Dear Mrs. Pilar del Río, I am writing to you as a Canary Islander, a reader of some of Saramago's works, and as a citizen who expresses his opinion on current affairs. For a few days now, you have been declaring that you are "outraged", ...
Dear Mrs. Pilar del Río, I am writing to you as a Canary Islander, a reader of some of Saramago's works, and as a citizen who expresses his opinion on current affairs.
For a few days now, you have been declaring that you are "outraged", a not very creative adjective in these times, by the little affection that the Canarians show for your husband and by the immobility that you say you see in Spanish society.
You demand and almost demand that they help you exploit the cultural complex that you have built around the figure of Saramago and threaten to dismantle the house-museum built in Tías (Lanzarore) and move all the writer's belongings to Lisbon, where the Saramago Foundation is located and which you currently chair. You also regret that the Canarians are the least likely to visit the cultural complex.
A few weeks ago, you also raised your voice due to the lack of support that the film "José and Pilar" has received after not passing the screening to represent Portugal at the Oscar Awards. A film/documentary that shows your relationship as a couple in your day-to-day life in Lanzarote and Lisbon, in your home and on your trips around the world, with the Nobel Prize winner. You demand that they have not invested more money in promoting the film.
Mrs. Pilar, love is the greatest and most beautiful thing that exists, but you have to understand that Saramago was not, nor is he the center of the world. Don't think that we Canarians are ungrateful, we are immersed, all of Europe and the world, in more complex and vital issues. I am talking about basic needs such as eating, to be aware of the Saramago Cultural Complex in Tías. Which I am not saying is not important. Even so, and subtracting it from more basic items, the Canarian entities have committed an important budget item to erect a monument next to your house. Don't you think that's a sign of affection? I also remind you that the writer in 1999 was chosen "Adopted Son of Tías", when in Portugal the Oporto city council voted against the proposal to put the name of the writer José Saramago on a street in the city. And even so, you decide to bury your husband's ashes there and you want to take the writer's things to your country.
I would also like to ask you if the Canary Islands owe so much to Saramago. No one forced him to come and reside in the archipelago. It was a consequence of the controversy raised in Portugal by his work "The Gospel according to Jesus Christ" in 1991. As far as I know, in Spain, or in the Canary Islands, he has never been vetoed or criticized for any of his books or ideas. Lanzarote gave your husband much more, where he enjoyed the hospitality of its inhabitants, climate, color, tranquility and inspiration for his works, as he acknowledged on several occasions and as compensation, as far as I know, I have not read all his books, none of them take place on the island, nor is there any reference to it. Who owes more to whom? And what I don't know is, where did your husband pay taxes and where are you currently paying taxes. That is another question.
I also don't think your husband's work is up to the standard of a Nobel Prize, but that is another debate that I may raise in another letter. I would like to remind you, since we all have a very fragile memory, that your husband has not been very well regarded in other places either. In 2002, he was named persona non grata in Israel for comparing the country's policy in the occupied territories with Nazi extermination camps and they removed all his books there. Catholics didn't have much appreciation for him either. He was expelled from several places such as the newspaper Diário de Notícias, etc.
The present is only to make you reconsider your statements and suggest that you do not criticize people who receive unemployment benefits for immobility and conformism. You have a guaranteed life and live off the rights of your husband's work. Use those resources in what you consider something so important "The House of Saramago" in Tías, but you have the foundation in Lisbon. And if you wanted the film to reach the Oscars and considered it so wonderful, because you were in it, you should have invested the money in the promotion.
How ugly belly buttons sometimes are.
Sincerely,
@franCoescribe
