Readings and readers: a nuanced symbiosis. Some books await the reader who has taken Joubert’s advice to heart: “If you only read what you like, you’ll hardly ever be cultured.” It’s about acquiring great books to enhance one’s literary education and delve into the very essence of the human condition. This reading is often arduous, but it yields a rewarding balance of literary quality and wisdom about the light and shadow of the human adventure. Jon Fosse—Nobel Prize laureate in Literature—knows firsthand, recommends this path.

There are also those texts that are easy, relaxing to read. They are a breath of fresh air for the soul. They highlight details, illuminate cracks in reality. Each line leaves trails of serenity, knowing smiles from the reader. Pure poetry expressed in prose or verse. That’s how I read *  The Happiness of Little Fishes: Letters from the Antipodes*  (Acantilado, 2019, Kindle) by Simon Leys, one of my favorite writers. It consists of short chronicles with sharp observations, travel anecdotes, and personal opinions about writers and their work. Unconventional, yet always polite, as when he critiques Harold Bloom’s opinion of  Chekhov’s short story “The Student  .”

In the section dedicated to  The Truth of the Novelist , Leys writes that “it is not the exploits of active life that produce great works, but rather failure, dark sorrows, weariness, the arid insignificance of days (p. 26).” He is quite right on this point, and I was thinking of this verse by Antonio Machado: “Woe to our nightingale, / if on a serene night / it is cured of the malady of love / that weeps and sings without sorrow!” Sorrows! How much beauty they have wrested from the hearts of lovers and those who are hurting.

In contrast, how negative envy is. It exudes darkness and writhes at the beauty of others. In this regard, Leys points out that “inspired talent is always an insult to mediocrity. And if this is true in the aesthetic realm, it is even more so in the moral one. More than artistic beauty, moral beauty seems to have the power to exasperate our sad species. The need to lower everything to our miserable level, to defile, mock, and degrade everything that dominates us with its splendor is probably one of the most desolate traits of human nature (p. 36).” Envy writhes at the magnanimity of another’s spirit. It denies glory to those who possess it. Paradoxically, neither the mockery nor the disdain hurled with the aim of damaging another’s honor achieves its purpose; rather, it returns to the envious person, causing them even greater sorrow.

Leys also recounts that when he was studying philosophy, one of his professors, after recommending some essential readings for his education, suggested that he not neglect reading novels. The advice initially puzzled him, but over time he began to see the relevance of this recommendation, corroborated by Claudel: “the primary source of science is not, therefore, reasoning, but the detailed verification of an association proposed by the imagination (p. 89).” This is often the case when accessing reality, which is not exhausted by the rational understanding of empirical facts. Rationality itself must be broadened by the contributions of humanistic wisdom.

Reality, in its rich truth, requires a symphony of knowledge, where apodictic syllogism, poetry, history, literature, and painting cooperate in the dialogue between time and Eternity. Simon Leys understands this symphonic richness of life.