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Perfection
Millennial expat couple Anna and Tom are living the dream in Berlin, in a bright, plant-filled apartment in Neukölln. They are young digital creatives, freelancers without too many constraints. They have a passion for food, progressive politics, sexual experimentation and Berlin's twenty-four-hour party scene. Their ideal existence is also that of an entire generation, lived out on Instagram, but outside the images they create for themselves, dissatisfaction and ennui burgeon. Their work as graphic designers becomes repetitive. Friends move back home, have children, grow up. An attempt at political activism during the refugee crisis proves fruitless. And in that picture-perfect life Anna and Tom feel increasingly trapped, yearning for an authenticity and a sense of purpose that seem perennially just out of their grasp. With the stylistic mastery of Georges Perec and nihilism of Michel Houellebecq,Perfection, translated by Sophie Hughes, is a sociological novel about the emptiness of contemporary existence, beautifully written, brilliantly scathing.
112 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 22, 2022
514 people are currently reading
12.2k people want to read
About the author
Vincenzo Latronico
46books87followersNasce a Roma e si laurea in Filosofia all'Università degli studi di Milano con Paolo Valore (con una tesi riguardo agli argomenti ontologici a sostegno dell'esistenza di Dio). Lavora come traduttore a opere di P. G. Wodehouse, Hanif Kureishi (con Ivan Cotroneo), Daniel Spoerri, A.R. Ammons, Max Beerbohm, Francis Scott Fitzgerald e Rudolf Carnap (con Renato Pettoello).
Nel 2008 pubblica il romanzo d'esordio Ginnastica e Rivoluzione (Bompiani), cui segue La cospirazione delle colombe (Bompiani 2011).
Sempre per Bompiani ha pubblicato, nel giugno 2009, un testo teatrale: Linee guida sulla ferocia, con Rosella Postorino e Chiara Valerio. In inglese ha pubblicato i libri Remedies to the absence of Reiner Ruthenbeck (Archive Books, 2011) (tradotto anche in tedesco ed italiano) e Criticism as fiction? (Kailedoscope press, 2011).
Ha condotto per un anno una rubrica satirica, dal titolo Mai più soli, su Radio Onda d'Urto, all'interno della trasmissione di libri Flatlandia, rubrica ispirata da Kurt Vonnegut. Ha curato una sezione letteraria nell'edizione 2010 di Artissima. Ha scritto di arte su Domus, Kaleidoscope, Flash Art e frieze, e collabora con La Lettura del Corriere della Sera.
Suoi racconti ed interventi sono stati scritti per la Rivista italiana di filosofia analitica junior, Fondazione Novecento, Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci di Prato, Agenzia X, Io Donna, Il primo amore, Nazione indiana, il manifesto.
Latronico è uno dei protagonisti del romanzo dello scrittore portoghese João Tordo Il buon inverno, edito da Cavallo di Ferro nel 2011. Latronico, che nella storia è dipinto come arrogante e malefico, si è difeso sulle pagine della rivista letteraria "doppiozero" raccontando l'accaduto.
Nel 2008 pubblica il romanzo d'esordio Ginnastica e Rivoluzione (Bompiani), cui segue La cospirazione delle colombe (Bompiani 2011).
Sempre per Bompiani ha pubblicato, nel giugno 2009, un testo teatrale: Linee guida sulla ferocia, con Rosella Postorino e Chiara Valerio. In inglese ha pubblicato i libri Remedies to the absence of Reiner Ruthenbeck (Archive Books, 2011) (tradotto anche in tedesco ed italiano) e Criticism as fiction? (Kailedoscope press, 2011).
Ha condotto per un anno una rubrica satirica, dal titolo Mai più soli, su Radio Onda d'Urto, all'interno della trasmissione di libri Flatlandia, rubrica ispirata da Kurt Vonnegut. Ha curato una sezione letteraria nell'edizione 2010 di Artissima. Ha scritto di arte su Domus, Kaleidoscope, Flash Art e frieze, e collabora con La Lettura del Corriere della Sera.
Suoi racconti ed interventi sono stati scritti per la Rivista italiana di filosofia analitica junior, Fondazione Novecento, Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci di Prato, Agenzia X, Io Donna, Il primo amore, Nazione indiana, il manifesto.
