So, there's this guy I know, whom I'll call Dumby, just for the purpose of this entry. This is not his real name, though it should be, and this is not a story based on real life events, this is a real event that happened to no other than me, so any similarity with real events it's not a coincidence: it is fully intentional. If Dumby recognizes himself, he's allowed to stop speaking to me from this moment on, and actually, I hope he does.
So, the thing is that one day, like in pretty much every other occasion, Dumby was bragging about his vast knowledge in... well, I know I should be paying attention, but not even politeness can get me nailed there. In this particular occasion, he mentioned this book, that was so good. He asked me if I had read it, and honestly I haven't. It was some book written by some modern Costa Rican author, and that holds my interest as much as tissue paper holds water. Dumby started at me as if I had calmly admited to have singlehandedly started the Darfur conflict and slaughtered two or three villages, women, children, babies and stock included. I considered it meaningless to explain to Dumby that, well, my literary interests usually involve languages other than Spanish and authors and locations either far North of the American Continent or much Easter, in the European area. But then again, I would hardly put on Dumby' tab to know who the hell is Dostoevsky, less Paustovsky, Bulgakov or Méhes. A Bernard Werber would be hopelessly lost on him.
Anyway, Dumby started talking about the virtues of this book he was refering to, telling me the story, how it was about this guy who had this nickname, lived like this, saw that, reflected on this, that the title of the book comes from this feature of the novel - oh, and it's such a famous book, by the way! Everybody has read it! (yeah Dumby, sorry, I was tremendously occupied with my Festetics) - and how all that reflects so deeply on the national reality and how it makes you think about society and the things that happen here. Wow, it's like a very deep book, and I should really read it. Well, that was too much preeching on the book and Dumby didn't seem like inclined to drop the subject, and since I was stuck with him, I might as well try and pretend interest, make some small talk.
"So, why does the main character has that nickname? Is there a story behind it?"
Dumby got confused, then looked to the other side and meekly said:
"Well, I don't know, I haven't read the book," then quickly and forcefully added "but you HAVE TO read the book!"
So, he was preeching and lecturing over a book he himself haven't read? Talking about how good it was? Hn, reminds me of a journalist in one of those Melanie Griffith movies. I wouldn't waste my breath on Dumby, but one would think that the point of a recommendation is to recommend something that has been experienced. ecommending is a way of giving your word, because you are giving your opinion about something, and the experience others will have when testing what you've recommended will place a value on your words. Sure, you shouldn't give too much worth to the opinion of others about you, BUT sadly the worth of your opinion depends on the accuracy of it, the integrity of it. If you recommend things you actually ignore, eventually your opinion on any matter will be worthless, since how could anyone consider it after it being proved of being based on assumptions? When you form opinions about things you don't really know, your words lose meaning and after that, whatever you say makes no impact.
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