Sull'acqua by H.M. van den Brink

It's an intimistic, touching tale this one written by H.M. van den Brink,

Sull'Acqua, published by Marsilio.

 It's a story of a friendship spent in a canoe. This sport impressed the protagonist of the story when once walked with his dad close to their river. Thanks to this fasciantion when it was possible, with his father, they joined the local sport club for practicing this discipline. Memories shared with us by the protagonist of this novel, Anton, are strong but soft at the same time: strong because the past was so different and rich of perspective, while the present absolutely unknown and destroyed by the advent of something absurd in the entire Europe. Human conditions that would have altered at long relationship with other ones, with profound fractures, broken souls, and a new world after the miseries and rubble of the world war. It's a lucid, implacable tale of what it meant to Anton spending time in a canoe, the sensations presented him by this sport, with, also, memories of victories, failures, what it meant to be part of a team, choosed because one of the most excellent ones. 

To Anton this sport meant also his personal emancipation from his family and consolidates traditions, that, to him didn't mean anymore anything, absorbed as he was, by canoes and water, a feeling this one undervalued by his parents, who thought that this one would have been just a fleeting passion. But...This love, after all for Anton did not start exactly with canoes; it was more profound. It started with loving the element where canoes spent their time: water. Water, synonime of deepest sport, danger, fun, life.

His friendship with David appeared sometimes a bit formal, told with all the delicacy of a young man, who, in just few years, close to the advent of the Second World War discovered a world turned upside down, with his friend and his entire family disappeared, and with a world collapsed because of the wild wind whispering horrors of another world conflict.

I personally enjoyed reading this book. I can't wait to read the next book by mr.Brink.

Highly recommended.

Anna Maria Polidori