sits in front of the computer, she tells him that people who regularly use Google gradually lose the ability to read literary works with any kind of depth, which serves to demonstrate how digital knowledge can be linked to the recent stupidity in the world.
Riba accepts the dig, but prefers not to take it personally. When she leaves, he has his first cappuccino of the morning. Really, coffee was devised as a way of concentrating better on the internet, he thinks. Over the last two years, in the absence of alcohol, coffee has been his only stimulant. Today he drinks it faster than ever, at top speed: standing up in the kitchen, gloriously anxious. Then, in an almost desperate attempt not to let a single effect of the caffeine escape, he turns his back on Celia’s words and seats himself at the computer.
For a moment, he considers not spending as many hours as usual in front of the screen, not exactly because of what Celia said, although this has a strong influence, but rather because he has been telling himself for some time now he should set himself life challenges far removed from his recent obsessive tendency to sit motionless at the computer. But he immediately changes his mind. Being almost sixty years old he doesn’t really have any ideas for life challenges. So eventually he decides to delve once more into the internet, where he is unable ever to avoid giving free rein to a certain narcissism by typing into Google first his name, and then that of the publishing house. He knows that, aside from being egocentric, all of this is clearly obsessive. But even so, he doesn’t want to give up this daily habit. The flesh is weak.
This obsessive activity in fact serves to soothe his nostalgia for the time when he used to go to his office and, with his secretary Gauger, inspect every mention in the press about the books they published. He knows that, as a substitute for what he used to do in his office, his current mania is verging on the grotesque, but he feels it is necessary for his mental health. He looks at lots of blogs to find out what they are saying about the books he published. And if he comes across someone who has written something even slightly unpleasant, he writes an anonymous post calling the author ignorant or an idiot.
Today he spends a long time doing this activity and ends up insulting a guy from Barcelona who says on his blog that he took a Paul Auster book on holiday to Tokyo and feels disappointed. What a bastard this blogger is! Riba only published
The Invention of Solitude
by Auster, and although the book the tourist is putting down is
The Brooklyn Follies
, he feels just as affronted by this mistreatment of Auster, whom he considers a friend. When he finishes insulting the blogger, he feels more refreshed than ever. Recently he has been so very sensitive and had such low morale that he thinks if he had overlooked this unjust comment on Auster’s book he would have become even more depressed than he was before.
•
He interrupts the hypnotic state the computer has lulled him into for yet another day and stands up. He goes over to the big window for a few moments and from there looks out at the great view over the city of Barcelona, not as fantastic today as it usually is, due to the alarmingly persistent rain. In fact, the whole city has disappeared from his window, disappeared behind a heavy curtain of water. May rain, although a little excessive for this time of year. It is as if up there, in the clouds, someone has begun to collaborate on Dominique’s future installation in the Tate Modern in London.
He senses that this short journey over to the window, this modest, fleeting liberation from the digital world, will turn out to be beneficial. Right away, standing here, even though he’s facing the
disappeared
view of Barcelona, his
hikikomori
guilt has diminished. And he starts to see that Celia’s words as she left today are having quite an effect on him. In general, he barely takes a break
Riba accepts the dig, but prefers not to take it personally. When she leaves, he has his first cappuccino of the morning. Really, coffee was devised as a way of concentrating better on the internet, he thinks. Over the last two years, in the absence of alcohol, coffee has been his only stimulant. Today he drinks it faster than ever, at top speed: standing up in the kitchen, gloriously anxious. Then, in an almost desperate attempt not to let a single effect of the caffeine escape, he turns his back on Celia’s words and seats himself at the computer.
For a moment, he considers not spending as many hours as usual in front of the screen, not exactly because of what Celia said, although this has a strong influence, but rather because he has been telling himself for some time now he should set himself life challenges far removed from his recent obsessive tendency to sit motionless at the computer. But he immediately changes his mind. Being almost sixty years old he doesn’t really have any ideas for life challenges. So eventually he decides to delve once more into the internet, where he is unable ever to avoid giving free rein to a certain narcissism by typing into Google first his name, and then that of the publishing house. He knows that, aside from being egocentric, all of this is clearly obsessive. But even so, he doesn’t want to give up this daily habit. The flesh is weak.
This obsessive activity in fact serves to soothe his nostalgia for the time when he used to go to his office and, with his secretary Gauger, inspect every mention in the press about the books they published. He knows that, as a substitute for what he used to do in his office, his current mania is verging on the grotesque, but he feels it is necessary for his mental health. He looks at lots of blogs to find out what they are saying about the books he published. And if he comes across someone who has written something even slightly unpleasant, he writes an anonymous post calling the author ignorant or an idiot.
Today he spends a long time doing this activity and ends up insulting a guy from Barcelona who says on his blog that he took a Paul Auster book on holiday to Tokyo and feels disappointed. What a bastard this blogger is! Riba only published
The Invention of Solitude
by Auster, and although the book the tourist is putting down is
The Brooklyn Follies
, he feels just as affronted by this mistreatment of Auster, whom he considers a friend. When he finishes insulting the blogger, he feels more refreshed than ever. Recently he has been so very sensitive and had such low morale that he thinks if he had overlooked this unjust comment on Auster’s book he would have become even more depressed than he was before.
•
He interrupts the hypnotic state the computer has lulled him into for yet another day and stands up. He goes over to the big window for a few moments and from there looks out at the great view over the city of Barcelona, not as fantastic today as it usually is, due to the alarmingly persistent rain. In fact, the whole city has disappeared from his window, disappeared behind a heavy curtain of water. May rain, although a little excessive for this time of year. It is as if up there, in the clouds, someone has begun to collaborate on Dominique’s future installation in the Tate Modern in London.
He senses that this short journey over to the window, this modest, fleeting liberation from the digital world, will turn out to be beneficial. Right away, standing here, even though he’s facing the
disappeared
view of Barcelona, his
hikikomori
guilt has diminished. And he starts to see that Celia’s words as she left today are having quite an effect on him. In general, he barely takes a break
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