Ricardo Villarreal

Book Summary for 2018

December 31, 2018 by Ricardo Villarreal

Libros foto 2018 My reading summary for 2018. Total books read: 62. Fiction 74% and non-fiction 26%; 53% in Spanish and 47% in English; 25% female authors, 75% male authors (need to improve balance here).

The month I read the least was August with only one book, and the month I read the most was November with 9 books. Longest book: 592 pages. Shortest: 94. Average book length: 271 pages.

Favorite fiction book by a female author: “Woman at War” by Dacia Maraini. Favorite fiction book by a male author: “The Elephant’s Journey” by José Saramago and “Zeno’s Conscience” by Italo Svevo. Favorite book of short stories in Spanish: “Juglares del Bordo” by Daniel Salinas Basave. Favorite book of short stories in English: “Rain and other South Sea Stories” by W. Somerset Maugham.

Favorite book of essays in Spanish: “De la Estupidez a la Locura” by Umberto Eco. Favorite book of essays in English: “Making Waves” by Mario Vargas Llosa. Most meaningful book I enjoyed re-reading after 20+ years: “Siddhartha” by Herman Hesse. Newly discovered author in Spanish worth reading: Joel Flores. Favorite non-fiction book: “Enlightenment Now” by Steven Pinker.

Most recurrent authors year after year: Saramago, Mario Vargas Llosa, Daniel Salinas Basave, W. Somerset Maugham, Richard Dawkins, and Eduardo Galeano. Days without reading: 0.

Cuando la Violencia Altera el Sentido de la Vida

August 17, 2018 by Ricardo Villarreal

“Pedí perdón… porque no entendía que vivimos en una ciudad que ni siquiera nos pertenece, que nos castiga y nos hunde y hace que nos destruyamos unos a otros, que nos es indiferente cuando la muerte nos duele de verdad. ¿Qué sentirán aquellos que mutilan lazos familiares? ¿Dormirán tranquilos los hombres que matan a quienes no deben nada?”

Del premiado autor mexicano Joel Flores es Rojo Semidesierto, un libro de catorce impactantes cuentos que capturan anécdotas íntimas y desgarradoras de diferentes personajes cuyas vidas y destinos giran en torno a un grupo del crimen organizado llamado La Compañía.

En estos relatos hay protagonistas ambiciosos de poder dentro del crimen organizado, otros personajes que ya no pueden escapar de la actividad criminal, y otros que inocentemente fueron alcanzados por la violencia.

Pero aquellas historias más impactantes se encuentran en las devastadoras vivencias que sufren los familiares de los criminales como resultado de las traiciones y venganzas siempre presentes en el crimen organizado.

Porque incluso para los sobrevivientes de la violencia organizada, el sufrimiento continúa en las memorias imborrables, en las pérdidas de sus seres queridos, en las pesadillas constantes, y en la tragedia de continuar la vida ante un futuro incierto y cargado de miedo.

Cuando el poder y el dinero se convierten en la ganancia más valiosa, se pierde el sentido de la vida. Y cuando el crimen organizado tiene el poder y el control absoluto hasta de las autoridades encargadas en protegernos, la esperanza se desvanece.

Rojo Semidesierto nos hace detenernos un momento para reflexionar en lo cotidiana que se ha vuelto la violencia en México. ¿Acaso hemos llegado a acostumbramos a vivir en un estado permanente de violencia, en donde irremediablemente el crimen organizado ha influido nuestro vivir? ¿Se nos ha olvidado ya qué se siente vivir en paz total?

Con una estructura narrativa hábil e inteligente que me recordó al ingenioso estilo de Patrick Modiano, el autor utiliza párrafos de frases sencillas y con pocas palabras, pero con una profundidad excepcional, provocando que el lector logre construir en su mente escenarios más amplios e ilustrados.

Este libro además se puede leer como una novela contada en cuentos, ya que algunos personajes que son protagonistas en unos relatos pasan a ser personajes secundarios en otros, interrelacionados y orbitando el núcleo central constante, que es el grupo criminal La Compañía. Inevitablemente me hizo pensar en “La Frontera de Cristal” de Carlos Fuentes, que conlleva una estructura similar.

Pero Rojo Semidesierto no es completamente desgarrador. Al hacer un trabajo magistral en describir lo repugnante que es la violencia en manos del crimen organizado, Joel Flores inexorablemente nos hace pensar en el otro lado de la moneda, en ese mundo en el que queremos vivir, y en nunca darnos por vencidos y seguir luchando por alcanzarlo.

