Chirbes wrote some fascinating stuff about my other most favorite Spanish writer, Juan Goytisolo. Critics fixated on the gossipy stuff Chirbes said about the other writer, but that is the least interesting thing about his comments. What’s fascinating to me is Chirbes’s analysis of himself and Goytisolo as being at the opposite sides of the spectrum in what concerns national literature.
Goytisolo was anti-nationalist to an almost comical extent. As such, he wanted to make the point that the national iterary canon of Spain did not exist. The only worthwhile Spanish authors, in his opinion, were some obscure dude with an English name and himself.
Chirbes was the exact opposite. He loved the national literature and studied it with profound attention his whole life.
This attitude was reflected in their lifestyles. Goytisolo left Spain and resided outside of the country for decades. Chirbes lived in a small farmhouse inside the Spanish countryside and never considered moving overseas. Both writers were gay, but Chirbes’s gayness was enormously more honest than Goytisolo’s. To give a single example, Goytisolo wrote a two-volume autobiography explaining why he never wanted to have children and how crucial this desire not to have children was to his political beliefs. Yes, he was a raging commie, but then who in Spanish literature isn’t? But that’s not the point. The point is that the writer ends this deeply child-free autobiography by informing the reader that late in life he did become a father. Don’t get me wrong, Goytisolo is an artistic genius. But an honest person he was not.
These are both mega-talented authors, and it’s interesting how one of them understood the other.
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