There is a wonderful joke: “Sir, if love is a crime, I am guilty in the first degree.” And the judge responds, “Shut up, you’re here for drunk driving.” This came to mind during the first – and longest – part of Pablo Motos’ interview with Juan del Val. Juan del Val, proud and flirtatious, arrives on set and hugs Motos. Greet the respectable. They sit down. Motos, with a look like “look at the truth I’m going to tell you”, says – pay attention – “We’re going to talk about the writers who don’t sell and are jealous of you. We’re going to talk about the mediocre ones to whom nothing has ever happened in their lives”. The moment he looks into the camera and says “and the writers”, I took it for granted due to a recent article. Considering that Pablo Motos had a subordinate call me on a holiday and keep me on the phone for two and a half hours (as I told him) because he didn’t like an article of mine, it doesn’t surprise me. Pablo Motos is like Pirate Roberts: he takes no prisoners. He makes an employee kill with a merciless beating.
Juan del Val, who arrived on a high note, says he respects writers who don’t sell much (that’s enough!). He had a different aura today, crazy. The same thing we saw from Rosalía this week and from Oliver Laxe since he won the Jury Prize at Cannes. The honeys of success.
It begins a block of victimhood that del Val has delved into over the past few weeks: how bad he did in high school, how bad his parents were, his poor Republican grandfather (so we can see he has a “leftist” background), and how unpleasant it was to work on a play. Then he talks about his psychiatric treatment (psychiatricized, as Instagram activists say), although he says it was psychoanalysis, and I don’t know if it was one thing, another, or an alter. The specific theme of “being bad” and being bad at studying sounds – from the outside – as if he were the typical student who, not satisfied with not giving a damn, doesn’t let the teacher teach the class. Being bad in high school is not something to brag about; With age you realize that the attitude of criminals is always pathetic. I insist, this is seen from the outside. Maybe there was an educational problem that I’m not aware of. He also says, by the way, that we made his people suffer, and that for a while he didn’t want to leave the house, as if passersby were going to shout at him “What a lot of talk you spend, Juan!”
Juan del Val, when asked about criticism of the quality of his prose, makes a ollie on the subject and states that “my success bothers me because I am critical of power”. A beautiful moment worthy of a Pedro Vera cartoon. He attributes this criticism to the “editorial group wars” and explains the difference between being an Atresmedia employee or a The anthill. Let’s finish! Which does not have a contract with Antena 3 itself! Having started there, Juan!
He says he has read everything that has been written about him, but that these reviews are from people who haven’t read the novel because it hadn’t been released. His pride prevailed and he did not play the popular literature card. He even says that the excerpts that were shared on the networks were not from his novels. But they were, and they came specifically from the samples that the publisher has on its website. Another thing is that someone jokingly shared that “The ten fingers and the ten toes…”. Here del Val jokes about misquoting (deliberately, I think) a review that appeared in the same medium, and Motos equates his collaborator’s situation with that of Umbral, Cela, Moix and Arrabal. That’s right, Paulo. The same.
Juan says that hatred sinks, that criticism destroys lives and that what is being done to him is intimidation. He went from being James Dean to Rebel without a cause be Simón Perez, without breaking a sweat. Juan congratulates him with questions about the sexual passages in the novel. Juan looks at the camera. He likes to be portrayed as a forest son of a bitch.
I was able to read the novel and Juan del Val did not deserve this award. But I recognize one thing: the excitement he has given us these weeks. And for that he deserves applause. And Pablo another, if he doesn’t get mad.
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