Le Perfezioni by Vincenzo Latronico

 

Although with less speed as in the previous months, I´ve conntinued this month my Italian reading agenda. This time, I got Le Perfezioni/La Chiave di Berlino by Vicenzo Latronico, a book set in Berlin at the end of the first decade of 2000s. The book was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize and was translated into several languges, including English by Sophie Hughes for Fitzcarraldo Editions. 

As someone who moved to Berlin during the same time, I felt compelled to read this book. The author left Italy at almost the same time - those were the times when I made a lot of Italian friends, brought to Berlin by Berlusconi´s governments, but he is currently back in Italy.

His life in Berlin is reflected in the accurate description of places and events, ways of being and expectations of people the novel - an offline, third person account of the - almost perfect - life of Anna and Tom, Italian creatives, having the best of their life in the city.

Latronice, a member of anti-gentrification collective in Milan, is observing the silent yet radical twists taking place during those time: as Berlin is becoming more international, sought-after, its identity is getting more standardized and the city soulless. The living costs are high and the available apartments dire. The image of the city is turning into an illusion, a projection of what people expect to find here: maybe a smaller or bigger slice of ´home´, a promise of freedom, but at a lower prize.

Anna and Tom may explore other similar ´paradises´: Portugal, Sicily - while turning back and forth to Berlin in their subletted apartment - who may lose an apartment in a city where scarcity is pushing natives out of its urban borders?

The language - for an Italian student - is relatively sophisticated, C1 level and up, in my opinion, but highly literarily enjoyable. The ambiances, including the olfactive moments are very vivid and immersive.

For a contemporary novel set in the 2000s, the show-format, without characters and a proper story, the short length - 136 pages in the original Italian version - suits very well. But exactly this unclear space between essay - on gentrification and spectacle-society we are more and more each day immersed into - and hipster story leaved a space for expectations that wasn´t properly filled.

Berlin is still the hype, even when it is not what it used - or we expected it - to be, therefore, it is still so much to say and in so many different ways. Le Perfezioni uses the commonality of the inspiration, but ends up in many respects mostly as an exercise in imperfection.

Rating: 3.5 stars