Books that stay with you

PalmI went down the airplane stairs and crossed the terminal to the baggage carousel, barely taking my eyes off the book I was holding. I sat down directly on the floor because I wanted to know how it ended. BlindnessSaramago's dystopian marvel. I didn't object to the unorthodox punctuation because I was immersed in that indescribable feeling of when a book grabs you by the collar and takes you wherever it wants. When I regained consciousness and closed the flap, my suitcase was the only one spinning in an eternal return. I felt the emptiness, accompanied by the need to find another book capable of generating that connection; the one you feel with a film, a series, a record, or a work of art.

The first time was probably as a child with The Neverending StoryMichael Ende's novel, printed in two colors, which I read by flashlight under the covers so as not to risk my brother's complaints about the light forcing me to stop. Then others would come: the ending of Love in the Time of Cholera by candlelight, thanks to an untimely (or perhaps blessed) friend, while listening to the music of García Márquez with words; the dry blows of The power of the gos, addictive as cocaine from his fresco on drug trafficking; the rainy day on the porch of a house in Formentera devouring Freedom by Franzen (just as afterwards The corrections); the urgent need to return home to resume So little lifeA lesson in how to transform melodrama into literature from the depths of one's being; the stark and overwhelming beauty of Blind sunflowers or, more recently, Alana S. Portero's exceptional sensitivity and talent for portraiture in The bad habitThere are books that come to you like a lifeline in dark, difficult times. I was given one. Wuthering Heights when I was unable to read, consumed by anxiety. And reading it saved me from more nightmares in which rats were biting my body under my coat or people were cutting me with knives in the street. It was a necessary balm.

The connection with a book often depends on the stage of life you're in. When I bought The Catcher in the Rye I knew, for example, that it was too late for me. Or that I did the right thing by getting back. Middlesex on a trip to Costa Rica. Others come to stay. And they would leave you sitting on the floor of an airport, ignoring your suitcase, whether you were 18 or 90 years old.