{"id":9252,"date":"2011-11-10T13:00:51","date_gmt":"2011-11-10T12:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.cervantes.es\/dublin\/?p=9252"},"modified":"2013-06-29T13:17:57","modified_gmt":"2013-06-29T12:17:57","slug":"virtual-interview-with-jesus-ruiz-mantilla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cervantes.es\/dublin\/virtual-interview-with-jesus-ruiz-mantilla\/","title":{"rendered":"Virtual interview with Jes\u00fas Ruiz Mantilla"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual interview with Jes\u00fas Ruiz Mantilla<\/strong>, Instituto Cervantes Dublin Library<\/a>, 9th November 2011<\/h2>\n

\"Jes\u00fas<\/p>\n

David Carri\u00f3n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Good afternoon Jes\u00fas. In January you published the article \u201cWhy do I read?\u201d, about the motivations of different writers. Why does Jes\u00fas Ruiz Mantilla write?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Ruiz Mantilla<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In general I write for curiosity\u2019s sake, to discover things and to discover myself. Also for love, for hate, to put order to chaos or to create chaos.<\/p>\n

I write for people to read it, to share, to define and redefine and to try to understand. I write just like that, to get into the people, into people\u2019s minds\u00a0which I don\u2019t get to understand, in order to understand them. I write to ask, to find out, to become a better person, to understand why I can get worse. To put forward paradoxes and contradictions but with the aim to share them, rather than resolving them.<\/p>\n

DCarrion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why do you read? Which were your first readings and who did you get them from?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Ruiz Mantilla<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I got my first readings from my dad. He offered me a collection with books by Jules Verne, and he\u00a0talked to\u00a0me about the Odyssey and Iliad, but especially about Michel Strogoff, The Courier of the Czar <\/em>and Captain Nemo. Then it comes all the rest. I read for the same reasons I write, also to copy and to get inspired, I read to recharge my batteries, to understand and to question.<\/p>\n

Lola Rodr\u00edguez<\/strong><\/p>\n

What\u2019s the most difficult thing about a writer\u2019s profession? And about a journalist\u2019s profession?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Ruiz Mantilla<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The most difficult thing in a writer\u2019s profession is to define the idea, to be able to capture on paper what you have in your\u00a0mind. Regarding a journalist, it\u2019s trying not to repeat yourself, to communicate clearly, to catch the readers\u2019 attention everyday, the headline and the first paragraph.<\/p>\n

LRodr\u00edguez<\/strong><\/p>\n

Journalism in Western countries if free to a certain extent. Is it the same with literature?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Ruiz Mantilla<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Literature is absolutely free. Journalism is not, it\u2019s only free.<\/p>\n

LRodr\u00edguez<\/strong><\/p>\n

The five novels you have written look apparently quite different. What do they have in common? Maybe the idea of identity?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Ruiz Mantilla<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The concept of identity is indeed obsessive in me. All my books deal with the personal identity and my new novel Ahogada en llamas<\/em>, to be published next March, also\u00a0tackles the concept of collective identity.<\/p>\n

Other common features are the expression of sensations \u2013for example, music in Preludio<\/em> and Farinelli<\/em>, taste, touch and smell in Gordo<\/em> and Placer contra placer<\/em>-, love, duality, paradox, memory, death\u2026<\/p>\n

DCarri\u00f3n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Please talk about your first novel Los ojos no ven<\/em>. Was Dali actually a fraud or this is just Pascual Burgaleta\u2019s opinion?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Ruiz Mantilla<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Los ojos no ven<\/em> was just an exercise to prove myself that I was able to write a 200 pages novel.<\/p>\n

On whether Dali was an impostor, I think his mistake was that he tried to convince us that he was a genius where he actually wasn\u2019t, in painting. And however, he was a genius and a visionary where he thought he wasn\u2019t: in filmmaking, in literature \u2013his books are absolutely brilliant- and in making up a character, a feature of the post modernity which Dali explored before Warhol.<\/p>\n

DCarri\u00f3n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Please talk now about your second novel, Preludio<\/em>. You are a music lover. Is Chopin your favorite musician?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Ruiz Mantilla<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019re right, I am a music lover, especially piano. The idea of this novel was to make up a pianist. For me pianists represent the paradigm of duality: with each hand they play a different thing at the same time. It\u2019s as if they have two heads, that\u2019s why I created a dual, bisexual Le\u00f3n de Vega, with right and left ideals, tender and awful, tormented and attracted by the abyss, the excess and the romanticism.<\/p>\n

I created a link with Chopin\u2019s 24 Preludes because I wanted a musical structure, so I related his life in 24 chapters written at the rhythm of each prelude.<\/p>\n

DCarri\u00f3n<\/strong><\/p>\n

How much of Jos\u00e9 Francisco Alonso is there in the main character of this novel, Le\u00f3n de Vega, a man obsessed with the Polish composer?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Ruiz Mantilla<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Jos\u00e9 Francisco was my uncle. I liked to see him playing piano when he came to his home city from Viena, where he lived. I was fascinated by him and Le\u00f3n de Vega has much of my uncle in him. He served as inspiration and example.<\/p>\n

