A book a day: LATRONIC PINCENZO: THE PERFECTIONS

Original Language: Italian

Títutulus original: Perfections

Translation: Carmen García-Beamud

Year of publication: 2022

Valoración: Lets read (at most)

How good it starts The perfectionswith the unmistakable seal of Perec, one of whose quotes has the honor of opening the book. Only by the description of the objects of that Berlin apartment we already have a rather accurate idea about its inhabitants, Anna y Tom. And only with those same objects somewhat messy by use we begin to perceive that life is leaving a mark on the perfect decoration and with it we guess I do not know if a deterioration but a slight decline, how the simple passing of the days is shaping the forms.

This fascinating start lasts a couple of chapters, just twelve or fifteen pages. One would like this to follow the same path, but Latin has other plans. He now tells us things about these two young people, it seems that Italians, who are creative of the Internet, graphic designers or some of that long list of professions with their inevitable English denominations. They are the result of our time, I do not know if generation Z, or millennials or similar thing, professionals of some success that almost always telemetrabajan and that have emigrated to the German capital as epitome of cosmopolitism and the lifestyle that corresponds to its status.

It is surprising that the author always names them at the same time, Tom and Anna, Anna and Tomand apparently they do the same, they move the same, they think very similar. Something that is perhaps enviable in a couple, I do not know, but if we talk about literature, that for that we are here, the tone and the omnipresent third person of the plural of the imperfect preterite make the story resemble a school writing not very worked. The effect is as striking as poor, but in short, it may try to be some type of literary figure with an unknown objective. But we assume the style and continue.

These guys work on what they like, they live in the city they have chosen and can afford to pay for rent of a tension zone, although when they can upload the house for tourist use, which is also very modern. In addition, they are seen in art exhibitions (although more by promotion and social life than for true interest in the field), and they are, they and their friends, foodies That they try seed foods, they know more or less the coffee tag, and are pirpted by infusions. They even dare with some small sexual eccentricity rather in threat mode, and of course sporadic visits to Berghain, Kit-Kat and such essential sites. To a party they carry as a gift ‘A tray of ecological sassy and an electronic CBD inhaler’.

Everything is so cool that something bad will make them happen. Or at least something of some kind happens to them.

Irony is not perceived, it seems like a totally objective story. Our friends are still looking for new emotions and new places, always in Tandem mode, and one wonders where fiction is, because this looks more like an express autobiography of someone who, either finds their life very interesting, or, if we get a little deeper, it is looking for the meaning of what it does. There might perhaps the shots could go, because it shows a certain boredom, the boredom of the digital native that begins to discover that this no longer gives of itself, than what was a cool job, easy, fun and well paid ends, like so many others, crushed by routine and monotony or, worse, stalked by new batch of people younger than them, perhaps more dominant, and that they surely dominate them Even better medium secrets, probably at cheaper prices for their customers.

The most revolutionary future that are capable of conceiving is gender parity in the advice, electric cars, vegetarianism. Anna and Tom envy not only to ‘Those who had been able to fight for a radically different world, but even those who had been able to imagine it.’

If paragraphs like this are enlightening and value the critical burden they can carry, reading will have been worth it. Because if we take it from the literary point of view, with all that it can represent for each one, the result is rather throwing poor.