be, sparer, just live. Give in your life. Then, the real game will start. You know it.

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