L'amore al Tempo degli Scoiattoli by Elizabeth McKenzie or The Portable Veblen

Impressive, erudite, this psychological love-story published by Marsilio, L'amore al Tempo degli Scoiattoli by Elizabeth McKenzie or The Portable Veblen in english will conquer all of you!

Translated by Stefano Massaron the first words are for him: not only a superb translation but also clarifications in various points, about the choices made during his work. I found this aspect touching and stimulating.

The story.

More I read this book and more I thought that, after all, the main protagonists, Veblen and Paul were similar although at first, you would say all the opposite.

Grown-ups both in dysfunctional families, they survived at all of it; with stress, with the understanding that maybe their normality would have always had that touch of abnormality that a plain existence wouldn't never have known. Not only: that maybe their existences would always had some shadows. And that maybe the destiny of meeting another dysfunctional person  as partner not a case.

Why? Because they both know that they can't change their families or some members of their families; because pages of their existence can't be rewritten differently; that what they suffered can't be deleted and that the past is still there, sometimes, still whispering to their ears what it meant to growing up differently, with heavy difficulties in their original families; and with uncertainties heavy like big stones; in the case of Veblen his dad for many reasons suffered of mental instability; her mother is an eccentric lady; her step-dad a firm person in grade to present rationality to these two women.

Paul's problem is his brother; not normal, his parents lived their existence thinking massively at this son, more cuddled, more loved, and Paul suffered because of this situation and because he would have wanted a less disturbed, less stressed existence with less embarrassing moments. Sometimes it's heavy also to playing the role of the normal and so, more lucky and patient brother.

Veblen is a precarious worker; her origins are Norwegian and she is a translator; underpaid. She doesn't mind of living an existence borderline and without certainties. She discoveres an adorable house in the beautiful Californian countryside and she restores it.
She is not a fanatic of this society and of the system created and wanted by the most. Her hero is Thorstein Bunde Veblen, an intellectual and a man marginalized by the society; an acute writer.

She knows Paul a neurologist and she falls in love for him; Paul is enchanted but this girl; Veblen sees goodness wherever they go, in every person.
Paul is another idealist, although he doesn't still knows it and plus he is an ingenuous man.

Courted by the powerful daughter and owner of a pharmaceutical group, he will tell her everything about a new project that he has in his mind: a tool in grade to give a first help in case of traumatic brain injury.

The idea is too good; Paul thinks that realistically will be in grade to develop his idea in peace, and following the various steps of the program.

But no: the powerful lady uses this ingenuous man stealing the project, because too important, bypassing important tests and leaving Paul without any kind of dignity and respect.

Paul is devastated because he is a man with a strong integrity and not someone who would want to be part of a clan of corrupted people.

Veblen since she was little developed a great attachment for animals but squirrels remains her favorite ones.
Sense of family, they have a nest, certainties, they spend their time during the long winter-time all together; no one is in peril and the family is in perfect syntony. They love each other and they are happy to stay together.
Some of them are close to her house and in precise, and crucial moments of the story they appear for launching messages, for trying to communicate with Veblen.

Paul and Veblen at first don't know each other a lot, and their expectations appear different: Veblen is open, she would want a friendly place where growing up children, where also giving hospitality to friends and family-members; Paul would want a nest just for themselves. If at first this one appears as an egoistical gesture, it can also be read like the realization of a man after a lot of sacrifices and the impossibility, because of a sad past, of sharing with other ones his reality and joy and happiness because too bitter-sweet, to my point of view.

Veblen is different in this sense, because being inclusive, she idealizes, she doesn't close doors, but she opens to tender imagines, tender visualizations of a happy future together; although not always.

Not always because of her terrible past and a terrible stress she experienced during her existence: a mother constantly judging her choices and in grade of ruin everything; same is for Paul and his brother; Veblen must fights for trying to see the light at the end of that tunnel of uncertainties created after decades and decades of problems, internal conflicts and domestic mental fights with her mother and dad.

At a certain point, because you see, when an existence is border line there are constant problems and interior conflicts, Veblen will thinks that this one will be a terrible error, that maybe Paul is not the best choice. He wants to be surrounded by a lot of luxuries while she doesn't want; he thinks at a complicated life, when life after all is more simple than the one that a person can imagines; he loves appearances where she loves substance. Will Paul be her mr.Right?

In this sense this book remarks the importance of living a balanced life, where the word less is not less important than the the word more where this "more" in particular is not built ethically  well as you will see in this book and where it brings at stereotyped behaviors and luxuries in grade of proving the ability of being a successful person.

It's a critic this book at a society where appearance and materialism define human beings and not their souls, not their characters.

What does a marriage mean, asks Veblen? If you don't marry anyone is an error; if you do, is another error. Is there a certainty? Well, maybe a marriage is happy if the two dysfunctional people are connected enough. But Paul and Veblen are two dysfunctional and properly connected human beings with a happy future together? I won't tell you this! I can add that the book enters in the childhood, teenage age of Veblen and Paul, for create a complete profile of their characters; for giving back a complete human portrait of their existence.

Beautiful. Profound, technical, it analyzes the society in all its complexities.

Highly recommended.

I thank Marsilio for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori