We continue our journey among the independent - and resistant - Italian publishing houses which, despite the economic and cultural crisis, take on the thankless task of selecting an authentic research narrative with self-denial. There are three interesting Italian writers, of different school and style, which we propose today for summer readings.
Emerging Italian writers
The first, Marco Pegazzano, is a newcomer and has published for "Talking Boxes", in the Soffi series, "The colored glasses of Mr. Nothing"; just over a hundred pages for a compelling story to be devoured in one bite. The author is able, with a few but very effective sketches, to immediately project us into a scenario of mystery, taking away our time; so we find ourselves in a disturbing dimension, with noir tones, imprisoned in a cobweb like “Mulholland Drive” in which we can breathe thanks to a loose, vaguely rock'n'roll writing: “Why am I not dead? What's my real name? I certainly can't call myself Mr. Nothing. Explain to me, Grand Marnier, you know a lot about me but you don't want to tell me anything. You know my life, my past, but you insist on leaving me in oblivion. I often wonder what the reason is and what your real intentions are ". Keeping us in suspense until the very end, the story reveals, little by little, its hidden object, that is the thin line that separates reality from dream, life from death, to the point of making us reflect, in a delicate and surprise ending. poignant, on the coordinates of the real place where consciousness resides.
"Passive state" (Ensemble) is the third novel by Sebastiano Martini, a writer of '78 who expresses in this work a reassuring stylistic maturity, as in few contemporary writers, and a mastery of the psyche of his characters typical of expert directors. The story of a strange friendship between a failed merchant, albeit cheated, and his bankruptcy trustee is cemented by tracing a path of humanity (credible) between lonely men immersed in a cynical and indifferent world.
The rhythm is wisely governed and interspersed with brief expansions and sudden accelerations, never out of place and amalgamated with the narrative body, like the jazz flashes always contained in certain Allen's films. And, again like Woody, the narrator is also good at moving from one point of view to another without hesitation. It is difficult to say whether certain human relationships, forced to dig into the evil world, lead to real personal growth, to the effective sharing of a change, or to that crucial event which, shaking up that passive state in which contemporary man is accustomed to vegetate, may it be testimony: it is the question that arises during the reading even if, in the end, it is understood that perhaps it is not so important to find an answer.
The third book of the day, "Radio Ethiopia", Les Flâneurs Publishing Group, of Alexander Andrew, it is longer reading (just under 400 pages). A journey, above all interior, of a man in search of a friend (or himself? - in some ways we find connections with Antonio Tabucchi's "Notturno Indiano") in a continuous relationship of exclusivity with the landscape as an objective correlative: "Yes he raises Ismael one last time, puts his hand on the shoulder of a caravan and, keeping his head bowed, as he had arrived, disappears into the darkness of a tent. At that point I let my thoughts get confused by those scents, by the darkness around me, by the steam that comes out of the crater that overlooks our tented camp ".
An elegant, nostalgic writing, which effectively renders how only out of time, or out of time, one can induce, almost force, an adventure in remote places, to somehow quiet the need for reunification, achievable only away from the world in which we live and work every day. That frenetic and alienating world from which the protagonist comes, in search of certain interior coordinates precisely in the uncertainty of a dimension without reference points. Almost as if the colors, the scents, the sounds of the latter were more authentic. And necessary.
