Mmany readers ask me: but then, How does the story of Massimo Gramellini’s book end? The answer is inevitable: to know it, you have to read Massimo Gramellini’s book, Love is the whypublished by Longanesi.
And then maybe read the Symposium by Plato, which I remember as a nightmare because the feared professor Chiavolini of the classical high school of Alba, fiercely known as Lumumba due to a sinister resemblance to the father of Congolese independence, questioned us and made us translate it directly from Greek (I have completely unlearned Greek, but this training, which today would arouse strong protests from parents and perhaps investigations by the judiciary, was useful to me).
And in any case I want to give you another clue. Because, after having exposed Aristophanes’ thesis – the human being, halved by the gods out of envy, searches for his own half throughout his life – Gramellini stages the figure of Aspasia. And Aspasia’s idea of love is perhaps the most fascinating.
Aldo Cazzullo (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
«Eros, he states, is a demon. Demon is a beautiful word which over the centuries has been transformed into an insult, while for the Greeks it represented the bridge between man and the divine. And, of all the demons, love is the most important because it has the task of holding the universe together, connecting what we see with what we cannot see.”
“Love doesn’t have a why. Love is the why” by Massimo Gramellini (Longanesi)
Eros’ mother is Penìa, Poverty. The father is Poros, the Expedient. Love is desire, which seeks the means to translate into reality. Love, writes Gramellini, «is neither beautiful nor delicate. Love is hard, bristly, barefoot and homeless. He lies on the floor without blankets and sleeps outdoors, in front of doors and in the middle of the street. He is courageous, daring, impetuous, intriguing.”
It’s what we’ve all experienced, at least once in our lives. And it’s not true that our other half exists. There is a universe of people who meetthey evolve, they break up, sometimes they don’t know how to break up, they always change each other and often reproduce, with results that are never perfect but always exciting.
Do you want to share emotions, memories, reflections with us? Write to us at [email protected]
All articles by Aldo Cazzullo.