LRodr\u00edguez<\/strong><\/p>\n

You have said that your novel Gordo<\/em> originates from an anger for the marginalization of fat people in Spain. What are your demands in this novel?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Ruiz Mantilla<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not exactly a vindication although it is a good excuse. But it surely comes from an anger, with the aim to defend what it\u2019s different, the extreme versus the standard, the pleasure and the suffering, and a view to the grotesque.<\/p>\n

LRodr\u00edguez<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fat people are a referent in comedy. If we assume that we like to make fun of the extremes, skinny people should make the same effect. However, it\u2019s not. Why do you think skinny people are not that funny?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Ruiz Mantilla<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I really don\u2019t know. I rather feel pity for skinny people, poor them.<\/p>\n

DCarri\u00f3n<\/strong><\/p>\n

What do you mean when you say that Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez and Vargas Llosa are tremendously fat men \u201cspecially with regard to their erotic literature\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Ruiz Mantilla<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I mean that their writing style is sensual, exorbitant, baroque, full of calories, overwhelming. It gets you dizzy in a good way. They maximize the resources of the language, the imagination and the exuberance.<\/p>\n

LRodr\u00edguez<\/strong><\/p>\n

Can you recommend a good novel in which cuisine and the pleasure of food is a core topic?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Ruiz Mantilla<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

From the Ancient Greek to present food has been widely depicted in literature. Don Quixote, for example, is a big gastronomy manual book, also a hunger manual though.<\/p>\n

DCarri\u00f3n<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was surprised that you said that Farinelli himself would have chosen to be castrated, that castrati felt as a special class. What did you see in Farinelli that made you write your fourth novel about him?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Ruiz Mantilla<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I was attracted by the fact that he was a great postmodernist. We live in a baroque world where identities are confused and the castrati are\u00a0exactly a paradigm of this. I also wanted to enhance Farinelli\u2019s connection with Spain. He lived in Madrid for 20 years, he introduced Italian opera and he doesn\u2019t even have a street with his name on it or a statute, it\u2019s a disgrace.<\/p>\n

DCarri\u00f3n<\/strong><\/p>\n

With all my respects, would you have chosen to be fat? Is being fat a life philosophy?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Ruiz Mantilla<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Nowadays that is something you can choose. Otherwise it gradually shapes your thinking, your feelings and your personality for better or worse. In my case, as Falstaff, my belly is my kingdom except that, contrary to Falstaff when he says \u2018I\u2019ll make it bigger\u2019, I go to gym to reduce it.<\/p>\n

LRodr\u00edguez<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Placer contra placer<\/em> you examine the search for happiness through pleasure and the price that must be paid to reach it. If you had to give up all pleasures except for one, which one would you choose?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Ruiz Mantilla<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Hard to say\u2026 Probably affection, love, company.<\/p>\n

DCarri\u00f3n<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am surprised that in the list of pleasures of your book sex is not included. Is it because it is a sin?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Ruiz Mantilla<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

There is a kind of obsession for sex in all my books, even when the characters cannot have sex, like Farinelli. I don\u2019t know why I didn\u2019t include it in Placer contra placer<\/em>, but many people have noticed that. I\u2019m pleased to refer you to my other books, where all my characters have an unrestrained sexuality.<\/p>\n

LRodr\u00edguez<\/strong><\/p>\n

How is the search for happiness in the affluent society and how can be explained that 50% of Spanish population suffer from depression and anxiety? We don\u2019t have enough with the little pleasures anymore?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Ruiz Mantilla<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This is the reason why I wrote this book, in order to give my view on how to find the little pleasures. We are surrounded by depression and anxiety, and by pleasures too, but I don\u2019t know why these go unnoticed, we let them go.<\/p>\n

That is why I wanted to make people stop and think about the little pleasures we can enjoy in our daily life, be able to identify them, become aware of them, fix them in our mind and keep on going until we encounter the next one.<\/p>\n

LRodr\u00edguez<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Placer contra placer<\/em> you analyze the theories of the greatest philosophers in history to find the key to happiness. Which theory do you prefer?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Ruiz Mantilla<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The Greeks\u2019 one, particularly Epicure\u2019s, who advocated that pleasure is a social enhancement tool.<\/p>\n

Dcarri\u00f3n<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have heard that your fifth novel, Ahogada en llamas<\/em>, should have been released in autumn 2011. It\u2019s being hard to finish it? When would it be available in the bookstores?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Ruiz Mantilla<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

It will be released in March next year.<\/p>\n

LRodr\u00edguez<\/strong><\/p>\n

Can you recommend any (pleasant) remedy against the collective anxiety of Spainish population today?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Ruiz Mantilla<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

To think positive. To think that Spain has got back on it\u2019s feet after harder times than today. In fact the book I am working on now tackles this subject. It\u2019s about a girl who became homeless during the Spanish civil war but she managed to succeed, with faith, work and determination. The power of will overcomes everything.<\/p>\n

Thank you very much for your participation.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Related links:<\/strong><\/p>\n