V.mine. The title itself is deeply poignant, just like the story that Yari Selvetella tells in this splendid novel-memoir made of real lifeobsessively reasoned and that first of all speaks of love.
Yari Selvetella was born in Rome in 1976. Journalist, author and Rai correspondent. He has written many books and was a finalist for the Strega prize (photo © Rino Bianchi / Rosebud2)
Claudio, the protagonist, understands that loving is not enough, you have to learn how to do it. But life, unfortunately, what he teaches in his youth sometimes kidnaps him and takes it back at a mature age. A contradiction? Not at all. It takes skill and enthusiasm to love. It takes life, having a lot of it in front of you.
And Claudio, while still young, has kneaded many of love and pain. And he has noticed that often there is no leavening that he takes. In his story there is a great death, that of the woman he loves: G.. A woman who had two children and then had one with him too. And then there is a rebirth, with a new love and the arrival of another daughter.
This is the story of a great man who doesn’t realize he is. Who thinks he is like the others while deciding to keep, in addition to himself, also the children of G. A story that tells the joy and effort of building relationships that challenge prejudices: the family told by My livesin fact, it is not held together by blood ties, but by the choice of love that each one makes every day.
Yari Selvetella, Rai journalist, author of novels how The rules of lovers And The farewell rooms with this latest book he shows us what it means to explore memory and the meaning of living when life hits hard, without mercy.
“My lives” by Yari Selvetella, Mondadori pagg. 252, € 18.50.
He has written a book that talks about his experience but it can be a vademecum for everyone. A special man emerges, with the loving vocation of the pater familias. Is she like that?
I didn’t feel that attracted to the idea of becoming a father. Only over time did I discover the exponential nature of the love one feels for children: over the years, instead of fading, it deepens and expands. I understand that it is the only feeling that moves in this way. It is a difficult force to handle. Some, immediately, do not consider themselves up to par and abdicate. Others feel compelled to give all they have. This does not mean that they are immune from errors, sometimes even serious ones. The protagonist of this novel has many doubts. In this he certainly looks like me …
There is talk of burning love, which drives madness in that wonderful unconscious thrust that the French call the force majeure. How much does it cost to love like this?
As long as you can, you can drink, dance and love until late at night, without thinking about the next morning. Beyond that threshold is maturity, which is the time of awakening. But fortunately, not only the tastes, regrets and remorse, lost opportunities await us. Perhaps we can trade the lesser strength or some deficit of enthusiasm for the greater freedom that comes from conscious choices.
She devotes a chapter to non-reciprocal relationships and begins by saying that love requires efficiency.
All of us, as parents, spouses, children, life partners, often end up feeling like mere performers of performances. I have the impression that we all demand a lot but then we like to tell the story of unconditional love.
Simone Weil used to say: “As long as you remember a dead man alive, you will never have peace”. You who went through the mourning of a love, where are you today?
Mourning for millennia was channeled into very specific rituals, then it became taboo. In recent times it seems to me that we talk about it with greater freedom, albeit in a quick and superficial way. We accept to make a show and liquidate the shock of a loss but we are less confronted with the long internal dialectic triggered by mourning which instead continues to work even after years.
His character often has the impression of meeting his double on the street. What pathology is it?
Do you think that for this protagonist, after all, more than an evil it is a cure. We are similar to others more than we want to believe. Our uniqueness has been shattered for a long time: let’s relax, let’s try to retire our ghosts, let’s rediscover that we belong to humanity.
My lives they are all beloved lives, hers. She has four children ranging from 29 to six years. Has she been reborn every time?
I have “inherited” some children, I have found them already grown-ups, others I have seen them born. And the same happened to my partner. Do you know that no one in our family was born of the same parents? Of course we are different from others in this, but today, fortunately, the catalog is so wide that only very insecure people can pursue a certain normality as a myth or as an ideology.
His character is an extraordinarily caring man who prepares lunches, snacks, dinners, accompanies the children, goes to pick them up. Does she open her eyes too a minute before she rings the alarm?
It seems to me that we are already many, to get busy. And rightly so. Yes, anyway, I open my eyes before I wake up and I never know what to do with that minute.
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