I was expecting a masterpiece, to be astonished, to want to
read it again. The name of Alessandro Baricco is echoed between the walls of the
bookstore since I am working there. I thought I could read a work of him and be
able to find THE book to recommend to each and every one. (What? All my colleagues
have their favorite book they recommend to anyone while I continue to wade in
the literature as a series of baths with various essential oils without being
able to choose my favorite.)
Well, instead of that amazing masterpiece, what I've found
is an unattractive world, where the main character is a spectator of his own
life and not able to choose while he is still making a choice because not
making one is a choice. Then, the only time he decides to choose (between his
wife and his mistress) is when he chose his mistress while all he knows of her
boils down to her eyes that do not have an oriental shape and the form her
face, the one of a young girl; She lives in Japan and is the (true this time)
mistress of the master Hara Kei, the same master who provides for his smuggling
silkworms. Hervé Joncourt is always named by the narrator by his full name. He
became a sort of number without color. I would have loved Hervé, as his wife
seemed to like it, but the narrator stopped me. 140 pages. An hour of reading.
Several years. No emotion. Thinking only of money, and of his penis, Hervé
Joncourt is a moron. And I would have plenty of reasons to explain it, but I
urge you to read this novel anyway, because...
… Alessandro Baricco deserves to be known (because...
…His style is perfectly controlled);
…Reading it will not be a lost time if you just stop a few
times to realize what is narrated by Baricco: the apathy toward life.
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