“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...
“Everyone lives and loves where he is, how he can and when it happens to him.” A little gem to keep among the precious objects of the Italian language. A novel without too many pretensions, if not to tell a simple story, with characters built on the quicksand of human meanness, a sincere mirror of society. Elegant in its pen and tones, even when it tells ugly stories, the book is a manifesto of the...
“The lady was waiting for him at the door and pulling him in like a sip of water.” The story of Augusto Vanghetta, before and after rising to the public office of judge, is that of a miserable person who, due to a fortuitous series of events, and very few personal merits, manages to have social success. Annihilated by a continuous carnal desire to have as many women as possible, he even manages to organize...
