Le Tour du Monde en 80 Textes (ou presque) by Mario Vargas Llosa

 Splendid book this one by Mario Vargas Llosa Le Tour du Monde

en 80 Textes (ou presque) published by Editions L'Herne.

Llosa, avid traveller, a dimension experienced since he was little, examines and remembers the most beautiful and iconic places of this world for a reasons or another visited or re-visited with considerations on life, death, and what there is in the between. The Carnival of Oruro, Bolivia, the best one, where the biggest lie, the one of happiness becomes true. He doesn't forget cemeteries, places, houses, where we will stay longer than not maybe the time spent in this life.

Libraries: the reading room of the British Museum the most impressive one; others not too comfy for studying or reading at long, or confused and dispersive. New York and its multiculturalism that it is the most important and remarkable story: its biggest limit? The past never existed and the future waited so badly. Rome described romantically when the writer afforded there with the first wife and substantially pennieless, but also a visit at the house of Borges, a humble writer  in a house with a decent library but without any of his books.

Dublin, that remains the exact portrait of the city described by James Joyce in his books where the first consideration popping up is: preserved by the time.The modest house of Dostoievski in the perspective Kuznechny, where he spent years with a wife devoted to him and in grade to re-put the existence of the beloved writer in the correct direction, but also the photographic exposition dedicated to Marcel Proust at the Biblioteque Nationale...If you love travelling but you can't, if simply you want to understand the world, if you want a quick, view of this old world in a few chapters,  this book is for you!

You'll love it. Trust me!

Highly recommended.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Una Trama Divina di Antonio Spadaro con Prefazione di Papa Francesco

 Una Trama Divina

di Antonio Spadaro con Prefazione di Papa Francesco edito da Marsilio Biblioteca è un bel libro, ispirato, una piacevole lettura di certo, che vuol squarciare il velo sui vangeli, attualizzandoli, leggendoli come fossero in realtà la sceneggiatura di una bellissima storia: quella di Gesù, un ragazzo che amava i poveri, i miseri e i derelitti e che per loro ha combattuto sino alla fine. La figura di Gesù torna a essere un fatto vicino, non più  lontano, distante, qualche volta straniante: diventa attuale, viva, partecipe della nostra esistenza, così da poter compenetrare il messaggio universale che ha lanciato a tutto il mondo, prima forse che ancora alla sua comunità locale: quello dell'amore reciproco. 

Chi è Gesù se non un ponte tra chi sta male e ha bisogno di guarigione e chi cerca dignità? Non è possibile infatti leggere  un messaggio solo per l'al di là. Per carità! Sarebbe solo deprimente. È necessario costruire una bella vita e viverla appieno in questa.

Gesù non abbandona mai chi crede in lui. Così come disse ai discepoli che avrebbe inviato loro lo spirito santo, al tempo stesso ci guida e ci orienta. Gesù non è spaventato né dal chaos, né dal buio, né dalle ombre, né se vogliamo dal disordine e dalla confusione: se c'è fede perché avere timore? E se non vogliamo usare quella parola, troppo grande, fede,  la certezza che Gesù vegli su di noi e non lascerà che onde selvagge, cattivo tempo ci sopprimano.

Appare una tematica abbastanza attuale...

Gesù poi nei vangeli viene descritto come una persona che guarisce, cura utilizzando il tatto ed entrando in una modalità più diretta e confidente con gli altri. I discepoli che lo seguono dovranno poi completare il suo lavoro. L'insuccesso scrive l'autore "per Gesù è una possibilità aperta".

Il potere che viene elargito ai discepoli sarà quello di guardare in faccia il male e vincerlo.

Per far questo è necessario non portare troppo bagaglio con sé, giusto il minimo indispensabile per non rendere il viaggio, si voglia leggere in modo metaforico o fisico, troppo ingombrante.

C'è gente che è miracolata, Gesù stesso con la moltiplicazione dei pani e dei pesci ha creato grande stupore tra la folla. Una folla che forse allora non comprende il significato di questo miracolo: la condivisione. Gesù scrive l'autore "agisce contro la logica della compravendita: il pane non si compra, ma si moltiplica gratis." Eppure solo il pane spirituale potrà salvare le anime. Fidarsi di lui dell'attrazione che esercita il primo passo. Per capire Dio e le logiche di questo figlio ribelle.

Gesù aveva parlato con i discepoli della sua morte ma tutti lo volevano vedere vivo e trionfante, come Pietro: altri non afferravano i concetti che spiegava loro.

Intanto ai discepoli spiega che essere umili è una grande cosa: "Se uno vuole essere il primo, sia l'ultimo di tutti e il servitore di tutti". 

Se accogliamo qualcuno in difficoltà, fosse un piccino, o una persona che ha bisogno, di fatto accogliamo non solo Gesù che diventa personificazione di chi stiamo aiutando, "ma di chi mi ha mandato", dice Gesù, quindi Dio stesso.

Gesù come re.... Pilato tenta di capire se realmente questa figura sia incarnata in lui. Un regno, quello di Gesù che come specifica Gesù stesso non è di questo mondo, perché non ci saranno eserciti che lotteranno per liberarlo da quanto accadrà.

Dobbiamo avere chiarezza, non essere ciechi e andare allo sbando afferma Gesù che tenta di far capire bene la cosa attraverso la pagliuzza e la trave nell'occhio e...il collirio di umiltà che occorrerebbe.

