“The commuter’s journey, well, it’s not a journey. It’s three dots in brackets.”
We won’t beat around the bush in this review: if you’re here, it’s because you’re looking for a good book, one that can not only keep you company, but that can also really give you something more.
We’re talking about Björn Larsson’s Philosophy of the Commuter, which at first glance is aimed only at a certain type of reader: a commuter who loves reading, possibly.
Yet, on closer inspection, we feel it’s mandatory to openly say that the book is suitable for all categories of readers, even non-commuters, because looking at commuting gives a good idea of the well-being of life that a country can guarantee its citizens.
Let’s start with the title, which doesn’t lie: you’ll find in the book a series of honest and well-justified and unraveled reflections that revolve around the experience of the witness, namely a man who for forty years will be forced to commute from Sweden to Denmark and then to Italy for work and then for love.
The book has it all: existential, social, personal reflections – but which lend themselves well to being happily shared by the reader of the moment – and yes, even scientific and philosophical ones. Said like this, it may seem like something particularly heavy and not very accessible to most people, in reality all the reflections are always accompanied by a note of irony that will never bore you and will make you participate in the narration constantly, until the last page. Yes, it is one of those books that once you start it, you devour it.
And speaking of irony, we invite you to grasp the comic effect that is created in the words of a writer who has the courage and the sagacity to combine in the same line Lund, a city in Sweden, and Sedriano, a small town in the province of Milan, which – as the witness is keen to point out – is not even indicated on the geographical maps of the Milanese region!
The book is a translation from Swedish, but we can trust Björn Larsson when he says he hears his own voice and character in the Italian version by Andrea Berardini for Iperborea. The style is plain and linear, touching on features with a very rhythmic construction that make reading even more fluid and fun.
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Björn Larsson, Filosofia minima del pendolare, Iperborea, Milano, 2025