Joel Flores es un extraordinario joven escritor mexicano del que sin duda se seguirá escuchando cada vez más. Con Rojo Semidesierto ganó el Premio Internacional de Literatura Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz 2012.

El Amor y la Vida Siguen

August 2, 2018 by Ricardo Villarreal

Max Villarreal Espera, pequeño, todavía no salgas. Claro que te queremos ver, pero aún no es hora, hay que esperar un poco más. Permítenos por favor la emoción de recibirte con todo el amor que te mereces, con nuestras caras llenas de felicidad, con nuestros brazos abiertos para que sientas nuestro calor y unir nuestros latidos.

No, Max. Por favor aguanta. La vida tiene un lugar y tiempo para todos. Tienes que crecer más y tu cuerpecito es muy frágil y pequeño aún. Continúa en ese nido que te ha preparado mamá. Ahí tienes todo lo que necesitas por ahora. Ya jugaremos después. Me encantará ver tu sonrisa y esos ojos brillantes que estarán llenos de sueños y que me enamorarán completamente.

Pero aún no, Max, por favor… Y de repente nuestra alegría y entusiasmo se desvanecieron en un segundo. Un segundo que alteró nuestra realidad, nublándonos los ojos y partiéndonos el corazón. Un segundo que fue el comienzo de tu ausencia, de continuar la vida sin ti.

Pero no fue tu culpa, Max. Ni de mamá, ni de nadie. Se interfirió tu paz intempestivamente y se interrumpió tu futuro para siempre por orden de la naturaleza, que a veces es fría e inexplicable. Ni siquiera vendrá a pedirnos perdón, eso ya lo sé. Simplemente nos queda tomar fuerza y continuar el camino hasta dar el último paso que nos quede.

Qué contrariedad de la vida, Max. Tú cruzaste el umbral de la muerte antes que yo. En ningún lugar estaba escrito que sería yo quien tomara una pala con mis manos para enterrar tu cuerpo, pero las historias dan giros inesperados. Tu breve existencia me ha marcado profundamente y por siempre serás parte de mi vida y de nuestra historia.

Si tú pudiste atravesar esa línea misteriosa que procede al final de la vida, me has quitado el miedo, Max. Y con ello has agrandado mi capacidad de amar.

Porque teniendo amor lo tenemos todo, gracias hijo.

Cuando la Muerte da Más Vida

June 12, 2018 by Ricardo Villarreal

Joel Flores Nunca Mas Su Nombre ¿Qué hacer cuando te comunican que tu padre se está muriendo si tu relación con él fue una de abusos y abandono?

En su novela “Nunca más su Nombre”, el premiado autor mexicano Joel Flores logra capturarnos intensamente en una historia de dolor, pero también de esperanza, presente en esas segundas oportunidades que nos da la vida para enmendar nuestro camino y recuperar el amor y la confianza de seguir adelante.

Joel nos atrapa desde la primera oración del libro, “El día que me dijeron tu papá se está muriendo, estábamos mudándonos de casa y desempleados.” Muy pronto el narrador tendrá que actuar ante los pocos días de vida que le quedan a su padre, y ante el peso de una memoria oscura y dolorosa que tiene sobre su figura paterna.

La prueba que lo definirá comienza con un nada fácil examen de conciencia, ¿podrán más los lazos de sangre que el abandono? Este razonamiento nos adelanta que el libro no trata de buscar culpables ante la desdicha, sino de encontrar la paz a pesar de ella.

El autor escribe con una franqueza brutal, con una apertura y transparencia que nos lleva hasta los episodios más íntimos de su vida, y que consigue acercarnos aún más a los vívidos recuerdos y sentimientos del narrador.

Y todo esto con un estilo narrativo ágil y claro, con diálogos que son estructuralmente heterodoxos, pero eficientemente muy ordenados y fluidos, que me recuerdan al estilo particular de uno de mis autores predilectos, José Saramago.

Además de la difícil situación de enfrentar la sombra de su padre ante su muerte y de definir la vida que seguirá una vez que su padre se ausente para siempre, esta novela toca varias fibras emocionales en temas paralelos que le llegan profundamente a cualquiera.

