The Morality Of Literature

Too Many Sparrows In Zaragoza is a novel full of thought, provocation and questions. We are a curious playful species, and what more productive games could we play than with our beliefs and opinions. Literature is better equipped than any other art form to force us into these playful, relevant questions. Fiction has changed history before. Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged lead to the creation of the Tea Party and Ron Paul. The Iliad inspired Alexander the Great to conquer the world. The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe inspired a wave of copycat suicides. Charles Dickens' Christmas Carols invented Christmas as we know it today!

The power of fiction is embedded in our species and cannot be underestimated. Writers, film-makers, playwrights should keep in mind what kind of influence they wish to exert on their readers/audience. I won't claim that Too Many Sparrows In Zaragoza is in the same league as the above classics, however I do hope that it will influence its readers, however slightly.

It might tempt them to visit Spain, or Zaragoza. It might make them look at postcards and souvenirs in a new way. It might make them want to try something new. It might make it re-evaluate their friendships.

But I suppose these are superficialities. Here follow a series of quotes from the novel that ask more searing questions.

Was Zaragoza that important to him, or did he cherish his image of Zaragoza more?

“So what is Malta like then? Luis says it’s not very modern.”

Tell me what is your greatest fantasy?

Let me ask you this, then, what excites you?

I didn’t really care about the history of religion, politics, conflict; but wasn’t being surrounded by splendour and richness of any kind our goal in life?

Are you sure it’s your job that’s boring, not you?

Don’t analyse something you taste, just taste it, you know?

Not the theatre of the stage, that was just a veneer. But as social animals aren’t we forced into drama?

I was curious about Jaime especially; could a man in his late twenties really not do any work at all?

“You’re intelligent enough to adapt to anywhere, if there are no physical barriers holding you back, like money, then what’s to stop you?”

It was an appealing idea, who knows what those gigantic continents would be like today without European interference?

“That’s a bit risky, when has a country ever benefited from being colonized?”

“But isn’t it a source of pride to be governed by your own countrymen, to have your own Republic?”

“Don’t you think that there could be some cultures that wouldn’t mix well together?”

Women with shopping bags, men armed with suits and suitcases on their way to work, old women waiting at the crossings, teenagers walking by on their mobile phones looking up only to take a peek
at the fliers in the shop windows . . . where was my place in all this?