“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “Why did the seasons continue to follow one another for me, while for him time has stopped forever in that May?” In our minds, as we close the book with a closed throat, mortified by a memory that is now ours too, the echo of the literature professor’s voice when he explained to us the greatness of Primo Levi’s writing: he added nothing, because there was nothing to add. The title itself is an...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “Don’t let anyone convince you that no one is interested in ideas.” Have you ever seen “Three on the Run”? It’s a 1989 film starring Nick Nolte and Martin Short. Not many people have seen it, but we kept thinking about it while reading. In the film, an absurd trio consisting of a former bank robber just out of prison, a shabby thief who chooses him as a hostage, and his very quiet little...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “Then I burst into tears. Then one always bursts into tears, I thought.” Telling life by talking about death: this is what Aglaja Veteranyi does for one hundred and twenty-nine poignant, poetic pages. The life of circus performers has always had a contradictory charm that combines the freedom of wandering with the lability of relationships; a life made of magic tricks and escapes, amazements and disappearances. Different rules, a twirling in space and time...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “Today I’m going to be tough (and I’m crying while writing these lines).” Wandering through the shelves of bookstores these days you will find the latest reprint of the literary debut of Édouard Louis. A student of Didier Eribon, to whom the work is dedicated, he follows in his footsteps with the impulsive unscrupulousness that comes from being a few years younger than his master. Being able to do so, we read this...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “…where your body announced […] its presence there, at the mercy of your laborious apprenticeship to the work of the world.” On October 15, 2024, Antonio Skármeta died. Many have seen “Il postino” starring Troisi, not as many have read that masterpiece of humanity and literature that is “Ardente paciencia”, translated into Italian as “Il postino di Neruda”. A few days before Skàrmeta’s death, excited by a chat about that title, we decided...
“VENERDÌ RE-VERSO” “It was horribly clear that my life up to that point had been a mistake.” “There are books that should be prescribed in a pharmacy: read 5 pages a day. Therapeutic indications: relieves and reduces the pain of living (and immediately a young Leopardi appears to us intent on stealing the secrets of the female universe and, above all, of good humor). “I feel bad about my neck” reminded us of a...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” ““What are your requests?” – “We want to see the sun.”” There are so many things we would like to say – it is so difficult to allow ourselves to talk about such great, so unjustified suffering. However we try, because that’s what we can do. “Mulberry Leaves” comes out in 2020. We are in 2024. We would like to say that the situation has worsened but reading these pages we immediately...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “Today is my birthday. Everyone come and taste my sautéed pork liver.” When we reached page 50 we wanted to beat up whoever recommended this reading to us; by page 135 we had already cried three times; once we finished the book we were looking for the author’s complete bibliography. (Note to the reader: “The City That Doesn’t Exist” was released in recent days by Feltrinelli.) Yu Hua has mastered the ancient art of...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “In the midst of all that terror, the screams, the heavy footsteps there was something else, something strange. Kolya was laughing.” Every now and then it happens that you mention a book and the eyes of everyone who has read it light up. It is not the effect of the “essential classic” (to be read with the confidence that the quotes suggest), nor of the latest editorial case (“The book of the year” and...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “All his cravings combine endlessly.” It’s hard to think of a heart that isn’t also a battle. Some are long and devastating, others small and petty, but the heart always seems to have the space needed to accommodate even the most incomprehensible of pains. “Small body” is the crack in the door through which we can spy a heart in struggle: against absence, against loss, against fatality. It is a long story (100 pages) about how...
