“My father died twice. The first, a sunny morning in which Alzheimer’s clouded his mind and he forgot me. The second, three days before Christmas, when, turned into Ravel’s ‘Bolero’, he stopped breathing & rdquor ;. This is how the paragraph written on the back cover of the book begins ‘Love will make you immortal’, of the musician Ramon Gener, published by Plaza & Janés, in which the author talks about the loss of his father through famous characters from the world of music looking for the parallelism that helps keep him alive through his memory. A well written book that immersed me in a world of emotions and that it taught me to remember my deceased parents even more.
A few days ago I participated in a meal of several writers, journalists, editors and relevant people of the culture of our country, on the occasion of the presentation of the latest book by Rafel Nadal, ex-editor of this newspaper and very successful writer, titled ‘When words are deleted’, edited by Columna; a story that moves, full of nostalgia, that sets its eyes on the memory, on the passage of time and that reflects on memory loss centered on the character of his mother. In the book Nadal writes: “When words are erased, things lose their name and cease to exist.” A book full of sensitivity to which the author has us accustomed in previous novels. A highly recommended book that makes Nadal a better writer and us better readers.
The two authors cited speak of a painful and unfortunately very common topic: the loss of memory until it ceases to be. Because when you don’t recognize yourself, you stop being yourself and when you don’t even know your loved ones, in a way, they too disappear.
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Currently there are about 800,000 people suffering from Alzheimer’s in Spain. Every year they are diagnosed 40,000 new cases. I think getting old is a pain in the ass, just like it says Oscar tusquets in his book ‘Living is not that fun, and getting old is a pain in the ass’, And if it is also accompanied by physical and mental deterioration, without being aware of it, it is a fatal and very regrettable fact.
Although the subject is sad, both Gener’s and Nadal’s books combine it with parallel stories full of optimism.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com