“History is a fish inside an aquarium, it comes and goes under your nose without you ever catching it. You can only imagine about how it could once, but nothing else, nothing else…”
Set in the 30s of the last century, with the noises of the Second World War, first weak and then louder and louder, the book deals with the events of a family of the Italian-Swiss upper middle class. In the muffled atmosphere of a safe haven, a mother-matron offers hospitality to her extended family, with the hope of securing them from the sad events that take place in Italy.
One day, a friend of his oldest daughter will also come to knock on her door in search of hospitality, before he can continue his journey to France. It will be the new guest who unintentionally wreaks chaos in the peace of that castle without walls. Hidden loves, night escapes, meanness of the human soul and even a murder will be the rings of a chain of secrets, only partially revealed.
The mother-matron lady will find herself committed, to maintain appearances, to hide where possible the mistakes made by the two daughters (Margot and Isabella). An economic and emotional commitment, for which she will decide to abandon her “castle”, and move elsewhere. The effort required will be such that she will no longer be able to forgive her daughters for breaking her heart, with two marriages strongly opposed by her.
The acrid smell of war and post-war represents a key guiding thread to understand the difficult choices to which the various protagonists have been called, without any kind of moral judgment.
Reading is extremely pleasant. A caress to intelligence. An enchanting lexicon and syntax, which made us fall in love with the book from the first to the last page. A linguistic sensitivity of times gone by, an effective passe-partout to enter fully into the narrated story. Even the use of short sentences in foreign languages are precise and punctual, never excessive. We are certainly not here to discover Rosetta Loy, but we are happy to have been transported again to a higher sensory level. A classic to read and read again like all the books written by Rosetta Loy.
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Rosetta Loy, Chocolate from Hanselmann, Rizzoli, Milano, 1995
