El murmullo

A rising murmur of loneliness and anguish can be heard, at times, in the self-help book sections. The stories those books tell are not far from fiction. Although not always, they often contain false promises, and there is one that is repeated: shortcuts will appear to solve certain problems, suddenly it will no longer be necessary to go through the collective organization, necessary and costly in terms of strength, patience and means. Is it possible not to ignore that murmur, that desire, and respond with arguments that don't lie? For her doctorate, the novelist Belén Gopegui immersed herself in self-help literature and wrote the thesis that gives rise to the two parts of this essay: on the one hand, a small study of the genre from the point of view of fiction; on the other, as an experiment, a serene and perceptive manual for the use of mild silent despair.