My life has always been a grayscale. I don't remember any time when sadness or happiness was full. There has always been light in the dark or a black dot on white cardboard. And I suppose that's the good thing because when you're completely happy you're always waiting for something to ruin it, and when you're deep down in the hole, to think that you'll never see the light again, no matter how small, is very painful.
That's why I've remembered all the people who say that school was the worst time for them, especially those who were bullied for some reason.
And do you know thanks to whom? My teachers. In particular, four of them who illuminated my path with torches as if they were coming to rescue me from a castle from which I thought I would never leave. They helped me to understand life and to understand myself when I was not capable. That is why these words are dedicated to them.
And at this point in the review - I know, I'm sorry, but when things come out of the inside it's better to make way for them - you'll be wondering what all this is about.
I have before me a book of stories that can either be invented or real, we will never know that. What we do know is that there are several protagonists who are going to pass before us. It's not that every story is told by a character, it's not. These are repeated throughout the book and intertwined with each other so that they will be going and living to entertain and delight us. And all this told and narrated by the teacher, a woman who looks without judging and who tells without filters what happens around her during a period of time that goes from the summer of 2013 to the summer of the following year.
In this way, we find many different characters who, as I say, will tell us stories that may or may not be real. And there's the game: trying to guess what really happened and what didn't because between these lines you can see biographical and autobiographical features that will make the reader wonder where the limit is.
The nice thing about this book, I have to say, is that not only do we find stories told by the teacher that contain anecdotes with her students (to whom, by the way, she gives very funny names to maintain their anonymity and who have brought me a smile), but we also have extracts of memories, the testimonies of a woman who lives with Alzheimer's or even the diaries of a girl who suffers from anorexia. As you can see, they are very varied stories that coexist within this book in the form of short stories that the author leaves us like crumbs. Of course - and this usually happens in many short narrative books - the reader will find stories that interest him more than others, and I'm sure it will be a pleasure for him to go through the stories of others until he reaches the one he wants. I say this from my own experience because I've had two. First of all, I really liked the stories that the teacher tells about the things that happen to her students. The boys are ingenious and funny, but also deep on many occasions, and that makes the reader know them a little more and put himself in the shoes of the teacher. And, secondly, I've been dazzled by the story of The Bad Girl. I don't want to tell you what it's all about, because I think it would lose its charm, but I'll tell you that I've empathized a lot with her and I've been delighted to meet her on paper. I think it's a very sincere story that reaches the reader very well and that's a very positive point.
Because if there is something in this book, it is sincerity. Even if some of the stories are invented, it doesn't matter. I think the author has been soulless to write it and embody it everything she wanted, without leaving anything in the inkwell and without messing around with nonsense. That's why Me the old teacher is a sincere and honest book where any of us could find ourselves. And of this I am sure, I bet anything that anyone who looks at the pages written by Rosa Clemente Martín Gil will feel identified with some of the plots.
You can imagine which one I have identified with unless you have forgotten the beginning of this review. It is true that the stories of the students are told by the teacher and that I have never been in that skin, but I have been in that of the girl who takes refuge behind a book because she is too shy to talk to her classmates, or in that of the boy who feels that Mathematics is a ball that chokes without remedy. And that has been the most beautiful thing about this book: meeting the teacher I had in her day, who made my day to day something more magical and special and who gave light to my dark days as if her chalk was a flashlight that focused directly on my path.