Phrase of Agustín Fernández Mallo
In February 2022, the Spanish writer and physicist Agustín Fernández Mallo presented his sixth novel in Madrid, entitled The book of all loves. It is a philosophical text whose approach emphasizes love as the only alternative to reverse the aggravated decline of XNUMXst century society.
In the aforementioned presentation, Fernandez declared to Europa Press (2022): “… it is a book with an important poetic charge. But love is not seen in a romanticized way, but it is a poetic charge diverted to other places”. To do this, he delves into themes related to art, anthropology and science, framed in a plot of "speculative fiction that contains essay".
Analysis of The book of all loves
Modular
The text is composed of three books contained (and interspersed) in a single. On the one hand, there is the account of the moments before the end of the world caused by "emocapitalism" or the marketing of emotions. At this point, Fernández shows how corporations use consumers' own desires to create a fickle environment.
However, the author elaborates a set of micro essays whose purpose is to conceptualize and explore love in an abstract way. For this reason, a polyhedral approach is made to the origins of this feeling (family, romantic, religious, purely emotional, psychological attachment)... Finally, the anatomy of love is examined through the conversation of a couple.
Theorizing and conceptualizing
As the narrative progresses, Fernández proposes a series of particular notions in order to describe the different types of love. These dissertations are accompanied by a combination of scientific hypotheses with the study of artistic works. Likewise, the technologies that emerged in the XNUMXst century are combined with the legacy of classical and ancestral cultures.
In this way, terms such as “jaw love”, “anthropocene love”, “fast old-fashioned orgasm love” or “crystallized love” appear, among others. In parallel, the writer intends to delimit each of these concepts through poetic discourses complemented by short conclusions obtained after applying scientific methodologies.
love through religion
In Fernández's opinion, the most common conception of people about love is that which has become related to religion. Therefore, the prevailing idea is the result of an amalgamation of moral precepts, cultural expressions and social conduct handed down generationally since time immemorial.
This perception leads to the simplification of love in language and even to its vulgarization. Such is the case of the feeling expressed towards non-human elements (pets, cars, a house, a country, an atmospheric phenomenon)... On the other hand, the works of art of the great masters of history have the power to magnify the different aspects related to love.
Characters
At the close of each section, Fernández reveals advances in the experiences of a couple from Montevideo who is on vacation in Venice. However, the initially limited time of rest is extended when the husband decides to remain in the Italian city. There, they are accompanied by a man with surreal behavior and a ghostly emissary.
Meanwhile, humanity is witnessing a kind of apocalypse (an aspect that the author does not really dramatize much). Then, the compelling circumstance precipitates the most sincere confession of feelings on the part of the man and the woman.
love and technology
The role of social networks in the current dynamics of love is one of the most interesting topics in the book. According to Fernández, there is a "statistical love" determined by the algorithms of digital platforms. Consequently, people do not fall in love with other people, but with a lot of data related to the preferences - previously collected - of the user.
Regarding this topic, the Spanish writer indicated the following: "That totally changes the way of relating and the way of perceiving it, or it should change it, it should change certain attitudes and have other concerns... The Facebook friend is a statistical friend, because what you see is the mathematical mix of a person's dataa" (Culture Plaza.
About the author, Agustin Fernandez Mallo
Agustin Fernandez Mallo
Family, childhood and youth
Agustín Fernández Mallo is a native of La Coruña (1967). He grew up in an upper middle class family with a house full of books. On this, he later said that his parents did not give much prominence to the novel compared to the poetry and to the trial. Also, the father, a veterinarian by profession, used to read many scientific journals.
For this reason, the respect that Fernández shows towards nature and animals is not surprising. Equally, the mourning for the loss of the father figure —who died in 2012— is reflected in the collection of poems No one will be called the same as me (2015). In this regard, the Spanish author expressed in an interview granted to Jorge Carrión de Jot down (2020):
“Death is the only thing that the human being does not get used to. Although paradoxically we know that it is the only thing that is always repeated”.
A very versatile creator
While Agustín Fernández completed his degree in Physical Sciences at the University of Compostela, he began playing drums in youth music bands. In this sense, Fernández stated that the philosophy of punk music interested him a lot in his youth. Specifically, because of radical aesthetics—but not destroyer—based on the search for the origin of things.
Another element extrapolated from the “punk” lyrics is the slogan «do it yourself" (do it yourself). In accordance, the Iberian physicist points out the need to "touch the clay with my hands" in order to generate his own "organic worlds". Under that method, Fernández enables the genesis of unique metaphors along with the aesthetic experimentation of singular realities.
Written work
During his youth Fernandez he assiduously read authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Boris Vian or Charles Bukowski, among others. In the year 2000 he began to make a name for himself in literature after coining the definition "post-poetic poetry", referring to the link between art and science. This term was formally published in the essay postpoetry. Towards a new paradigm (2009)
Although, undoubtedly, Fernández's best-known written work is the narrative trilogy Nocilla, described by critics as a “narrative reconstruction of Spanish”. Till the date, the Galician writer has published six collections of poems, six novels and two essays. Currently, dictates workshops and is based in Palma de Mallorca with his partner, the cultural journalist and teacher Pilar Rubí.