Alvaro Pombo (Santander, 1939) went to a friend’s house in London, around 1977, when he was a telephone operator in a Spanish bank. The writer waited swinging on a chaise longue and then spoke of poetrylife in London, friendship and God, which was then part of his most important affairs. He was already publishing poetry, although he had not yet broken into being the character who later wrote important novels (such as ‘The hero of Mansard’s mansards’), increasingly refined and personal poetry (‘Protocols’), and even embraced politics for a few yearsa passion that made him a notorious militant of UPyD, the party that Rosa Díez founded.
He is a language academic keep writing novels and poetry, and rests in a nursing home where he recovers from a hip operation that he doesn’t complain about for a second. His ailment leads him to use, now also, a wheelchair with which he moves and, when he is still, serves as a chaise longue, as in those days in London, on which he balances while we do the interview . His friend and colleague Pedro Álvarez de Miranda accompanies us on this visit that he encourages with his way of being, which is between heavenly, charitable and earthly. Naturally, the nature of the conversation has to do with God (he has just published in Rosamerón ‘The supreme fiction. An assault on the idea of God’). But not only with God. This is Álvaro Pombo in pure stateor, rocking in a wheelchair, with the big tennis shoes that he used already in that distant time.
This book is like a tree of memories for all of us.
It’s generational, yes.
When I saw the word God, I remembered a verse by Victoriano Crémer: “God, what a life, it makes me angry to live without joy.”
There is no mention of God here. There is talk of the moon, the one that governs the tides, vegetation, sexuality… that is, intimacy.
that’s a human god.
He is a Christian God. He more complex than the one cited by Judaism. He is the man who recognizes himself in the life of the moon. Something that we no longer do, except Lorca. Let’s see, what I want to say in this book is on page 128-129, where I talk about an imaginary genealogy.
You say that God is the ultimate reality.
That’s what the scholastics said. What I want to emphasize in this book is: if we say that God is a fiction or something real, are we saying the same thing that we say about the characters in literary fictions? God is the supreme fiction and, at the same time, the reality of all realities.
What has religious experience given to your poetry?
I do not want to devalue the religious experience by referring only to my education. Because that would be a catastrophe. It is the presence of God before a child. A presence that is human.
And don’t you think that God has been devalued by the church?
God has been muddied by the church. I don’t know if devalued, but muddy.
In what sense has it muddied it?
Well, in what has to do with mediated religious experience. “The church doesn’t need theologians but saints”, they used to say. And that has been completely lost today.
He says that in his childhood and adolescence God was a friend.
Of course. Because God was, above all, a boy. That’s why it was easy to talk to him face to face. But it was an experience affected by the notion of sin and guilt, with which we also offended the Blessed Virgin.
In this book he has a lot of mercy with the virgin.
Because I have not been devoted to the virgin. However, I know that she is a figure that softens the harshness of Catholicism.
How do you now see the church that is in the news?
I am very secluded. I haven’t been a practitioner for a long time. I still consider myself a Christian, but I am very far away.
but follow the news.
Yes. But I don’t know how to tell you, as the people of the towns say. Well… we are experiencing a very large wave of secularism and we must be careful not to only focus on the bad news.
Well, from the church itself we learned the concept of piety.
The concept of piety and devotion. And of prayer. It’s just… I’m an old Christian, not a convert, and I’ve learned a lot from the church.
What does it mean to be an old Christian?
Well, it implies having been born in 1939 and having sung ‘Cara al sol’ and having been educated with the Piarists. Being an old Christian is coming from a somewhat agnostic family too, eh. That’s how my family was, a little liberal with respect to the others. But my grandmother, in Santander, went to the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and those traditions had to be followed.
Apart from his religious memoir, this book is full of reflections on contemporary life. He says, for example: “We are living in a world that is disenchanted and lacking in substance.” That explains very well the now.
Man, it is evident that we are living in a disenchanted world. People are obsessed with money and power. There is a constant fight over it. Now look at the PP. In general terms we are in a wild and vociferous time.
He also talks about the overexposure of the ‘I’ in these times.
That happens blatantly, yes. I do not use social networks, I am pre-technological, but I know that today it is very important as a social phenomenon. Well, it’s a burden, really.
Have you omitted things in this book or have you written what you wanted?
I have written what I wanted, like all my life. Including the guilt and sexuality and homosexuality, my life. Always. Everything always. I believe that the novel is a deformed wisdom, because it is a mixed bag, and everything fits there. Everything. Even reflections on life.
He also says that intimacy has been lost.
It is that before we were very modest, we had few things about intimate life, at least me. We were underexposed, quite the opposite of the present. We didn’t take photos, either. Except on special dates, of course. In my house there are very few photos of my childhood. Today, with the camera that we all carry in our pocket, we do not stop taking photos.
What is your relationship with silence?
Silence is golden, say the Germans. Silence is from God. It is the gathering. For every talker, and I am very talkative, there comes a time to say ‘I’ve said it all.’ Let’s shut up about ourselves now, said Dante, and let’s do science. Because the self devours everything.
So let’s keep quiet then.
Thank you very much.