EVA SLEEPS

EVA SLEEPS

Sep 24, 2021 | BOOKS

Eva sleeps is what her mother replies to the postman in charge of delivering a package while we still don’t know anything about her.

Eva sleeps is a title that made me imagine something else.

Eva sleeps at the end of the book, but when I got to that point, I was moved because sleep represented a restitution.

And I was moved because there are bonds that can have the duration of a fragment but the indissoluble strength of something that nothing and no one can break.

This reading, once again from the series “Monica’s books” that I will never stop thanking, was a slow surprise, just like when something happens in life that you no longer expected.

And it is perhaps the things that did not happen that I appreciated, those that basically correspond to the truth exactly because of their absence.

Curiously I took another train trip this time from the far north of South Tyrol to the red and white lighthouse of Villa San Giovanni .

Looking from the window, images of the landscape and history alternate.

The history of Italy from 1919 to 1992.

The history of Italy seen from a very precise point of observation, high up, from the vertical earth.

But above all the history of that area that the most distracted, like me so far, call South Tyrol.

Francesca Melandri in her book published by Bompiani traces the events of the autonomous province of Bolzano, reconstructing a history that I had never considered in such detail.

Good and evil, souls and ideals, strategy and bad luck, intolerance and compassion are mixed within states, peoples, families, faces.

You should never forget to try to put yourself in the other’s shoes.

Ask yourself questions. All time.

Speaking of questions, there is one in particular that is constantly asked to Eva “Do you feel more Italian or more German?”

Her answer arrives right on the train, it is multifaceted and it could not be otherwise, considering all aspects.

Do you ever think about how much of you is the expression of your roots?

AVANTI, PARLA – COME ON, TALK

AVANTI, PARLA – COME ON, TALK

Aug 18, 2021 | BOOKS

Come on, talk! About an order or a peremptory invitation?
Changing the pitch can be both.
What if the request comes from a longtime friend and the tone is simply curious?

As happened to me when reading Giulia Caminito‘s book, also in this case I found a completely unconventional way of writing, even if I have not been conquered in the same way.

When Porci con le ali – Winged pigs came out, Lidia Ravera‘s debut book, I was still reading Mickey Mouse but the echo of the sensation generated remained impressed on me, as well as the post-1968 wave that brought with it an epochal change.

This book brings back to those years, however, in a slow and alternating way, more like an undertow that laps slowly.

And slowly one realizes that the story was built specifically as a system on a very specific foundation: the base, the true fulcrum of the whole story.

If on the one hand I was curious to deepen a page of Italian history of which I have never read, but which I have lived through news stories, on the other I found myself questioning my way of thinking.

Is the constant effort on myself to eliminate judgments and prejudices really effective?

And again: would I have had the same point of view if I hadn’t found myself in front of a perfect “grandmother”?

How often have we said then that it is not enough to give birth to be mothers, but if life offered a second chance?

I firmly believe that children and young people teach us constantly, and that they are saving.

The food for thought also ranges from the controversial question of knowing how to forgive oneself, to the survival instinct.
From the intrinsic power of silence to the benefits of music.
From consistency to hypocrisy.

All this is a portion of what emerged from the conversations with Monica: this time too I owe this reading to her, just as I owe to her the enrichment on a human level that I was able to draw from it.

What do you think about it?
Do you prefer a book to reveal a story or a reflection?
Come on, talk …

IL SOGNO DELLA MACCHINA DA CUCIRE Bianca Pitzorno THE DREAM OF THE SEWING MACHINE Bompiani novel

IL SOGNO DELLA MACCHINA DA CUCIRE Bianca Pitzorno THE DREAM OF THE SEWING MACHINE Bompiani novel

Aug 31, 2020 | BOOKS

If I think of the sewing machine, my grandmother’s one immediately comes to mind, and I see myself as a child observing the gestures, the big wheel I couldn’t stop touching, the pedal, the bobbin.

She made everything seem so easy, then, over time, I experienced that it is not at all, like a whole host of other things.

Even the protagonist of the book, whose name is never mentioned, perhaps to leave the reader the faculty of identifying themselves at a deeper level, as a child watches her grandmother, who is all her family, sew, and she teaches her, together with sewing, the life.

And the teachings of the grandmother, as well as the strong bond between them, will save her in various situations.

The only place mentioned in the book is Paris, all other places are indicated with only the initial. Paradoxically, instead of losing the references, I found a precise orientation, as if Paris represented a single fixed point while “it’s a small world”, precisely with the slightly negative meaning of the proverbial saying.

A world in which even dreams become a luxury that cannot be afforded.

And so the sewing machine becomes more precious than a jewel, transfiguring itself in the way to improve one’s condition more easily, more intensely, but always with commitment, with constancy, with one’s own strength, without discounts, working.

Once again I thank Monica for this reading: an embroidery of female figures that I admired.

Stories of Women of those we like, of those who stand out, of those who struggle not to be princesses.
Women who survive.
Women who teach.

And the negative figures, the ruthless women, consuming themselves in their wickedness do nothing but make those who deserve shine more.

 

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