Cwe are all looking for a meaning to give to existence – what an effort – but in the meantime we have to manage another one: that of guilt. It chases us everywhere, it distracts us above all from the only ones that matter: the five senses. But if there is a moment in which the faults disappear (and everything returns) it is when literature does its duty. It happens with books by Desy Icardi, Turin, 48 years old, creator of an intense pentalogy in which each novel celebrates a meaning while she, in the meantime, has lost one. Icardi is visually impaired and the cause is called Stargardt disease. Neither The midnight pastry chef (Fazi), the cycle ends by giving space to tastethe sense that here becomes the key to happiness.
Desy Icardi was born and lives in Turin. With “The Midnight Pastry Chef” you close the pentalogy on the five senses and the pleasure of reading begun in 2019. © 2021 Giliola CHISTE ‘
The midnight pastry chef by Desy Icardi
We are in the middle of the First World War and Turin is the scene of riots: the protagonist, a lawyer who escaped the draft due to his frail physique, finds Jolanda againa beautiful aristocrat who his mother wanted him to marry. But now everything has changed except Jolanda’s talent in the kitchen. In the past he had hidden it, but now he shows it off: if for many people eating only serves as refreshment, for others it doesn’t. «It is in the flavor», we read, «that treasures far more precious than mere survival are hidden».
For Jolanda, cooking becomes a way to discover a part of herself and make peace with the past. And for her?
Taste, like reading, is a bridge to the past. I love certain traditional foods because I find the flavor of my childhood. However, I am also passionate about Indian cuisine and I love desserts. My favorite cake is “red velvet” and when faced with meringues I lose control.
The protagonist, the lawyer and reader Edmondo Ferro, is one hundred years old and wants to live another three to be able to write on the tombstone, under his name, “a century of reading”.
I chose an elderly man to express the love of books: he, like reading, represents continuity with what has already been. Even when we read a contemporary novel we move into the past, to when the book was written.
The city was overwhelmed by the bread riots of 1917, an event that Italy covered up despite the 50 deaths. In those days Ferro joins the ladies of charity in a soup kitchen and there he meets Jolanda. The women seem to emerge victorious in this story.
The First World War was decisive for women’s emancipation: maids left the bourgeois homes in which they worked without prospects, to replace men in the factories. The offices were filled with employees and even tram drivers and postmen were hired. At the end of the war many lost their jobs, giving them back to the men who returned from the front, but a new era began for women. The history of women’s emancipation is characterized by steps forward and sudden stops. Today’s sad news events are confirmation: although a lot of progress has been made, it is impossible to let our guard down.
What does Jolanda represent with her ghosts and her repressed talent?
She is a victim of her time which imposes on her the role of the wealthy woman for whom cooking is an inappropriate activity. Jolanda is apparently privileged but in reality she has never been able to choose for herself.
The Midnight Pastry Chef by Desy Icardi, Fazi336 pages, €17
Turin and the 20th century are always present in the pentalogy, why?
I observe the city in which I live with curiosity because it is enigmatic, rational and even bizarre, but above all it knows how to be welcoming: it is an excellent hostess, ready to tell its stories and listen to new ones. The choice of the 20th century was dictated by the memory of the stories of relatives and friends who marked my growth.
«They got back together, but they didn’t live happily ever after. Let’s say that they lived through ups and downs alongside each other like millions of other couples… »she reads. Every story always turns out to be a love story in the end. What is love for her?
The key to understanding love is found in this book: it is love that binds writer and reader. Which here is between Edmondo Ferro, in the unprecedented guise of a writer, and his silent maid Marianna, the one who first reads his literary experiments. Theirs is an authentic, disinterested love. When I read a novel and connect with its author it’s as if I found my soulmate in the purest sense of the term. With the books closed, in everyday life, my points of reference are my partner, my mother and some dear friends.
How was the pentalogy born?
I have always understood reading as a multisensory experience. I love stories that make me perceive scents, textures, flavors and sounds. I will always be grateful to the first, The book sniffer, for giving me the attention of readers but of the five my favorite remains The Library of Whispers. It deals with the most important and undervalued sense from a social point of view, namely hearing. I for one don’t grow it properly. Good listening skills are the key to making life more interesting and less complicated.
How much did your illness influence your writing?
It forced me to think about sensoriality, obviously. The world is designed for those who have all five senses in “good condition”. Just think of the signs on bus shelters, visible to those with average vision. Living with compromised meaning forces you to implement alternative strategies, activate lateral thinking and become more creative. From this point of view, disability can become an asset, even if I would gladly do without getting on the wrong bus or sticking my nose in the windows. I take it with irony, and I don’t forget to put the plasters in my purse.
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