Chonor that I attended the analysis sessions little. I don’t let him prideindeed, it would have been better for my mental health to face therapy like so many, but as I have often affirmed with a little arrogance On the other hand, I dedicated myself to gardeningwhich I considered an equally valid and certainly equally expensive cure.
Only today did I understand the real reason for this renunciation, and I understood it by reading the last beautiful novel by Mario Desiati, Malbianco (Einaudi). The protagonist, Marco Petrovici, a forty -year -old from Apulian who lived in Berlin, but has returned to his steps to the land of origin, frequently attends the specialists, wants to discover a rupture point in his past, The nebula that today – as an adult – causes him anxiety, panic attacks and inexplicable sudden fainting.
But it is difficult to get to the truth that is hidden, as often happens, behind a childhood trauma. This resistance rather than from a personal fear is born rather from the fear of hurting his family and betraying the secrets he holds.
Serena Dandini (photo by Gianmarco Chieregato).
It is inevitable to know the past from which we come to be able to free ourselves from the “malbianco” that afflicts more or less everyone in different waysbut the path backwards to discover our roots is impervious and very painful and it takes great courage to face it.
How to get rid of the “Malbianco”?
Here you are, Maybe I missed the courage to discover the abyss While hell, through his characters, undertakes this journey à rebours With tenderness and modesty, making us discover an incredible family full of mysteries.
“Malbianco” by Mario Desiati (Einaudi).
The novel is a cornucopia of stories and landscapes buried in the memory that return to live Thanks to the enchantment of writing. The woods around Taranto, a “contradictory, beautiful and damned city where Marco Petrovici returned to live, sometimes they turn into a fairytale scenario that recalls the magical and poetic realism of One hundred years of solitudeand one cannot but stay next to the protagonist from the first to the last page, learning to give a name to the swallows as his parents do or feel his breath walking at night in the woods with aunt Ada, an extraordinary female figure who during the course I also became my aunt of reading.
I will not tell you more, neither the plot, nor all the other wonderful ghosts that populate the book, I invite you to discover them alone, because The beautiful literature serves to give us the courage we have never hadhelping us to reflect on the relationship with our family even if we do not call ourselves Petrovici.
All articles by Serena Dandini.
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