The chosen reading for February is "The Girl Who Wasn't Her" by Tommaso Pincio.
Scheduled for commentary on Monday, March 6, 2023 at the Marsilio Ficino Public Library in Figline.
THE PLOT.
In the company of a mysterious girl, a shocking one-way journey along the streets of a California ravaged by imagination, among hippie-era veterans and unlikely math geniuses, surfing philosophers, terrorists and people fleeing civilization, free sex and paranoia, Buddhism and hallucinogens.
It is a day like so many others in this meaningless age of ours. Sitting in a fast-food restaurant, over a glass of Coke, Laika Orbit is also a girl like many others. She is twenty-four years old, she is more than pretty. But she is not happy, she doesn't know why either. Today, then, she would like to be anyone but her, to be anywhere but not there. She wishes something would happen, and something does happen. A stranger strikes up a conversation and proposes that she run away. The man will drag her with him to a timeless fantasy world dominated by dust, in which, however, the ghosts of a stark reality lurk. And from that dusty and melancholy country the reader will be dragged along with Laika, without realizing how, into the bright and contradictory world of the 1960s, representing the stranger's childhood, between America and Europe. A world perhaps lost forever, or perhaps not, of which in any case the barren, endless land of dust may well represent the other side, the dark, hidden side of the moon.
"What was her place in the world? Had she ever broken someone's heart or was she just a dreamer? And if she was, what was it that she dreamed of? To be as small as a bacterium or to live a simple life like drugs, sex and rock & roll?"
"Maybe another world really is possible but first we have to find a way out of this one."
THE AUTHOR.
After attending the Academy of Fine Arts, he made his debut as a cartoonist and directed the Gian Enzo Sperone gallery until 2005. In the early 1990s he lived in New York working as an assistant to painter Jonathan Lasker; it was during this period that he began to approach writing. He made his debut as a novelist in 1996 with M.. He later published The Exhausted Space (2000) and A Love of the Other World (2002), a book that divided literary critics and with which the author gained notoriety. It chronicles the life of Kurt Cobain, leader of the rock band Nirvana, through the eyes of his imaginary friend. The Girl Who Wasn't Her, published in 2005, takes stock of what was lost and what remained of the 1960s dreams of love and freedom.
A three-time finalist for the Bergamo Prize (2006, 2016, and 2020), he is the only author with 7 titles in the Extended Canon (in addition to 2 in the Restricted Canon) of the 20-year period 2000-2019 drawn up by the 600 insiders convened by "L'Indiscreto" magazine, the only author with two titles in the Canon of the new millennium drawn up by "Crapula" magazine, and one of three authors to have two titles in the one drawn up by the critics of "La Balena Bianca" magazine.
The reading group is organized by the municipal libraries of Figline and Incisa Valdarno to enable local readers to share thoughts, emotions and reflections arising from a reading chosen in common with other enthusiasts. In fact, these are not group readings but shared readings that will be held until June 2023. Books read to date with the group: "Everything Calls for Salvation" by Daniele Mencarelli, "The Golden Glasses" by Giorgio Bassani, "Fried Green Tomatoes at Whistle Stop Coffee" by Fannie Flagg.
For information and reservations, contact the biliotechs directly:
Marsilio Ficino Municipal Library (Figline):
Tel: 0559125290/0559125291
E-mail: biblioteca.ficino@comunefiv.it/g.fanfani@comunefiv.it
Gilberto Rovai Municipal Library (Incisa):
Tel: 0559125445/0559125446
E-mail: biblioteca.rovai@comunefiv.it/g.fanfni@comunefiv.it
