In other words, it is read with pleasure and with little effort, is a saying that Leonardo Valencia mentions in his book Free fall tests, but which fits very well with that same work which includes a series of texts by this novelist and critic about his favorite literary genre. I love books on literary theory, criticism or the history of literature, because when they are written with a view to contributing to the reader, rather than highlighting the author’s erudition, they provide us with pleasant hours, open up new continents and new perspectives. The title alludes to that feeling of jumping into the void, into the abyss, which produces the beginning of immersion in the novel, which can be compared to the experience of jumping with a parachute… since the Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro. resorted to this figure in his great poem Altazorthe figure of paratroopers was introduced into Latin American literature.

Leonardo Valencia: I have always been interested in thinking about art

The ease of speech is more appreciated when it is verified that it is an academic text, in fact it is a co-edition of the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar with Grupo Planeta, since there is a frequent confusion among the dominants of higher schools with firm and significant with thick and heavy. So if I put light here, I say nimble and digestible, but not light or thoughtless. The origin of the works collected in this volume is diverse, they were created in different circumstances and for several purposes. They also cover different topics, but it is a complete and essential book of literature. Many lapidary and sententious phrases fill or decorate the reading, which makes me think that Valencia would do very well to write aphorisms, striving, like Nietzsche, not to be understood, but to be memorized. I can’t resist sharing a few of these gems: one, “a novel, a great novel, is always heretical and heterodox”; others, “not only ‘hard’ sciences are exact: great novels must also be exact, only that they hide it, they must hide it”.

Meetings with the greats, Cercas and Bolaña; the chronicle of the stay in the writer’s home; the harsh experience of the pandemic shared on social networks; the discovery of the neglected teacher Lupa Rumazo; readings, many readings, very meditated on the classics, from Heliodorus to Borges, passing through Dante and Cervantes; Japanese literature… the nature of the material in this freefall is heterogeneous, but not arbitrary, in any case, it cannot be contained on a page. Famous boom from the last century still resonates, it was a Latin American literary phenomenon, that is not disputed, but it shows us that it was also a Latin American, not a Spanish publishing phenomenon, especially in its beginnings… so much to learn. Borges’s sun shines brightly and is a place that keeps repeating itself… I filled two pages by hand, not recording all the references that Valencia suggests and demonstrates his vast literary knowledge. It is a guide for writers and especially for readers, but it is not a handbook or an inventory. It is an invitation to complete and informed enjoyment of the novel, a supreme artistic genre, equivalent to cathedrals and symphonies. (OR)