I was surprised by the literary buzz that came out Sara Barquinero (1994, Zaragoza) after his mammoth novella Scorpions (Lumen, 2024), where we encountered the disintegration of pages and formal statements we noted in Endless bromance by David Foster Wallace, a work admired by the author.
The new project, which now connects to the bookstore, has larger dimensions. Before 800 pages of your previous work, The biggest thing I know on the list it slightly exceeds 400.
Also related to the topic, a priorisimpler than what we see in it Scorpions. We look forward to the story of Alicia, an 18-year-old, dreamy, lonely girl from Vallisole with an excellent academic background, who settles in Madrid to study a philosophy career at a fictitious university, which happens to be where the Complutense University is actually located, among the green hills north of the Moncloa lighthouse. There he will experience an academic career driven by desire that will circle around to a love affair with the teacher who gives her life.
Barquinero explains from this point of the match a bildungsroman (educational novel) which serves to create a raw portrait of the Spanish university environment, sometimes in student-student relationships, but also with professors. There is also the ever-tedious bureaucracy that is shocking and disappointing to the most motivated student and aspiring doctor, and many power dynamic distortions that in the long run translate into uncompensated sexually affective relationships between teachers and pupils.
Amendment that weighs on the first impression, it maintains the literary ambition – yes no sobrepasa – of the previous book. The writer succeeds in narrating the experiences of a young person in short but very sure philosophical discussions, based on academic material of which she is the protagonist and which makes her feel that she is in charge of her worries, on the other hand, so many worldly things that other students have who would like to hear it.
Sara Barquinero before an interview with El Cultural. Photo: Cristina Villarino
He is accompanied by a companion compulsory note-reading machine and this ultimately gives the story a powerful volume. Barquinero noted during an interview with El Cultural about his past as a doctor when he wrote his thesis on the sublime in Kant’s thought: “It was an era in which he was constantly so hard connected. There was enough time in the space we left for the becarios, which was the zul without twenty. Y when I was irritated, when I was more connected, then I wrote some scraps.”
Please. Why do you care so much about your academic life that you need to write about it?
Response. One of the things that hurt me the most was that with the passion I had for philosophy, a very professional career, I was undermining it day by day with a mix of things that are the central themes of this novel: the bureaucracy of knowledge, how the authors treat it like it’s your PhD… I’m black and I’m giving up the power to live.
»At best, I’m not one to have an academic life, but before that I read a philosophy book as something that could change my life, that would turn me upside down and that I could apply to the things I do day-to-day and the PhD work I’ve achieved.
“I don’t have a problem with being fat, but I’m obsessed with being fat.”
»At this time, I wondered many times what would become of me. See I didn’t have enough points to redeem them inside the department. I thought, frustrated with how we build public education, that it would work with a good summer because these professionals can’t go anywhere. I was also inspired by the relationships I had permanently between teachers and students, camaraderie… Human beings are litters and ruins, and we are glad to know who we are, with whom we are It was, but it felt like a bad thing to me.
P. Was it this disappointment that led to the shift from philosophy to fiction?
R. It was a sequence of azars. When I finished my thesis, I didn’t want to know anything about the academic world. de facto I’m ready to stop talking to herand yes, in the end it was due to the insistence of my fathers, friends and friends. And at this very moment I went through it Scorpions. But turning to literature was not a rational decision, it was simply life.
P. But the dynamics of the literary world are also complete… Aren’t they asustan?
R. The fundamental difference is that we don’t want to forget it the university is a public institution. Private businesses that want to make money from their books have certain dynamic characteristics, they may seem bad to me, but it will be a different form than what we see in the public space. The center of Spain’s knowledge must be the universities, not this other.
P. No ScorpionsNo The biggest thing I know on the list they are light readers. Is it okay to be bored?
A. I have a lot of time to burn. When I send borradores to friends, I always ask them to let me know what the borradores are. I hate boring books if I don’t feel like I’m reading a good teacher when I want to learn the book. In this book, much of the philosophy that originally existed was omitted precisely because she advised me that it would be boring. I don’t have a problem with being thick, but if I’m obsessed with it, it’s boring.
P. Among other things, the story of our life, with which students who have inherited cultural capital, said to be with a family in which access to culture is guaranteed by the education of the parents. What are the students who don’t talk to him? Is it an unsalvageable escape?
R. It can be overcome, but only a short trip to the end. And it is above all the starting point that makes us more vulnerable to entering a terrifying dynamic. If you were the first from a humble family to go to university and you wonder what your jefes have done to you, things that are not in your contract, your fathers want to tell you that he passed through the life of God and that from now on no risk to your cultural position. This is what I believe no one would want your plants to come from a more privileged place. This type of student is the perfect way to get into a horrible dynamic simply because you don’t know if it’s what you hope for or not.
