In the last year several Spanish publishers have recovered different titles from the British G. K. Chesterton, author of a varied work that includes narrations, poems, theatrical pieces, essays and biographies. With this motive Babelia has invited the philosopher Fernando to write the main article and with which he starts the number this Saturday. “Each page, not every page but every paragraph, not every paragraph, but each line or line and mean of Chesterton raises a controversy.” To read is to participate in an endless tournament, in a battle of those that begin at dawn and still continues between the two and the pitched when Twilight arrives. By lifting with a sigh the view of the page that we are reading, we have the imagination full of dead clichés, of gutted evidences, of indisputable beliefs that have been discussed until we have stopped believing in them and lie stiff, “writes in” Your text.
The article of Samaria is completed with another signed by José María Guelbenzu who delves into the British author’s writing method. “Chesterton is applied a method of writing: The paradox (which for him is the way to recognize the truth).” Along with the ingenuity of that exercise, what truly captivates him is his joviality, his joy of medieval origin, the way he enjoys writing and discussing, the use of contrast (more than the paradox), his formidable vitality and sense of “Humour and its blessed tendency to exaggeration,” says Guelbenzu.
After this approximation to Chesterton the reader of Babelia will find the usual criticisms of books, among which highlights a review of Jesus primer to the new work of Santos Juliá on the Spanish transition. In the following pages there are two interviews: one to the Chilean writer Roberto Merino and another to the director of the Reina Sofía Museum, Manuel Borja-Villel.
The music section highlights six albums, including the New Fever Ray (the artistic name of Swedish vocalist Karin Dreijer). The theatrical critic Marcos Ordóñez writes about the spectacle Vania, directed by Àlex Rigoa. And in the opinion pages Manuel Vilas occupies the free tribune with the usual signatures of Antonio Muñoz Molina and Manuel Rodríguez Rivero.
