Avila For there is not much to see, nor much to do. The problem is not just the cold that is not enough of ' winter and tries to invade the seasons that are close. And 'that over the mighty medieval walls, to go along the perimeter, occasionally stopping to watch towers on the storks that nest in the spire of the cathedral and to contemplate the horizon to clear up snow-capped peaks of the Sierra de Gredos, there are just places souvenir of Santa Teresa-home, school, convent-and-heavy-flavored dishes of the most genuine castle kitchen. Like many other towns in Castilla y Leon, Avila has not developed a truly new wealth, a modern taste, offering contemporary restaurants, museums, theaters, shopping, and remained suspended in a timeless, without style, basically anodyne. Condemned to be always stage of transition and destination of a trip, the traveler has only dusty windows, people are silent, empty streets, shuttered, the elderly reading the newspaper. Luckily there was the magnificent Parador in which to spend an entire night to read poems in the lounge with a fireplace, without feeling even for a moment the temptation to go for a walk. Imagining all this, on Sunday morning I had already bought two train tickets to Arevalo. We had breakfast of bread and tomato, tortilla, manchego cheese and ham, washed down with milk, coffee and orange juice, and during the next forty minutes of track little uneven cooking regretting a lot of courage.
When he last exam to become a diplomat in the mid-fifties, Jaime Gil de Biedma probably already guessed that it would never come out the winner from the Escuela diplomacy. The article had just appeared in Paris, signed by Vicente Aleixandre, one of the protagonists, along with poets Alberti, Garcia Lorca, Cernuda-generation of '27, not exactly an intellectual pro-Franco, in which one could read the prophecy that Jaime Gil de Biedma would become the best English-language poet of the second half of the twentieth century, it was not a good business card in a way linked to the scheme. Ironically, Gil de Biedma was rejected in its composition and English culture - not bad for those who would actually become the most important poet of his generation. And so, come the last race, Gil de Biedma gave you a joke worthy of Dali. When asked him to explain in a theme attractions of that city, as aspiring diplomat, most embodied his ideals, while the other candidates praised the charm of the boulevards of Paris, 'elegance of the London parks, the sweetness of the ruins of Rome or the monumental buildings of Vienna, Gil de Biedma compose a thoughtful description of the country dedicated to Arevalo, insignificant town in the province of Avila. That place that, having read this story in his biography , more than any another wanted to know since I set foot in Madrid.
Gil de Biedma has always been a hybrid being, constantly straddling two (or more worlds). Son of the most chic urban bourgeoisie of Barcelona, \u200b\u200bdivided his time between dell'Exaimple the comforts and the great country house of Nava de la Asuncion, dispersed in a barren wasteland not far from Segovia and, of course , Avila. Above all, his childhood, the one branch of the spring when the memories settle before being brought to light, not without difficulty, with the verses of age (Gil de Biedma together Gabriel Ferrater, was the most polished exponent of poetry called the current experience), had as privileged scene, while all around was burning Spain in the Civil War, the retreat of Nava castellano . Among the many images of the past-the plaza mayor of Segovia, the Castle of Coca, the towns of Riofrio and Turégano be reached on horseback or with sand-colored mehari, Arevalo was one of the most popular. There was the window display of antique shops, the castle, the Plaza de la Villa, abbeys and churches. Looking at those Mudejar architecture rich in detail, the streets you could still easily imagine the presence of the ghosts of Muslim notables. Stopping at any of the inns in the center, we plunged into a gourmet feast, with cochinillo, cocido, nuts, cheese, cakes, whipped. A magical, surreal, melancholy, the only world he could understand a restless spirit like his. Too bad the intelligence of the academic authorities, snobbish and humorless, not could come to that.
The first sensation was that of being in one of the squares in Italy represented by Giorgio De Chirico. A large oval plaza, earthy, quiet, empty, eerie, surrounded by majestic red-brick churches of the fourteenth century, San Miguel, El Salvador, San Martín, the Twin Towers. The space is more metaphysical that has ever happened. It was only the dummies and the Mysterious Baths. That square was the emblem of a country that was once great, powerful, rich, who had given birth to Isabella of Castile and the most beautiful Mudejar architecture of the region, and is now reduced to abandonment, to oblivion, to be applied more stark condemnation of the past. The center is uninhabited, the churches are dreamy, the castle is closed with barricades, under the arcades of the square of buildings there are only old wooden shutters locked with padlocks on the course of the facades of the buildings are left baronial die under the weight of wrinkles, antique shops die with their owners. similar impression can be proved only in some villages of Sicily, Piazza Armerina, Caltagirone, Gangi, where gattopardeschi buildings reduced to rubble, where the baroque splendor of the interior, however, can see through some broken windows, as in that evocative installation Manfredi Beninati, or studying the pomposity of coats of arms on the doors, live quietly with the flagship building of the abuses of the Seventies, those olive-green plaster squalid buildings, chipped the terraces and on paraoble ; roof. While we were eating with Laura a chuletón sitting at a table outside a restaurant in the central square, with local couples who swarmed from the Mass to the vermouth aperitif, praising the sun for Arevalo Avila denied, I thought that this country In fact, there really, but it was just the scenario most famous poem in the Jaime Gil de Biedma, No volvere a ser joven :
Que la vida iba en
a serious the empieza to comprehend Màs late
como todos los jovenes-, yo vine a
llevarme la vida por Delante.
trace and then wanted to leave applause
-aging, dying, were only
the dimensions of the theater.
But time has passed
and unpleasant truth looms:
aging, dying,
is the sole argument of the work.
Passeggiare a domenica mattina per le strade di polverose Arevalo, sorprendendosi per l'eco della propria voce che tra le chiese rimbalza mute, AIUTA to ricordarsi piccola di verità che è a toujours opportun portarsi dietro, come il rest nella tasca della notte di anteriore a cappotto, and EEOC Quello che niente di che we can do in our lives make us younger. Gil de Biedma knew, and therefore, arrived at the threshold of maturity, he decided that there was nothing that was worth saying, and he stopped writing . He thought he wanted to be a poet, but, instead, what we basically wanted was to be a poem. In one way or another, in his adventurous life experience, day manager of the largest multinational corporation in his country, quell'esotica Compañía de Tabacos de Filipinas who opened the doors of the slums of the East and the moral and material eyes on bigotry prevailing in his country, in which men preferred the uninhibited and playful camaraderie between them piutosto to go with frigid women who get bored at the time, and at night unrepentant homosexual bon vivant of the demi-monde of Barcelona, \u200b\u200bdivided between the slopes Barrio Chino hell in that ghetto hustlers and rejected yesterday and today lined with fashionable minimalist lounge-bar, and lift the cool of the upper town, on the nights of alcohol, and records conversations with friends of the School of Barcelona, ; the publisher Barral, Goytisolo brothers, the writer Mars, perhaps he succeeded.
Even I, for Arevalo, I had the feeling of being inside one of his poems, Volver . Not surprisingly, the subject brought back from a youth spent the spring in Barcelona which are attached is an elegant beige book that collects the entire poetic production Jaime Gil de Biedma, Las personas of the verb . As you can imagine, is the parting gift of a person with whom I shared long walks through the streets of Gracia, starry night huddled on improvisation in the rooftop pool and inedible paellas university canteen. My memories are now pictures of her, taken in an instant: the expression of tender and a touch of the eyes, a certain sweetness nell'inflessione voice, yawns thieves who slept badly last night by bus. Re-read the verses of the poem today, with post-it notes inform me that I was not the only one to know certain emotions, I am consoled by the fact that one day, the years passed, it will return that sweet happiness of being and remember that I, as Arevalo, have changed.
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