“In the evening he read stories aloud to me […] and during the day he taught me how to do a handstand, because he absolutely wanted to make me see the world upside down.”
Just a tip: open the book to the first page and read it aloud, steadily. We’re faced with a precise frame, like in a movie, and the camera frames, piece by piece, individual parts of a scene that we miraculously manage to piece together only at the end of the page.
Now just a small but healthy preview: you’ll only understand the first page on the last.
And then, a stroke of luck: the book flows smoothly, effortlessly.
Let’s play with associations and so we associate this book with the color gray, iridescent and rich in nuances: for a long time, everything appears murky and almost dark, and this will be the driving force that will push you to read more and more. The associated color reflects not only the narrative style, but the story itself.
We’re in socialist Germany, in a small suburb of Dresden; we’re in the confusion that the young protagonist, Karin, is forced to face after suddenly losing all trace and news of Paul, her first great love. Does this story sound like many others? Don’t tell us, because the book’s carousel of twists and turns will make you reconsider many of your assumptions.
It’s a story of abandonment: first Paul disappears, then Karin’s mother; the world of a young girl is rebuilt, her only constant being her main confidant: Wikwaltz, a Stasi intelligence officer; the only question is: where is Paul?
And yet, at a certain point, this huge and weighty question won’t even interest us; we’ll delve into the world of the adolescent, into her thoughts, into the delicate balancing act of figuring out who to trust and who not to; into her fears, which are quite special, but not unrealistic, given the era and context.
So, we’re in the post-World War II era, but you’ll read it from a perspective we’re sure you’ve never seen it before. And that’s precisely the book’s value.
A special note of appreciation for the translation, which allows us to fully understand even the less vivid nuances of the text.
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Charlotte Gneuss, I confidenti, Iperborea, Milano, 2024
Original edition: Gittersee, S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2023