Ibon Sarasola collects the phrase “Belarria da gramatika” from the translator Josu Zabaleta at the beginning of the book Bitakora, as an advertiser of the following thesis: “Reading the good authors who write with their ears, you will get a writer to be a good writer, that is, to be the ear of a good writer. And it will be the real grammar of the current Basque that gathers the grammar that these good writers follow.” According to the dictionary left by the Real Academia de la Lengua Vasca-Euskaltzaindia, the Basque Academy is made up of these light-hearted writers. Among the deceased, the name of Koldo Mitxelena stands out, while in recent occasions there are authors such as Anjel Lertxundi, Bernardo Atxaga and Iñaki Segurola, among others.
One of them, Asteasu's, has just put into value a work that can help become a writer of good listening: The life of Pello Errota that Hauspoa has published in unified Basque his daughter's account. It seemed to him that there were few lessons like this to learn how to write well. In recent days I have made several dives on the Internet in the work Auspo without H, taking advantage of the fact that all the books published by Antonio Zabala are available on the Internet. And I've often remembered what Atxaga said. In fact, taking some passages here and there, including tolosarra presentations, is a fresh air for the reader. I do not know whether the writer will take any advantage of it; the reader will certainly do, above all, the reader’s ears. Those who prefer other places to the letter will feel at ease and at ease in these stories.
Even if everything is said, the most important thing is missing: grace, color, feeling, brilliance, soul. And where do you learn that, who can teach it?
As we talk about ears, we could talk about music and compare it to literature. The score is the grammar of music, as it undermines all the rules that have to be complied with: the tone, the duration of the notes, the silences, the commas, the repetitions… Although everything is said, the most important thing is missing: grace, color, feeling, soul, gloss. And where do you learn that, who can teach it? The director of our choir asks these rhetorical questions, desperate, by turning the delicious melody of Mozart or Bach into a hoarse song.
I got to the end of the article and I went on YouTube to listen to Pachelbel's Canon, thinking it could help complete these lines. What work is behind that? A couple of hours or a year? No idea. What happens is that those simple, penetrating notes that I'm hearing shake us inside, it moves us.
That's called art. It's hard to say how you get grace. Luckily, and that's the most important thing, it's within reach of everyone. Literature and music. Just a click away, many times.