Latronico è uno dei protagonisti del romanzo dello scrittore portoghese João Tordo Il buon inverno, edito da Cavallo di Ferro nel 2011. Latronico, che nella storia è dipinto come arrogante e malefico, si è difeso sulle pagine della rivista letteraria "doppiozero" raccontando l'accaduto.
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April 9, 2025
Update 09.04: Now shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025
I am bit surprised by the jury's decision but not unpleased. It can become a classic for the millennial generation. Now, I need to read its inspiration The Things by Georges Perec, an authority of the Oulipo movement.
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025
Books 2/13
Translated from Italian in English by Sophie Hughes
Perfection is a novel about two millennials working in Berlin, living the live but not feeling entirely fulfilled.
The novels starts with the description of an apartment, like a theatre setting. There are many plants, a work space etc. It is the place where the two main characters, Anna and Tom, live and work. “But it is also a life with room for joy, which is clear from every little detail. The long days are followed by a man¬datory hour offline to go out for a drink or flick through a magazine while curled up on the sofa, shielded from the cold. Beauty and pleasure seem as inextricable from daily life as particles suspended in a liquid.�
“Anna and Tom were creative professionals, a term even they found vague and jarring. Their exact titles varied depending on the job, but they were always in English, even in their native language: web developer, graphic designer, online brand strategist. What they created were differences� They work a lot but they also find time to enjoy the city. “The time that did not disappear through work was taken up by the city. Berlin was, to all intents and pur¬poses, their main pastime � exploring it, understanding it, feeling part of it. In a way it defined them much more than their profession did. They liked their work but not enough to give more to it than was absolutely necessary. They had fallen into the job. Berlin, on the other hand, they had chosen.�
As many millennials, they are addicted with social media and they search for meaning in Instagram posts. “These new emotions weren’t all negative. What was that rush they would get after a particularly popular post? And the itch that made them look up from their work ev¬ery twenty seconds, every minute, to refresh the page and watch the number of likes clock up, as if it were a stock ticker or a scoreboard? They felt it every day, and yet that feeling had no name. It wasn’t a scoreboard � there was no prize at the end. Financially speaking, it had very little impact, if any. Fifty-year-old sociologists would talk about narcissism, but they were only talking about them¬selves. Pop-neuroscience journalists would write about it in terms of drug and sugar addiction and depression�
Even if they have a solid relationship, well paid work and an interesting social life, they are not exactly happy. “From the outside, it was easy enough to identify the cause of their alienation, but to them, paradoxically, no explanation revealed itself. Anna and Tom lived in a bubble, one even more insular and limited than those just starting to appear on social media. In a way, they had become radicalized. They spoke stumbling English with other non-native English speakers. They inhabited a world where everyone accepted a line of coke, where no one was a doctor or a baker or a taxi driver or a middle school teacher. They spent all their time in plant-filled apartments and cafés with excellent wifi. In the long run it was inevitable they would convince themselves that nothing else existed.�
It was also hard for them to think about the future and find a purpose: “The future appeared out of focus. They couldn’t imag¬ine it being substantially different to their current life � so smooth and manicured � which itself made it seem rather abstract and unenticing. They had grown up in the shadow of the turbulent sixties and seventies; their grandparents had lived through the war and been tossed about by the raging seas of a century that had now ended, leaving only calm in its wake, as far as the eye could see. They would have liked to have been in their twenties for the summer of �68 or when the Wall fell. Previous gener¬ations had had a much easier time working out who they were and what they stood for. The problems back then might have been more urgent, but they also had clearer solutions. Now there were too many choices, with each one leading off on endless branches, preventing any real change. Their idea of a revolutionary future didn’t go be¬yond gender balance on corporate boards, electric cars, vegetarianism�
As another millennial, I found a few similarities between Anna/Tom and me. I am fascinated by Berlin, it even has its own shelf here. I appreciate “IPAs from local microbreweries� and I cannot start my day without the “The smell of freshly ground, single-origin, lightly roasted coffee would waft from chunky brown and white porcelain cups.�. My social media of choice might be ŷ instead of Instagram/Facebook but I still spend too much time on it. I have some of their existential questions although I have a completely different life in other aspects. What I mean is, that I could empathise and it made me ponder a lot more about this novel than if I had been of another age.
I read the novel in English and listened to it in Italian. I thought that the translation was excellent, and managed to keep the tone as it was intended in the original language.
