Sotto il falò by Nickolas Butler, Beneath the Bonfire, in english, is a new book published by the italian publishing house Marsilio translated wonderfully well by Claudia Durastanti. Hard tales, tales of border-lines, desperate people; people sometimes with the desire of "killing" their emotions with drugs, marijuana and alcohol during their spare-time; why? Answers are many; they love drugs and alcohol, they don't love this society, they search for something else; they don't have strong values, (see the Amish's story) so they are lost and for not "not feeling" their own unhappiness or feeling different sentiments, a chemical answer can be good; reasons are other ones as well.
A harsh story the one of the kid and the grand-dad. The poetic imagine of this old man close to his nephew is "broken" by the imagine of his daughter and mother of the kid lost who knows where, in the most unthinkable and unpleasant situations. Maybe she won't never return home.
Poeticity in this short tale will be the "drinking clouds" experiment invented by the grand-dad of the kid for removing the attention of the toddler from the fixation of his mother, but for the rest the tale is serious, and thematic like old age, growing a child all alone, the loss of a daughter, immense.
Sometimes people in these tales are rich and they live a good life: they love to hang out with their old mates, with surprising results in every sense.
In the story about Sven and Lily, Sven is the "richest" and most appealing part; the one with a perfect life, a wife, a beauty house.
One day, while they are enjoying their evening spent together playing at pool the arrival of a girl, of a problem, sorted out at first by Lily, his devoted friend.
But after all Lily will think: why saving someone who is saved? Why helping when the other one can't admit, hypocritically, what realistically happened to him?
I loved so badly the story of the couple without, anymore, any kind of dialogue.
The scenario is this one: the mother of Mason is dead, and with his wife, Renée, they are cleaning up the house of the elderly lady passed away.
Mason feels a great melancholy for his mother. That wonderful dishes she prepared to him, presenting him joy and love also through food; his chat with her; the relationship of his wife with his mother.
They didn't have a good connection; they cordially hated each other.
Mason's relationship with his wife; no more sex, no more dialogues; what he missed the most was someone close with which to chat, with which to living a good life.
Just, at the end the revelation: it's not said.
It's not said that acceptance is the best thing to do: that grown-up son, Mason, will decide.
He will decide that memories are best; her mother's dishes are best, the taste of home much better than the insipidity of a life spent with a lady who didn't mind anymore of him; he wanted to still enjoy a meal prepared by her mother because it meant love; he discovered that he loved to staying in a house nurtured by love and not indifference. He decided after all to staying in that house forever.
Impressive the comparison of a man calling the wife from a public telephone waiting, waiting waiting, waiting... the man becomes old, frail and then he dies, and that place becomes his coffin.
I found scaring the story about Rimes, Deere and Coffee. Absurd in its realism and it brought me a lot of sadness.
Deere is again a rich boy, married, with a great existence. He loves to spending time in company of Rimes and Coffee because all born in the same place; just Deere made fortune. They love to share together time, drugs, alcohol and escapism from the problems of this world; it happens that a disgrace will involve some Amish because of the altered condition experienced by Deere but no one of them will be so strong to tell the truth also thanks to the use and abuse of alcohol and drugs. Some part of the story at some point reminded me the scenario of the book and movie: Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fannie Flagg.
I love "Apples" story, where a man, fired, and lost, because jobless discovers in an orchard of apples and thanks to an old man, the secret of baking and the joy of happiness and love.
A beautiful, but at the same time strong book.
Highly recommended.
I thank Marsilio for the physical copy of this book.
Anna Maria Polidori
No comments:
Post a Comment