Serena Dandini (photo by Gianmarco Chieregato).
THEn these stormy lines that you honor with your affection I try in my own small way to stimulate what I consider the best therapy in these dark times, that is, the exercise of reading. Invigorating medicine which, depending on the moment, can have prodigious effects both as a tonic and as a mood tonic but in any case always capable of raising the defenses of our poor souls tried by the brutality of contemporary life.
If you don’t believe me, then I recommend the book of a master who with much more wisdom and authority will dispel any doubts in this regard. This is the indispensable The reader’s work. Because reading changes your life Of Piero Dorfles (Bompiani), literary critic and TV journalist who I consider one of the best popularizers of this hard “work” which, however, someone must do to prevent the human race from falling into barbarism.
It may seem apocalyptic to you but the exercise of reading differentiates us from animals and must be trained like a muscle like the biceps which are taken such care of in the tiring sessions in the gym that many undergo to improve their external appearance. But the internal one? Unfortunately it is often overlookedespecially in our country poor in readers.
Luckily with dedication and fun Piero Dorfles teaches us, just like a personal trainer, to approach this sport as old as the world with new interest which we can define as «…an experience that more easily pushes us to have imagination, to develop ideas, to imagine new things, to think of original solutions. Which allows us to separate the fullness of life from the emptiness of an irrational feeling; being from nothing.”
“The reader’s work. Why reading changes your life” by Piero Dorfles (Bompiani)
And to pique our curiosity the author catalogs in an ideal bignami many novels that have made the history of literaturedividing them into thematic chapters: we start from the festival of the inept man of which it is part The idiot by Dostoevsky, to the art of crime fiction, passing through my favorite which brings together the narratives in which “aunts” appear, more frequent characters than one imagines: and here there is no shortage of grim and authoritarian aunts from Jane Austen’s books and the vital and non-conformist one of Traveling with my aunt by Graham Greene who teaches us that “It takes an aunt to teach you how to get lost and forget.”
A breathtaking ride through many stories which bring back the desire to pick up again or inaugurate readings that we have never had the strength to tackle.
All articles by Serena Dandini.
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