OFF THE BOOK: UNRAVELLING LITERATURE FROM A BRAND-NEW POINT OF VIEW

The start of something new

Professional people do not usually do so, but as this is an informal project I feel free to reveal (some of) the project’s background details – more because chronology gives me a favourable structure than because I feel like it.

Like many other projects, this one was born out of the blue – DeeDee came up with meeting and discussing Jane Austen mainly due to three reasons. First, we met the Sunday before Jane’s 236^th anniversary and such occasions can’t be skipped when you love someone as much as we love Jane. Second, because both of us LOVE Jane Austen literally – maybe Dee does so more than me, but anyway... Third, because it’s a way for us to meet once more.

In the meeting, which was of course to relax and chat a little about... life, she suggested doing something about Jane’s anniversary the following Friday – a similar meeting, some reading, some discussion and good bye see you later alligator. But five days mean a lot, and a bigger scheme was coming. We finally couldn’t do it on the exact date, but we were really willing to do it and agreed to meet the following Sunday at some bar or wherever. It’s really funny – in a matter of three hours Dee told me she now wanted to do it in radio-show form. It was all so frantic and funny it’s almost indescribable. There was little time in fact, so I was worried how it all would come out – I had already done my research, I had taken down some notes, related some characters, described the most relevant aspects of the novels and almost everything necessary was settled – but there were too many holes to replenish – be a literature radio host? God!! That’s a real challenge! Even if it wouldn’t (thank God) be live broadcasting, it had to be really good not to go to waste – which of course none of us wanted.

The time has come

Sunday morning I was all excitement and expectation, in the prelude of what would come later that day. Isn’t it funny how, when something tops us with enthusiasm, we can’t stop thinking about it?

Now the moment of truth was really near, and I left for Rosario really early. The bus arrived there about an hour before than the time set. As a result I had to take a stroll out and about for a while, and then YESSSS! Here we are!! I went to the recording studio, whose address I won’t reveal on professionalism grounds haha ;).

Now we had to organise our material and fix what would come first, what second, what would go with what, who would say what and some (many) other details.

All things set, we started recording. We had planned to do a 30-minute show. But as nerves gradually went away, pleasure and fun started to rule and the result is what you can see: a sixtysomething minute show of pure literature discussed in a chatty, casual way. Allow me a brief moment of vanity: WOW!

An ever-growing project

In the breaks we took between sections, both of us realised (and confirmed with ever-growing determination) that the project was no crappy thing – I’m saying this because informal things are usually considered so, but I’ve come to realise it’s SO wrong... We had to make it happen, it had to be.

We made up our minds to take it as far as we could, so we arranged to make a logo, a website, and every other necessary item so as to get it going smooth. On a I-do-this-you-do-that basis, we divided tasks once more and agreed to work on them the next day, since the sole recording thing (well, it’s not just about that indeed...) had left us mentally extenuated. A specific kind of glowing extenuation, though.

I set off once more, homebound. I heard my cell phone music but I wasn’t really listening. I was thinking of what I had just gone through and what I would the following day.

What the experience left

I feel I have to itemise the feelings I have towards the show and the whole thing surrounding it so I won’t forget anything.

-  First of all, I feel I’ve done something I had always wanted to do. Even if I didn’t know, the appetite for literary-discussion meetings had always craved to come out. And this project comes to be the apex.

-  I think it came out much better than I had either expected or thought it would, and that makes me want more (insert Britney’s first single off Blackout lol.)

-  Having discussed it in good acquaintance makes it much more enjoyable. In fact I had also always wanted to do something literary with my mate Dee, and what we’ve done is more than I had expected in this respect too.

-  I found it enriching and mind-loosening. It not only helped me relax and enjoy, but also provided me (and will go on to do so) with experience in the professional field – even if it’s not paid or anything like that I think it’s invaluable for literary translators like I want to be (someday? Soon?)

-  It boomed a renewal in my literary thirst, which is always pleasant and mind-broadening and any adjective applicable to literature.

The final product

I have no more words –or rather, I don’t deem them necessary- to describe how I feel about the project. And, besides, I think it speaks for itself.

If you want to enjoy and discover literature along, sitting on a couch while drinking a coffee, then you’ll certainly appreciate our work.

It’s homemade, it’s fun, it’s literature. It’s Off The Book – Beyond Fiction.