Por un lado, la batalla del narrador en seguir su vocación profesional; ese trayecto de vida que se encuentra en la literatura como escritor, una profesión nada alejada de estigmas y que además entró en conflicto ante la intimidante presencia de un padre militar. Por otro lado, también está presente el tema del amor de pareja, cuya fuerza nos da las armas para perder los miedos y superar los más difíciles obstáculos. Y, por último, el siempre complicado pero eximente tema del perdón.

“Nunca Más Su Nombre” es una invitación personal a descubrirse uno mismo, a enfrentar esos demonios internos que no nos permiten cerrar círculos inconclusos para vivir libremente, y a despertar nuestras conciencias para hacernos más humanos y honestos con nosotros mismos.

Podemos seguir viviendo de un triste pasado, cargando ese peso de recuerdos amargos que continuaremos transmitiendo a la gente más cercana a nosotros, o hacer finalmente las paces y continuar buscando la plenitud.

Este es un libro que trasciende y que te llega profundamente, narrado con la maestría de Joel Flores, una de las promesas de la literatura mexicana. Tengan plena confianza de que esta es una genialidad literaria. En donde no confíen del autor es si les llega a vender chicles. Descubran por qué en “Nunca Más Su Nombre” de Ediciones Era.

Keep the Enlightenment Going!

March 1, 2018 by Ricardo Villarreal

Enlightenment Now Steven Pinker

If your perception of the world is one built around the content of news, you probably have a negative feeling about the current state of affairs. News coverage has indeed become more negative over time. Fortunately, it is also true the world is not falling apart, but quite the contrary.

In his latest book “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress,” Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker presents a very compelling argument on how humanity today is living in the best time in history.

Following meticulously researched data on different development metrics throughout time, Pinker shows the incredible progress humanity has achieved and makes the case on why we must continue to defend the ideals of reason, science, and humanism, the pillars of the Enlightenment.

Some of the measurements of progress researched are prioritized on values the world agrees on including those in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

When it comes to life span, the world has seen a sharp increase in the average life expectancy. While no developed country in the year 1800 had a life expectancy above 40, today the average life expectancy is 71.5 years globally. For countries in the developed world the average is more than 80 years. That is double the life expectancy in a period of 200 years!

With that, the rates of children and maternal mortality have plunged dramatically. And thanks to advances in farming, sanitation, medicine and science, people are also healthier today than ever before.

In terms of wealth and prosperity, Pinker shows in a very simple but powerful graphic how the Gross World Product today has grown almost 100 times since the Industrial Revolution. All countries have considerably increased their GDP while the percentage of people in extreme poverty has declined from 90% in the year 1800 to 10% today.

And yes, there is inequality. The author’s argument here could sound controversial to some as he mentions that inequality is not a fundamental component of well-being. Instead, he suggests focusing on poverty as a main concern, as “it is not about everyone having the same, but everyone having enough.”

Today, everyone in the US is better off thanks to globalization and technology. The author reveals how today “more than 95% of American households below the poverty line enjoy electricity, running water, flush toilets, a refrigerator, a stove, and a color TV. Affluent families like the Vanderbilts, Rothchilds, and others, had none of these things a century and a half before.”

But Pinker does acknowledge more needs to be done to reduce inequality and improve everyone’s standard of living, particularly the more economically vulnerable. He suggests a solution may be found in a universal basic income.

I appreciate his observations regarding the environment as I have been somewhat pessimistic and concerned about the future of humanity particularly on two topics: overpopulation and the depletion of our natural resources (mainly the water crisis).

As he shows, world population will continue to grow, but only temporary. Its growth rate peaked at 2.1% in 1962 and it has declined ever since, reaching 1.2% growth rate in 2010, and a close to zero projection for the year 2070, when the world population is expected to reach its maximum figure of about 9.4 billion people before it begins to decline.

The environment has seen promising progress as people continue to be more mindful about the importance of protecting our planet. Using clear graphs, Steven Pinker shows how the world has seen a decline in air pollution, deforestation, and oil spills, while the percentage of land and marine protected areas keep expanding.

Progress in technology and the digital revolution has pushed everywhere a rapid process of dematerialization which has allowed us to achieve more with less resources.

Alarming predictions of resource shortages have failed repeatedly, and humanity has always been able to find cheaper, better, and more plentiful substitutes, or recycle and re-engineer products for subsequent use.

When it comes to food production, farmers and scientists have discovered different methods which have allowed food to grow exponentially despite natural disasters and other crises. Our concern today has more to do with food waste rather than supply.

