The shortest way: when the world had otherwise

For: Javier Brandoli

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The noise came, the ego, telling what the others want, the bulky fan accounts where nobody reads, the mass trip, digital photography, the titanic effort to point to others or want to be others, lack of preparation, the amount… I do not know, I feel like all that came without knowing how, when and why.

I think it's the fault of social media, so democratic at the base that the braying silence the melodies. I start to hate them and blame them for too many things, probably unfairly. So many virtues that are in them and, however, today they have become a tyranny of mediocre hatreds.

In mine, what I like, what I do, travel and tell the world, the process is bleak. Goodness prevailed, nothing blogs, narrators paid by I like. Count the world to the taste of the dough, unable to draw lines out of the way, with Ikea geometry, Decathlon or Mc Donalds who understood that with some design, a cheap price and a lot of publicity means that we all sit in the same chair, with the same shirt and eat the same. The mob of thought defeating the individual.

The Shortest Way, de Manu Leguineche, has become a balm by reading it, a booster, a feeling of how lost we all are

That is why the book of The Shortest Way, de Manu Leguineche, has become a balm by reading it, a booster, a feeling of how lost we all are. Leguineche went with four guys to travel the world for two years, in those mid- 60, when the world was not like today, when the lands had to be stepped on to know and count them. There was no other way than to jump on the road to have something to narrate later. The text is a detailed chronicle of that time so unknown today by the new generations. Between World War II and the communications boom, I feel like there is a void that this book helps fill..

Leguineche book has immense virtue, of a teacher, very complicated to get: It is equally the text of a journalist and a traveler. Manu sitting in a car and going with three American journalists and a Swiss cross the planet, and, Imagine today heresy, He dares to narrate as you feel, as he lives, and as understood. Enjoy it, does not suffer. He does not try by all means to show that he understands everything, does not sublimate everything. Travel and live, without.

His text is always supported in a solid historical context, social and political, but his gaze stands out between the foundations of the story. Today that balance is hard to find. The western traveler is a guy obsessed with covering up the first of his complexes, its origin, and many of the narratives have a good character (cotton candy racism) that makes everything that it contemplates if it is indigenous, poor or dangerous deserves glowing praise.

The western traveler is a guy obsessed with covering up the first of his complexes, its origin

Praise that will be shared and applauded on social media, in which many of his followers will not have read anything other than the wise "headline" in which he makes it clear that he was 27 hours on a local bus, or ate at a street stall, or suffered from diarrhea or ...

It does not matter if the central square was a pile of garbage that drowned its inhabitants, if religion oppresses men and women there, if they treat a homosexual like an infection, males are compelled to serve the strongest, the woman is systematically raped inside and outside the home, in the houses you can hear the cry of someone who lives in a place from which they want to flee ... The applause is on fire. We can't fail at that, networks do not forgive.

Leguineche, in this book that if written by an Anglo-Saxon would be considered a masterpiece of travel literature, he confines himself to contemplating and telling his experience forcefully, honesty, delicacy when necessary, passion and, especially, without complex: “Seoul seemed like a dirty city with no profiles, and we chant them, broncos and sad "or" What a disappointment! Smelly streets, amorphous mud houses, garbage mounds, they formed what had been the center of Arab art and culture ", says when talking about Baghdad.

Narrate the less developed world with a certain condescension from a kind of intellectual vantage point in which everything is sublimated

Are two examples, there are many in the book, of a sincere look when telling the trip. Doesn't mean it's true, Surely then someone passed through Seoul who found the city vibrant and beautiful, It means that then on the planet that fashion had not been imposed, as always with honorable exceptions, to narrate the less developed world with a certain condescension from a kind of intellectual vantage point in which everything is sublimated. With the Catholic Church a Westerner can be extremely critical, with the rest of religions or beliefs, although behind them there are rites that violate human dignity, will be necessarily understanding.

But do not believe that The Shortest Path is a book that is skinning the world through which it wanders, From Madrid, passing through the Maghreb and crossing all of Asia to Australia for two years. Quite the opposite, the text is an ode to respect, curiosity, joy, the will to live and to know, but without that avoiding reviewing the people, places or customs, few by the way, that the author does not like them in part or in all. Without this disturbing your curiosity and the immense pleasure that is also wandering through what you do not appreciate. Fits per traveler, but it does not show his ability to adapt as a trophy, rather he accepts it with vital resignation, positive, to understand that it is part of the way.

And speak of the longing of prostitutes, deception on borders, of the corruption forced in the trips, the mindless drunkenness

And speak of the longing of prostitutes, deception on borders, of the corruption forced in the trips, the mindless drunkenness, women (they are five men) with which to share route, hunting animals, the poverty of yours and others. Everything, insist, without an iota of bad taste and without an iota of pretending to hide anything.

Leguineche speaks of "The shortest way" almost as a journey to happiness. Today many of us should learn from the teacher, of his honesty when narrating, so that something that happens more and more frequently does not happen: the inhabitant does not know who we are talking about when we narrate their lives. Those who live well in a dangerous or poor place are offended when they see that only violence or misery stands out in their country; He who lives badly asks you not to stop denouncing him to see if one day his life stops being hell.

Goodie took it all and it wasn't even for a few thousand dollars, it was to accumulate a few thousand more followers and I like. I guess Manu Leguineche would give a damn about all that. I can't imagine Leguineche, how I can't imagine my dear Javier Reverte, worried on a trip about something other than living it intensely and then having something to tell.

 

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Comments (3)

  • Noeli

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    Thank you for suggesting us a humble and healthy reading from a humble and healthy point of view. It takes…., How do you need fewer likes?. I write it down.

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  • Daniel Landa

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    I like it! … Seriously, This teacher should be talked about more often. Manu supported our particular trip around the world without an iota of paternalism, enjoying remembering their trip, when imagining ours or when tasting some chops and a homemade marc. The point was to enjoy…

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  • Carlos L

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    Gracias Javier por este estupendo artículo de un libro memorable. Comparto tu admiración por el libro y por el escritor. Se trata de un libro de viajes imprescindible y una experiencia apasionante. No paro de recomendarlo y regalarlo. Es un libro que desprende energía y contagia ganas de salir.

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