so i went to see llosa on tuesday, and all i got was...

book in spanish (giulia's) ready to be autographed...and the doodle giulia made as conference-note-taking

i really loved mario vargas llosa when i was in highschool, through freshman-sophomore in university. it helped that he was part of the latin america mystique party,  but ultimately i am a sucker for gritty detail, solid story, seriousness and strong personal style. llosa just seemed so joyous in his appetite for life, even in "the fish in the water", where he chronicles his own very credible presidential run.

i will say again that everything i once loved, i do love til the end. i am still a llosa fan of sorts, even if from a distance of anglophilia and such. so tuesday was a good day because i got to see him, and he seemed to be the very well-lived, earthy, positive sanguine character i had imagined.

now, apart from that, llosa's visit to cluj was 3 days long, of which i only witnessed the last episode. i've discussed this with at least 5 people, because that's what i'm like, and i just want to put my frustrations to rest. in writing, in an open space.

1. the room was too small. it's a room in my former school building (the faculty of letters) - when they could've easily had it in a larger hall in the main university building. seriously, people? a talk with a nobel prize laureate. i paraphrase from the introductory speech: "but we really wanted to hold this talk here, with all our trouble and our lack of appropriate space...". sure, i mean why not? show llosa our trouble and our lack of space, that's why he's here for! we thought maybe they wanted the space to be impressively overcrowded, in the tradition of the thirsty-for-knowledge cultural reunions of the good old times - with people fainting, people climbing up window ledges from the outside, people hanging on the light fixtures.

anyway...officially, the talk was meant to be only for teachers (teachers of the faculty, of course. til giulia said she was a teacher and got in just like that, past the guardian-person at the door, after which there was nothing left for me but to follow her. by that time we'd been waiting for like an hour in front of the door, then after we got ourselves some good seats at the back we waited for almost an hour more for the room to fill to over-capacity etc.

end of talk, with everybody swarming the stage

2. the quality of the dialogue that happened was...flat. don't get me wrong, this was not llosa's fault at all. but let me try a short summary, so i can finally calm down.

a) q: can we live without literature? - a: no, we need literature in order to live.

b) q: but still, people nowadays don't read literature, they are content just watching tv and playing computer games! - a: that's a pity, if more people read, this world would be better off.

c)q: but also literature divides people into superior (those who read) and inferior human beings, as you once said [quotes llosa] - isn't that a shame? specifically, about erotism, you claimed that someone who reads can love better. - a: ...love is made up, love is a story, a construct of the individual so he can distinguish himself from the group...so literature helps by giving anyone the possibility of...basically complicating their lives so they can tell themselves they're better than  animals. d) q: what is it with the world today? all moral values are being tarnished! - a: it's mostly because there is a moral vacuum, left over by the diminishing role of religion, which culture isn't able to fill. this is the challenge literature/culture faces nowadays, we need a FISCALIZATION [i still don't know exactly what that meant] of culture."

i mean...gah.

too little, too late.
but did we queue up for autographs? you bet we did.
i queued up even though i had no book with me, just to take a look at him from 2 meters away, because why not.
and this is the autograph giulia got:

the same evening, a friend pointed out that there was at least one copy of an autographed llosa book for sale online. asking price: 1000RON (about 300$??). man, we could've been rich!

this is where we used to come and read on breaks between classes when we were students. it wasn't fenced in back then.

extra notes:

1. my father phoned me the weekend before. it's super rare for my father to call me, it's usually mum who does the communicating, so i was like: "what happened? is it bad?"

he's like "did you know that that writer you used to like is coming to cluj this week?" - "yes, everybody's going on about it, it's going to be hell there, thanks for calling anyway." - "you should go! look at him, like you'd look at an elephant, who knows how long he'll still be alive."

AN ELEPHANT. 

2. after we got out of the talk, and into the back yard (where there were chairs and a screen installed), we were waiting for llosa to go out of the room by the back. his wife was sitting in a chair in the yard, talking on the phone. 

me: "how did you know it's his wife?"

giulia:" i heard her speak in spanish. she said something, something, barbaridad."

BARBARIDAD. 

that is all. 

c