Human life consists of a series of rites, habits, hobbies, habits, solencias, uses. We need to confirm them as unique, and feel, also by them, are different from others. And that was managed by the Greek concept of equality: to give equal treatment to the individual. Because fortunately, there was not, nor is there never will be, a human being exactly alike. Far from it, chemically pure.
One of my regular habits, is making coffee and reading the morning newspaper, basically using the Internet-and more than Main newsr of poetry, novels, plays or Latin American film so very academic, with the freshness and freedom of those who read and study more for pleasure than to meet an obli n. And very rarely peeks at what he says that deconstructionist jargon behind which many teachers hide their intellectual vacuum. The last time we were together, watching a delightful comedy mounting a Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratsford-upon-Avon, I remembered to ask you something Years ago I was intrigued, "How did you find Latin American literature? What made you dedicate yourself to it? ". - Classes of an exceptional teacher, as a student at Oxford, "he answered, without hesitation, David Gallagher. Do not you know her? He starred in a story that gave a lot of talk back in the seventies. I knew him very well and I was one of the many teachers and students of English in the Britain of that era's jaw dropped when the story took place & # 243;. David Gallagher, a Chilean of English origin, was then little more than a celebrity early in that environment. He had studied Russian and English, in Oxford, and despite his youth, performing the critique of literaryatinoamericanos the renewal of contemporary literature. Through a series of authors, ranging from César Vallejo, Octavio Paz, Borges, Garcia Marquez, Neruda Cabrera Infante, Gallagher sen , praised the major milestones of literary modernity in Latin America, with the overcoming of the old regionalism and aesthetics confined to the exploitation of the picturesque and folkloric rich, and the commitment to create new art forms through the assimilation of the best leading foreign literature and his own invention of languages and techniques to a world express originality in the process of workintimacy, are so scanty as the English. And David Gallagher that sobriety has crystallized into something that, for periods, simply confuses the silence: it is the only person I know capable of great fun all night without saying mus . I am still sometimes English friends of those years I asked, scratching his head: "Did you find out at last the secret of David ?. " No, and I know we never find out.
A fenced area?
The surprise was increased further in subsequent years, when we learned that the defector of Oxford,s time to be a director of the State Bank of Chile. And, happily, what many seemed at first a lamentable falling away, it was not. Rather, the enrichment of a cultural vocation of someone who never accepted that the poesíay literary prose may be a specialty, an area surrounded by barbed wire, but a starting point to better understand the world, life, and get close, sensitive and imagination fueled by good literature, all other manifestations of human creativity, the arts, music, economics, philosophy, politics. is one of themost admirable things David Gallagher have managed, at this time branded by the curse of the specialty, being a modern humanist, someone curious and informed about everything that happens in them ; scope of culture, without sinking into the mere dilettantism, always maintaining a strict perspective of what he reads, hears and sees and associating it with an overview of where the ideas, arts and the letters are a delight not only the spirit, also a weapon to improve what is wrong and defend against misfortune.
The young teacher who for thirty years encouraged students from Oxford venture into the fantasies of the literature latinoamericana is, culturally speaking, a citizen of the world, which reads in many languages, travels the country visiting exhibitions, attending concerts, is an opera fan, and the Once, he manages, at conferences and congresses where you can not stop opening his mouth to defend with logic and examples overwhelming overwhelming economic policy has, today, Chile the only Latin American country that definitely seems on track to leave behind the shame of underdevelopment. Although he speaks little, David Gallagher writes a lot and now, finally, many English-speaking readers can read it. Because, after much deliberation, we decided to collect237; to that spans all continents and addresses all issues, and yet does not give the impression of vertigo, a crazed dispersion. By contrast, despite their nomadic life and the incessant bustle of all issues in these texts is a secret affinity, a common denominator that can read a book as if they were organic, as if all chapters of a work were carefully designed as a compact whole. What gives them unity and coherence is something that Francisco García Calderón praised in an old book of essays entitled Teachers of idealism, that of all mana a stimulating and contagious conviction that culture isare those dreams like castles of sand and now, if refugees in resentment and nihilism, they hide their disappointment in a refined skepticism, neurosis, or alcohol. But David Gallagher continues to believe that life is worth living, and that there are still many battles to be fought because they can be won, even if they do not have these features epic rom & # 225; ICT, with the young idealists conceived four decades ago. Today, the fight for a fairer, less poor, more free, less stupid, more educated, goes through many different fronts, one of which, the institutions and politics, is neurálgico, but by no means the only, for progress to be true, must be simultaneous and multiple, create jobs, raise living standards and also & # 233, n opportunities for each person can choose their destination according to his sovereign will.
And all this is impossible without ideas, without public tender, imaginative and critical, that is, without a vigorous culture and in perpetual renewal, to disturb, disrupt and maintain those levels of discontent and of demand without which spreads conformity, which is the slow death of democracy.
do not know how this "teacher of idealism" that is David Gallagher to do all the things que do in life. Perhaps time talking to other workers, he focuses on making things come and go for the wider world as your home, read it all, is the appearance of New Russian poets and assists, not moving an inch on its hard wooden seat, the operas of Wagner in Bayreuth. not know how he does, but, reading their stories, the impression is that he lives at the vortex of activities without precipitation or hysteria, with all phlegm necessary and sufficient perspective to write about it in moderation and solvency. So jealous!
© Mario Vargas Llosa, 2004. © Copyright Global dand press in all languages reserved Diario El País, SL, 2004. © 2002 Mario Vargas Llosa. © Copyright world press in all languages reserved Diario El País, SL
