3 best books by José Luis Sampedro

1917 - 2013… Once this enormous writer has left, no one will be able to know when he reached that transcendental wisdom that he displayed in any interview or conversation, and that was even better reflected in so many books.

The important thing now is to recognize the evidence, assume an imperishable work for its commitment to existence, to bring out the best of the human soul for a better world. Jose Luis Sampedro He was more than a writer, he was a moral beacon that thanks to his legacy we can recover on any occasion.

To revisit his work is to introspect through his characters, to seek and find the best of you, to surrender to the evidence that words can be healing beyond the arrogance, bravado and noise that language is subjected to today. day.

It is not easy to determine those three essential novels by José Luis Sampedro. All his fictions are always something more, but from my own reading experience, I serve here my favorites.

Top 3 recommended books by José Luis Sampedro

The old mermaid

At the time I already reviewed This essential novel for all types of readers. I rescue part of what I indicated at the time: This masterpiece by José Luis Sampedro is a novel that everyone should read at least once in their life, as they say for important things.

Each character, starting with the woman who centralizes the novel and who happens to be called under various names (let's stay with Glauka) transmits the eternal wisdom of someone who could have lived several lives. A youthful reading, as it was in my first reading, gives you a different perspective, a kind of awakening to something more than the simple (as well as contradictory and fiery) drives of that period prior to maturity.

The second reading in an adult age transmits you a beautiful, pleasant, touching nostalgia, about what you were and what you have left to live. It seems strange that a novel that can sound historical can transmit something like this, doesn't it? Undoubtedly the setting of a splendid Alexandria in the third century is just that, a perfect setting where you discover how little we are today humans from then.

I don't think there is a better work to empathize with its characters in an essential way, down to the depths of the soul and the stomach. It is as if you can inhabit the body and mind of Glauka, or Krito with his inexhaustible wisdom, or Ahram, with the balance of his strength and his tenderness.

For the rest, beyond the characters, the detailed brushstrokes of the sunrise over the Mediterranean, contemplated from a high tower, or the inner life of the city with its smells and aromas are also extremely enjoyed.

The old mermaid

The Etruscan smile

A dense but exciting work. And I mean dense by its depth. The themes of family ties, the past, love at any time in life… An old Calabrian peasant arrives at his children's home in Milan to undergo a medical check-up.

There he discovers his last affection, a creature in which to pour all his tenderness: his grandson, whose name is Bruno, as he is called by his partisan comrades. And he also lives his last passion: the love of a woman who will illuminate the final stage of his life giving him all his fullness ... A beautiful novel about the eternal problem of love, with the truth that offers a deep knowledge of the human soul.

Without a doubt, one of the best novels of Jose Luis Sampedro, author acclaimed by critics and also by the public. There is even a special edition for schoolchildren, highly recommended, you can see it here.

The Etruscan smile

The lesbian lover

Sometimes, quite a few, humans are paradoxical. Perhaps it is a matter of language, with which we can abstract about concepts as ambiguous as the one in this title. But then there are the passions, which are never confused by our conflicts and contradictions.

There is no possible paradox between what we crave and what we ultimately surrender. There can be no surrender without passion, and any pretense is an anticipated capitulation. A fiery love story between a woman thirsty for a man without machismo and a fetish lover who enjoys submission. An erotic fantasy alien to the repressive unnatural sex education that is still prevailing. An inquiry into the multiple brain-genital variants of love.

With an expressive freedom founded on the rigor of reason, the author addresses the issue of gender identity and the search for authenticity through sexual transformation.

When narrating the experience of his lesbian lover, José Luís Sampedro invites us again -as he already proposed in October, October and in Real Sitio-, to enter "deeper, in the thicket of passions", guided by the adopted Augustinian sentence as the motto of this novel: "Love and do what you want."

The lesbian lover
4.9/5 - (11 votes)

5 comments on "3 best books by José Luis Sampedro"

  1. Without a doubt, "The Old Mermaid" is an essential book in any library worth its salt. I have it as my talisman book, from time to time when I finish reading a new novel, I re-read it again, because for me it is pure poetry.

    Reply
    • That's right, Maria Elizabeth, lyric made prose as only a magician could achieve narrative alchemy.
      Regards!

      Reply

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