The author of Les flors del mal (translation of Baudelaire) and La mar de dins returns to the diary format to observe the world with a lucidity that finds beauty in simple details, such as “the fog of Alpicat” or the presence of his grandchildren. Rovira states that the desire to live and the desire to write are, for him, almost the same, with creation being the moment of maximum vital intensity.
“"I believe old age is a beautiful age. I like being old more than I liked being young. Youth is like a fever: you know nothing and you think you know everything."
Rovira, who recently lost his mother, highlights the “vital stubbornness” of her generation, which survived the Civil War. He also compares youth to a “disease” that must be overcome to reach the most interesting things in life, where time is valued more precisely because “it is not abundant.”
The book also discusses the “fraternal” friendship he maintained with the poet Joan Margarit, whom he considers the older brother he never had. Furthermore, Rovira defends the importance of placing art in its historical context, rejecting the automatic condemnation of authors like Picasso or Baudelaire based on current ideological criteria, arguing that “reading must be contrast, not automatic condemnation.”
