Mlet’s go to Ruggero “Ruggi” Barraco defined as “a young cultural organizer, manager or pierre or capogita”, the son of the wealthy class, who “demonstrates the talent of a respected and feared man”, willing to do anything to get a contract, merchandising including the construction of the festive chariot of Santa Rosalia. His influence on Costanza is great, she feels enslaved by him, always awaits his return, but suffers from his lack of affectivity and constant fixation on visionary business issues. The true support of the princess remains the aforementioned cousin Carlo Sicuro from Torralva, an intelligent and fairly erudite man who, with his critical voice, tries in vain to bring Constanza – always “lacking the tools to understand both reality and oratory” – to one general state. awareness. He regrets that “over time In Palermo, creatures of a philosophical scale worthy of a lemur were mainly born.” Accustomed to asking himself real questions, Carlo likes to present his observations of the world in the column “Il Carnet del Barone,” a critical notebook full of cultural-existential ideas “intended for an audience of thoughtful yachtsmen.” Minor figures include the listless Commissar Francaviglia, whom Costanza turns to to investigate the threats she receives, and the unrealistic writer Vittoria Silona della Ferla, who claims to be the author of the sequel. Leopard, female psychotherapist Corrado Pravitar with his predatory instinct. Until the appearance on stage – almost silently – of Sergio Sucato, known as “Brando”, a kind of Tommy Lee Jones, without the tormented features, carpet salesman and suave calculator, who becomes a key character. Emblem it is a world novel, a catalog novel, and also a river novel that takes the reader along its course. Here we find art, history, news, music, cinema, literature, anecdotes, memories, the perspective of the possible, everyone has gathered for a conference for a collective trip that only stops when things are done. Madonna, Lady Gaga, Frida Kahlo, Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia, artist Carla Accardi snorting cocaine, sex, Andre Breton, Trotsky, Capuchin Catacombs, Francesco Rosi, Giuliano Gemma, Mayakovsky, Beati Paoli, Che Guevara, Leonardo Sciascia, Salvador Dali , Alberto Arbazino, the artist Luigi Ontani, who constantly portrays himself, Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, Yves Klein with his blues, Alexandre Dumas, Mario Monicelli, Adolfo Celi, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Gaetano Testa, Group ’63, Francisco de Zurbaran, Alistair Crowley, Count Saint-Germain, Carlo Lizzani, Tina Aumont, Massimo Ranieri, the Fountain stamp series, and we could go on, but we want to leave the discovery to those who are lucky enough to do so. read this.
The unfolding of events is experienced by the reader live, remaining within him: the figure of “Bones”, as phlegmatic as it is mysteriously desirable, becomes a catalyst together with the figure of his cousin Carlo, with his meditations and awareness that continue to the end. Fulvio Abbate’s Point of View knows how to assume the distance of the exiled Panormite, no matter how detached from the seething matrix from which he comes, and he does this by giving the whole a structured compactness that enhances its expressive power. On our journey we are accompanied by digressions and a detailed topography of the city, for Palermo is essentially the site of the history of that aristocracy, those actors who are incorrigibly Palermitan and come from a Panormite womb – Panormo, as already said, in Greek means “all port wine” – and therefore inevitably and definitively correspond to this place. And here we go beyond Palermo itself to insert reflections on mediocrity, value or non-value, which remains immanent, irreparable, planetary. It is these cadastral data that refer to these places in an almost hyper-realistic way., creating a kind of evocative scan that is both topographical and anthropological. The syntax is expressive and impeccable despite its irreverence, and the irony of the style makes for an enjoyable read without slackening. Abbate combines the smooth flow of oral storytelling with the high tone of literature, thus creating an effect of reality that enchants and seduces. A novel that is worth turning to as a textbook, a summary of stories in which you can feel a genuine literary pride that is difficult to recognize in current productions: something that resists impoverishment, simplification, to the abbreviations so widespread today, as well as to the pedantic brevity of some Italian authors who, by this means, imitate a supposed ethical-intellectual superiority. EmblemUltimately, this is a tribute to the great tradition of the twentieth century novel, authentic and uncompromising.