Cuarta edición: 2023

(Living is not so much fun, and getting older, a pain in the ass)

Oscar Tusquets was writing a book "about the pain of growing old and the acceptance of dying" when the pandemic broke out and, of course, he could not resist the temptation to include some of his reflections, always insightful and politically incorrect, on the obsession with prohibiting. of governments, about the aesthetic attack of masks, against the conspiracy theories of those who maintain that the virus was created in a laboratory or against apocalyptics and do-gooders. ecological speeches.

After reaching the conclusion that we will emerge from the pandemic dumber, we return to the theme of the book, a "rigorous but light-hearted pamphlet by a survivor" about to turn eighty. A survivor who launches into an agile autobiographical journey to the rhythm of "I remember..." - as in Joe Brainard's I remember and Perec's Je me souviens - and out there appears from a Barcelona that has already disappeared until the first meeting with Dalí, with Amanda Lear in the background, going through an early trip to Italy full of adventures or evocations of the world of Barcelona architects.

There follow sharp and not always comfortable reflections on aging, on its renunciations (the senses that are failing, the decline of sex, the friends that leave...) and the necessary learning to die, with musings on euthanasia or the macabre cancer business in private clinics in the United States.

However, as could not be otherwise in a born vitalist like Tusquets, the book ends with a celebration of life: "As long as we have some time left and a minimum of health, let us not give up the pleasure of conversing with a wise man, the beauty of people and works, laughing with friends, petting a dog, in the shade of a vine pergola, a sip of Chateau d'Yquem, a Joselito market, a peach from the vineyard... to sail Our Sea under sail. (Víctor-M. Amela, La Vanguardia).