'On the demise of Francisco Rico', by Eduardo Mendoza | Culture | EUROtoday

Nothing sadder than writing a buddy's epitaph. We have been for a few years and for a number of many years we now have been seeing one another with a frequency that solely started to lower when age determined that the primary impediment to doing one thing was ourselves. Our conferences had nothing educational: consuming, consuming, commenting on present occasions, criticizing others and telling jokes. When he reluctantly and with the utmost indifference needed to depart his refuge in Sant Cugat and go all the way down to Barcelona, ​​if we didn't eat collectively, he would then come dwelling to take a nap.

Sometimes we talked about books, after all, and I used to be the one who got here out on prime: with Professor Rico you all the time discovered one thing. What I imply is that he appreciated above all his affection and his humorousness. The final occasions we noticed one another he was in poor form. But since he spoke about his illnesses with the brusque tone and an impertinent level with which he all the time confronted setbacks and, generally, those that disagreed, I didn't take him too severely.

This time too he was proper. Those who weren’t fortunate sufficient to have him as a buddy will bear in mind him for what he was: an incredible researcher, an writer of necessary books and a rare instructor. He devoted his life to Spanish literature of the Golden Age and managed to embody its prototypes: he was a nobleman, a rogue and a poet.

_