Regarding the topic of water, I wish the author had given the subject more coverage. In a brief remark, however, he believes there is no reason to be alarmed as water assurance will be achieved through desalinating seawater as the world continues to develop more carbon-free energy sources.

Despite the many improvements in environmental quality, the biggest challenge is facing the problem of human-made climate change. The effects of greenhouse gases on our planet’s climate have been increasing the average temperature with every recent year becoming the hottest on record.

The annual emissions of CO₂ in the world increased almost every year since 1960. But thanks to strong global actions on decarbonization, CO₂ emissions reached its peak in 2014, leveled in 2015, and has declined among the top three emitters (China, United States, and the European Union).

In the United States, carbon reduction has been accomplished by the growth of wind and solar energy, and by replacing bitumen coal with methane gas. In addition, and as distrusted as it is among the most passionate environmentalists, Pinker stresses we must support nuclear power, a carbon-free energy source and a key solution to further advance decarbonization.

The world is also more peaceful thanks in part to international trade, economic development, international law, and democracy around the world. Democratic Peace theory suggests countries that are more democratic are less likely to engage in a military conflict. Additionally, Pinker reminds us that war also became illegal with the founding of the United Nations in 1945.

On other topics I won’t expand (because I strongly recommend reading this book), the world is living its safest time in history, we are more democratic, more countries have taken big steps on equal rights, and people overall live a better quality of life.

All the above-mentioned criteria take us down to one of the most important indicators of human progress: happiness. People are happier when they are healthier, feel safer, have enough money, when they have the freedom to choose what to do with their lives, and when they spend quality time with friends and family, among other reasons. And data shows every newer generation seem to be happier than the previous one.

But what about the future of progress?

The ideals of the Enlightenment have contributed to improve human flourishing, and it must be an ongoing process. Pinker notes “progress is not utopia” and we must keep striving for human progress and fight counter-Enlightenment ideals that threaten the advancement of humanity.

Reason, science, and humanism are threatened today by the rise of authoritarian backward-looking populism in individuals in power like Trump, who has damaged the institutions of American democracy, attacked freedom of speech, promoted long-debunked conspiracy theories, threatened the environment, antagonized immigrants, and has been hostile to science, just to name a few of his autocratic actions.

More than ever, we need to keep defending reason, science, and humanism.

Pinker warns us that “politicization has become the major enemy of reason,” where people are making their own conclusions of what to believe based on their political bias and not on what is true.

To be clear, this happens with people in both right-wing and left-wing political ideologies. One of the best examples on the right is the denial of human-made climate change. And on the left, we have those denying the safety of vaccines and GMOs. Their positions completely ignore the scientific facts in defense of their (erroneous) beliefs.

To improve the standards of reasoning, we need effective training in critical thinking, cognitive debiasing, better discourse, and debate exercises. But the author also reveals a promising new strategy called adversarial collaboration, where opposite thinkers agree on a method and work together to reach a conclusion.

The accomplishments of science are vast. It has given us evidence-based medicine, it has explained many of the universe’s mysteries, how life evolved and how physical things work, among many other discoveries.

Despite this (or because of this), science has been attacked with hostility by groups that favor ignorance and superstition. The religious are particularly ticked off by science.

I have always found it silly when religious groups get mad at science for ruining their fairy tale stories. Instead of being mad at science for exposing the truth, they should be mad at whoever indoctrinated them with lies in the first place.

Positive for the advancement of reason and science is the fact that more and more people are realizing there is absolutely no good reason to believe in the existence of a God, and today the fastest-growing religion in the world is no religion at all. Amen!

Together with reason and science, Pinker stresses the importance of humanism to achieve progress and maximize human flourishing.

Humanism promotes the enrichment of life, health, happiness, freedom, knowledge, and love through the employment of secular values. Steven Pinker explains not only how the separation of church and state in the US Constitution originated from the necessity to consolidate the former British colonies, but also how diverse cultures have converged peacefully thanks to humanism.

A great example of a successful accomplishment among the world nations is the 1948 humanist manifesto known as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

There are many challenges to face, but many more reasons to be optimistic about the future of our planet. Steven Pinker’s book could not have come at a better time.

“Enlightenment Now” is uplifting and it has improved my perspective of the future of the world. It is also a call to understand, appreciate, and keep protecting the ideals of the Enlightenment that have made our lives better. I strongly recommend everyone to read his book.