“We may be superior, but we are not better.”

MADRID, Oct 8 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The writer Clara Sánchez entered the Royal Spanish Academy this Sunday, October 8, to occupy the “X” chair, at an event in which the author reflected on the passage of time and the arrival of new technologies that “Perhaps” man created “superior, but not better.”

“How many novels are characterized by this obsession with taking over time? What makes a novel like ‘The Invention of Morel’ different is the beauty and originality that Bioy Casares has built with a technology that did not yet exist, a lack of communication and a new loneliness that we still do not have can digest,” Sánchez made clear in his speech to the other academics entitled “The Time Machine.”

The author understands that this consideration “urges” the question of whether all the technological advances and “the new and surprising possibilities for wish fulfillment do not exceed the capacity for happiness.” “We may be better, but not better,” complained the new academic.

For Sánchez, Bioy Casares’ novel is “comparable to the strangeness” of contemporary life – he even went so far as to claim that the protagonist is “a more philosophical advance of Mark Zuckerberg” -. “He prophesied the dehumanization of success on social networks and in the media, the madness of not imagining a fulfilling life if not through constant exhibition and lasting success,” he warned.

“Losing your soul to gain love has a certain poetry to it. Losing one’s soul to achieve posterity and everlasting fame is outrageous,” added Sánchez, who was welcomed on behalf of the company by RAE academic Soledad Puértolas.

THE “BEST SURPRISES”

The RAE plenary session elected Clara Sánchez, who is publishing a new novel this week, “The Sins of Marisa Salas (Planeta), as an academic in the March 23 session. Her candidacy was presented by the scientists Soledad Puértolas, Carme Riera and Paloma Díaz-Mas. Clara Sánchez has taken over Chair X, which has been vacant since the death of Francisco Brines on May 20, 2021.

The author reported that she received the call from Puértolas herself and could not believe that she would decide to enter the learned house. “Would she be awake? It seems that the best surprises happen when you have convinced yourself that you don’t want anything, a task that in my case is more arduous than almost any other and that dissolves in a second,” he noted.

Sánchez not only thanked “all the academics” who had welcomed him “so well” into the institution, but also showed his commitment. “I am sure I will learn a lot more than I contribute, but I am determined to do my best,” she added.

VOLTAIRE AND SCIENCE FICTION

Most of Sánchez’s speeches focused on time and relevance in writing. “Personally, it bothers me both in life and in writing. “It’s like one of those great Capricorn magnates that our lives depend on and that we never see or know what he’s like: what helplessness and pain it causes us not to be able to go back,” he lamented.

For Sánchez, this “unbearable feeling” is only alleviated by “a powerful time machine,” literature. “Now I clearly understand why I was never comfortable with my age. And that’s why I’m sad about the poems, songs, novels and films that torment us over time: because they hide something deceptive and force us to fall into it.” “The trap of nostalgia,” he warned.

The author has admitted that in her writing she has “chosen more about space than time, because the measurement of time is one of the most artificial devices in narrative and in life”, while at the same time defending science fiction in literature, claiming names like Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan and even Voltaire, “who anticipated almost everyone two and a half centuries ago.”