“We were not born to become wise, but to resist, escape, steal some pleasure from a world that was not made for us.”
Two Lives is a book that does not lie: it is exactly the story of two lives of the author’s two friends, Pia Pera and Rocco Carbone.
It is a novel that moves us although it is immersed in a disarming narrative simplicity, precisely because it is configured, from the very first pages, as a dry and sincere confidence that the writer grants to us readers: without screens and without filters; Trevi often accuses himself of behavior that is not prone to friendship and does so without shame, precisely because there is never the intention of sweetening any aspect of human relationships.
In discovering the personality of the two friends told – and also that of the author – we discover human frailty, in an existentialist sense and in a more materialist sense. Thus we discover that we are victims of misunderstandings, mood swings, diseases and phobias.
Of course, once again literature pulls our ears and tells us in no uncertain terms that the name of the protagonists does not matter: no, it really doesn’t matter! Because all the books talk about us: human beings who live in the ranks of something, whatever it is called, which moves us and sometimes joins us like puppets whose thread is suddenly broken. This is why we were moved by the pages of this book, because the real protagonist is the weakness of man, told precisely through a deep friendship.
The author’s style, although as we have already written it is quite dry, is perfectly capable of supporting the reflections that the writer entrusts to us, namely his personal theories on the meaning of friendship and life: for this reason we appreciate the book and yes we recommend reading it.
Do not be enchanted by a book of only 121 pages, because it is easy to remain still on a sentence, a reflection even for hours; you can stop, reader, on a concept because you will feel the need to metabolize what you have just read.
Why tell the lives of two friends and entrust them to a large audience of readers? The question arises almost mandatory, it is true, if not on the first pages of the book, at least after the first twenty… but the answer only comes at the end and we – as always – will not reveal the reason.
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Emanuele Trevi, Due vite, Neri Pozza, Vicenza, 2020