»For example, when I think about alumni-professor relationships, I feel that this probably accompanies many chicas in the aspirational movement, as I say: “I am a girl who chose a teacher, even though my fathers live in Vallecas and have a carnicería”.
P. ¿Nace, entonces, de una necesidad de validación?
R. Sí. Lo que desde luego no podemos hacer es seguir ignorando, como a veces se ha pretendido, que el capital cultural—que normalmente va unido al capital económico— no importa. Si analizamos a las personas que tienen una posición privilegiada en las artes, las letras, la cultura, el diseño, etcétera, vemos que no hay tanto triunfo capitalista de gente que viene de la nada y se hace a sí mismas. Hay más de lo otro.
P. ¿Es a esto a lo que se refiere el título de la novela?
R. Nace de eso y de experiencias compartidas con otras mujeres. Es la frase favorita para ligar en relaciones de este estilo, en las que hay una diferencia de edad importante. Intuitivamente saben que eso es lo que buscamos: que nos digan que somos la chica más lista que han visto nunca. Aunque nos saquen 15 años. Aunque lleven 10 o 20 años codeándose con las mentes más privilegiadas de su generación.
P. ¿Y funciona?
R. Funciona, por desgracia.
“Muchas veces, las personas que trabajan en el mundo académico se siguen comportando como niños”
P. La protagonista llega a autodenominarse pick me girl, un término muy peyorativo.
R. Sí, pero no pasa nada por identificarte con descalificativos. Es una forma de honestidad. Yo he sido una pick me girl toda la vida, y lo sé y no pasa nada por decirlo. Es algo con lo que obviamente intento luchar pero que es acertado. Por ejemplo, a mí cuando era adolescente me encantaba My Chemical Romance, pero, como estaba en un círculo de puretas en el que lo que molaba era escuchar Metallica, ocultaba lo otro e incluso lo criticaba.
P. Uno de los vínculos más llamativos de Alicia es el que mantiene con Cristina, su supuesta mejor amiga a la que continuamente critica y con la que siempre se respira cierta tensión. ¿Qué ocurre ahí?
R. Me interesa mucho ese personaje. Fue uno de los primeros que tuve claro porque explica mucho de cómo se relacionan las mujeres. La amistad femenina se imagina en la literatura y en la vida como un espacio puro y sin problemas, con chicas intercambiándose tampones en los baños de discotecas. Pero mi experiencia particular es muy distinta, sobre todo en aquellos en los que hay un factor laboral en juego. Muchas veces es un nido de ratas.
Sara Barquinero durante la entrevista con El Cultural. Foto: Cristina Villarino
»Quise hacer a Cristina y a Alicia contrarias. Una tiene el capital cultural y se frustra por no destacar y la otra no tiene ese bagaje familiar, lo envidia, pero despunta. Vemos que constantemente se dan rabia la una a la otra. La pregunta que aparece al final es: ¿No están las dos desde el principio preocupadas porque la otra le quite el sitio como si solo hubiera un único puesto de chica interesante? Creo que es algo súper común en dinámicas amistosas en la universidad, la literatura y supongo que en otros mundos.
P. ¿Cómo le cae a usted Alicia?
R. Intenté que cayera bien. Todo el mundo me ha dicho en muchas novelas mías que el libro muy guay pero todos los personajes eran insoportables. En esta ocasión me esforcé porque no fuera así [ríe].
P. If you ask for everything and for everyone. Aren’t you usually that kind of person?
R. But I believe that something that is shared with many people and can be made more enjoyable is that if that’s the case, it’s because you feel less and want something else. It’s a sense of inferiority that I believe we can relate to all over the world.
P. What’s also surprising about her relationship with the teacher is that she’s the one who’s obsessed with her knowing about his existence.
R. I wanted to cancel that. No wonder it was the story of a very evil sexual predator until he was gray. I think it’s preternatural because of the culture we have and the way we build romantic relationships that a student would be attracted to an older female teacher, especially if she’s relatively young and more or less monotone.
»There is a public liability at the university and you have a school year… What happens? I don’t think I’m concerned about the fact that a person in the early years feels attracted to another person who is still in puberty. But keep stepping on the brakes.
P. Is it an ego issue?
R. For Alice, yes, it’s a question of ego, aspiration, wanting to be a girl who likes her teacher, who chose from among 30 people. In the case of men who interact with their students in one way or another, I believe it is a mixture of ego, childishness and insecurity. Many times people who work in the academic world behave like children. Don’t have workshop tools and follow the school calendar. I think it affects them. It is, quizás, a form of not accepting the passage of time.
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