“Maybe, I thought, it’s not the first love that counts, but the last, the one that accompanies a man to death, that helps him to die.” Piero Chiara’s most complete book, written on the writer’s usual and solid narrative structure, with a strong autobiographical component. The places in which the story is set are those of the province, between Trieste, Udine and the lands across the border in Slovenia that belonged to Italy until the...
“There is no Italian who manages to completely escape the mistletoe of opportunism.” Book son of the time in which it was written (1995), and of a different, higher, morality and political conscience of the Italian intelligentsia. Reading it today, one greatly appreciates the analysis of the past, and the one that is in some parts incorrect on the future, but not due to the demerit of the author, but rather to the demerit of...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “From my house to his house we are separated by 574 km. Too many”. A little advice. A small book. A small voice: that of Tiromancino, soundtrack for hearts in transit. Browsing through these microscopic journeys leaves a bit of the feeling of when we hear Stitch say, “This is my family. I found it on my own. It’s small and broken, but beautiful.” Why write a book to tell about emotional places? Why...
“But mom is still young, still alive despite everything.” This is not a easy book, so don’t approach it thinking you can read it in your spare time. A text that first of all requires a solid basic knowledge of recent Italian history. Without it, one may not be able to put together the constant references to characters and places necessary for the structure of the story, and then again because Loy’s writing always requires...
“She tried not to live in the world, but she was in the world.” Let’s go back in time, in Naples two centuries ago, and we find ourselves living the story of Sister Giovanna della Croce, in one of the most inauspicious periods of her life. Cloistered nun of the order of the thirty-three (or with the equally explanatory name of the “buried alive”), together with her sisters she is forced to leave the monastery...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “My life is a predictable accident, rapist. It does not ontologically define my existence but occupies it like a handful of soldiers”. On January 25, the last piece of Eva Baltasar’s triptych was released for Nottetempo, a triad that began in 2019 with “Permafrost” and continued with “Boulder” in 2021 (Italian release dates). The frost, the boulder, the immense animal. Go retro, candid souls. So in short, before holding our breath and throwing ourselves...
“The issue is that he doesn’t resign himself to slowness.” Novel to read up to twenty years old, after it could disappoint. We say this knowingly because we read the book as teenagers, and are picking it up again today. Of all that we had enjoyed as youths, only a faded stain remained on the pages. The classic feeling you get when you re-read De Carlo’s books, capable of telling utopian dreams, the will to...
“[…] and he finally knew the kind of transformation that love had given to all the people he knew, to always escape only him.” A novel full: of what? of life, of contradiction, of feeling, of emotional inconsistencies, of elective affinity, of imagination and reality. If that weren’t enough yet, we also add full of reflections on interpersonal relationships, mistakes, remorse, on man’s inadequacy and wealth. Three divided yet linked stories, with an alternative vision...
“Darek remains silent, suspended on the remains of the Tibetan bridge of our foursome friendship.” Friendship torn and never mended, love killed and then brought back to life, the awareness of no longer being the same people you thought you were until a few moments before. A passage common to many people, and that everyone faces in their own way, because there is no right way to do it. This is the central theme of...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “I am who I am and that’s all I am. Popeye always says so”. It must be said that we don’t know if this Nori would like a review so much. Because writing about him knows so much about the need to give an understandable form to the things that happen, little about “I want to know what you think”. Yet in publishing a book there is a bit of this risk, that everyone...
