“It is not convenient to make ties of tenderness with those who notice your every defect and use it to make you feel stupid or useless.”
We bought this book attracted by the cover. We know this is not our habit, and usually the greatest risk is to make a mistake. Well this time we were lucky. The puzzle of symbolic elements of the cover is a first path inside the book, a widespread search of a treasure hidden inside the pages, but it will be possible to discover it only once the reading is finished.
7 was born at the turn of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and carries within herself the contradictions of a century just ended, and the expectations of a newborn. The character is built with depth and substance. 7 is cynical, disenchanted, bold, proud, vain, sensual, terribly hateful and fragile. 7 is a wounded child who has never truly known love.
An unexpected hero out of time, indeed even beyond in some aspects, those for which she will (almost) never bow her head just for being a woman. In a world where being a woman represent a disgrace to a life as extras, she wants to be the protagonist. Shofted in an emotional vortex, the reader will be led to hate and love her in equal measure.
Through long internal monologues we witness the growth of 7, from threatening child to rapacious woman who will learn to use her body to get what she wants. Suspended in an unstable balance between the desire to be loved, and the desire to be free from any social and moral bond. In hindsight, can’t we say that it is the perfect representation of the twentieth century?
The writing is pleasant, full-bodied, screaming and ironic at the right point to make reading less heavy, highlighting how the chosen style and the protagonist are superimposable and complementary at the same time. It would be nice if in the future the author wrote write more about 7.
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Montel, 7, GM.libri, Milano, 2019