Tanti altri aneddoti, passi del vangelo attualizzati, per una rilettura che permetta al credente e anche a chi, scettico, voglia capirci di più su Gesù, chi fosse questo predicatore ebreo che, di fatto ha squarciato il mondo, creato una nuova religione e portato un nuovo messaggio con il suo spirito ribelle, rivoluzionario e battagliero.

Una lettura semplice, dinamica, potete spaziare tra i capitoli con semplicità e al contempo molto interessante perché moderna e reale finalmente non rivolta alla spiritualità ma maggiormente ai comportamenti quotidiani delle persone.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev

 Fathers and Sons

by Ivan Turgenev explores the romantic vision of the existence as seen by older people with the one of newest generations, projected in the nihilism. Word created in this book by Turgenev, nihilism didn't recognize anything that couldn't be touched or described or lived if not under a scientific perspective. Feelings were considered a surplus of the human being.

The story is absolutely wonderful: Arkàdij the son of Nikolai Petrovic, the owner of a large, immense farm sometimes in trouble with his peasants, brings with him after the degree at the university another schoolmate, Bazarov with which he become close friend. And there is no doubt that the eccentricity of Bazarov, student of medicine, intrigues a lot the good soul of Arkàdij a devoted boy.

Nikolai Petrovic the father of Arkàdij has a certain story behind. Once lost his wife, he fell a profound pain, but under many ways has been in grade to return to the normality: he recently started a relationship with a girl, Fenecka with which he has had a son, so a brother for Arkàdij. Arkàdij doesn't live this story with bad mood. He is happy that his father is back to a normality and he rediscovers some joy in the existence.

It will be Pavel Petrovic, the uncle of Arkàdij, the black sheep of the family with a certain past that led him after all to the farm of his brother, the one who will live an opened conflictual relationship with Bazarov. Bazarov will be always nasty with him, and the feelings of these two men reciprocated.

Then the young boys decide  to move somewhere else meeting at some point Anna Odincova. Widow,  Bazarov, discovers at the end to be in love for Anna, a love that Bazarov can't accept because too irrational. Just when in his death-bed will ask to see his first and last love for another time and for a final good-bye.

In Fathers and Sons there is a beautiful description of the Russian situation at that time, and as always good heart, sociality, hospitality, compassion, true friendship, love, devotion for family and children, good time and great conversations spent together, common treats of Russian people, will make the reading one of your best ones.

Highly recommended.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Des Visages Une Anthropologie by David Le Breton

 Yes, every book by David Le Breton is wonderful. In this  essay released by Editions Métailié Des Visages

Une Anthropologie Edition Revue et Actualisée, David traces for the readers a complete portrait of faces and the importance of faces for painters, arts, philosophy, movies, architecture, mythology, literature, without forgetting Covid-19, relationship of old people with their faces and bodies and of course what it means an alteration of the face for a society that live of pictures and imagines.

I wanted to read this book so badly for what happened to me as well. The blockage of a muscle, the mandibular-tendon, per two decades altered my face, my senses, breathing, hearing, muscles, body, everything. 

I lived a real hell emotively, psychologically, physically and socially. Healing, seeing my face back to the normality is like a daily-surprise and sometimes I am amazed by this new freedom and the possibilility to see again my old face, although, I still can see here and there  the "old" and altered Anna Maria, a person pretty unsecure socially, psychologically and emotively that, thank Lord, is disappearing. I must rediscover the person I was a lot of time ago and the one that I will become.  

And after this, back to the book.

A strong example of alteration of the face the nuclear bombs launched by the Americans in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The ladies who had lost their facial attributes were called "vierges de la bombe" and they stayed secluded in their homes for their entire existences because of the devastation caused by that bombs to their faces.

What is it the face if not, writes Le Breton, The Other? The Closest Other we have, in which every individual recognizes himself and exist at the eyes of the others. It is also the direct reflection of the name we bring with the face. 

Plato added that no one could be part of anything if not with an harmonic and perfect face, giving to this passport for the society an incredible importance.

We are our face, in terms of visibility. A good face, a good smile means for the society a lot and any possible interference that alter this reality can be devastating for the person in terms of acceptance.

This one is also a study of facial bone characteristics, what certain lines of the face, nose, lips meant in the past, examining also the thesis of Lombroso who defined criminals, for sure! certain guys with certain facial characteristics (sic!)

The myth of Narcisse and the impossibility to be without the Other. The myth told that if Narcissus would have had the chance to see his face terrible things would have happened to him. So his parents removed every possible object where their son would have seen displayed his imagine. One day Narcisse looked in the water of a lake seeing the beautiful reflection of a wonderful guy. He fell in love for that imagine falling in the water and dying for trying to reach the young reflected. Thanks to that death the appearance in the world of narcissus. 

Another example pretty powerful the one of the Portrait of Dorian Gray. Here we see perfectly the duality sometimes existing in a person. In the case of the wonderful book of beloved Oscar Wilde, the portrait contains the errors, horrible things committed in his existence by Dorian, preserving the same face of Dorian from the old age, and putting, let's use this verb, nasty, horrible facts, only in the portrait. The portrait became visibly horrible, and altered because of what committed by Dorian. At the end Dorian not tolerating anymore that view, decided to stab with a knife the portrait thinking that he would have survived: but the portrait was the obscure side of his dissolute soul and body: he represented his essence, so stabbing the portrait with the same knife with which Dorian had killed the creator of the portrait, meant to Dorian killing himself, becoming what the painting was before: a horrible old, dissolute man, giving back to the painting the portrait of a young and still genuine Dorian, set free from that revoltating old man he became with the time.

A beautiful essay for sure!

Highly recommended

Anna Maria Polidori