I am bit surprised by the jury's decision but not unpleased. It can become a classic for the millennial generation. Now, I need to read its inspiration The Things by Georges Perec, an authority of the Oulipo movement.
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025
Books 2/13
Translated from Italian in English by Sophie Hughes
Perfection is a novel about two millennials working in Berlin, living the live but not feeling entirely fulfilled.
The novels starts with the description of an apartment, like a theatre setting. There are many plants, a work space etc. It is the place where the two main characters, Anna and Tom, live and work. “But it is also a life with room for joy, which is clear from every little detail. The long days are followed by a man¬datory hour offline to go out for a drink or flick through a magazine while curled up on the sofa, shielded from the cold. Beauty and pleasure seem as inextricable from daily life as particles suspended in a liquid.�
“Anna and Tom were creative professionals, a term even they found vague and jarring. Their exact titles varied depending on the job, but they were always in English, even in their native language: web developer, graphic designer, online brand strategist. What they created were differences� They work a lot but they also find time to enjoy the city. “The time that did not disappear through work was taken up by the city. Berlin was, to all intents and pur¬poses, their main pastime � exploring it, understanding it, feeling part of it. In a way it defined them much more than their profession did. They liked their work but not enough to give more to it than was absolutely necessary. They had fallen into the job. Berlin, on the other hand, they had chosen.�
As many millennials, they are addicted with social media and they search for meaning in Instagram posts. “These new emotions weren’t all negative. What was that rush they would get after a particularly popular post? And the itch that made them look up from their work ev¬ery twenty seconds, every minute, to refresh the page and watch the number of likes clock up, as if it were a stock ticker or a scoreboard? They felt it every day, and yet that feeling had no name. It wasn’t a scoreboard � there was no prize at the end. Financially speaking, it had very little impact, if any. Fifty-year-old sociologists would talk about narcissism, but they were only talking about them¬selves. Pop-neuroscience journalists would write about it in terms of drug and sugar addiction and depression�
Even if they have a solid relationship, well paid work and an interesting social life, they are not exactly happy. “From the outside, it was easy enough to identify the cause of their alienation, but to them, paradoxically, no explanation revealed itself. Anna and Tom lived in a bubble, one even more insular and limited than those just starting to appear on social media. In a way, they had become radicalized. They spoke stumbling English with other non-native English speakers. They inhabited a world where everyone accepted a line of coke, where no one was a doctor or a baker or a taxi driver or a middle school teacher. They spent all their time in plant-filled apartments and cafés with excellent wifi. In the long run it was inevitable they would convince themselves that nothing else existed.�
It was also hard for them to think about the future and find a purpose: “The future appeared out of focus. They couldn’t imag¬ine it being substantially different to their current life � so smooth and manicured � which itself made it seem rather abstract and unenticing. They had grown up in the shadow of the turbulent sixties and seventies; their grandparents had lived through the war and been tossed about by the raging seas of a century that had now ended, leaving only calm in its wake, as far as the eye could see. They would have liked to have been in their twenties for the summer of �68 or when the Wall fell. Previous gener¬ations had had a much easier time working out who they were and what they stood for. The problems back then might have been more urgent, but they also had clearer solutions. Now there were too many choices, with each one leading off on endless branches, preventing any real change. Their idea of a revolutionary future didn’t go be¬yond gender balance on corporate boards, electric cars, vegetarianism�
As another millennial, I found a few similarities between Anna/Tom and me. I am fascinated by Berlin, it even has its own shelf here. I appreciate “IPAs from local microbreweries� and I cannot start my day without the “The smell of freshly ground, single-origin, lightly roasted coffee would waft from chunky brown and white porcelain cups.�. My social media of choice might be ŷ instead of Instagram/Facebook but I still spend too much time on it. I have some of their existential questions although I have a completely different life in other aspects. What I mean is, that I could empathise and it made me ponder a lot more about this novel than if I had been of another age.
I read the novel in English and listened to it in Italian. I thought that the translation was excellent, and managed to keep the tone as it was intended in the original language.
Read
April 4, 2025While writing this review, I was more than usually aware that I would be posting it on this website, where, every time I refreshed the page, I'd hope to find that it had clocked up some Likes and comments, each of which would give me a little rush.
That awareness leads me to think about how big a role the 'little rush' plays in my reading life—indeed in my life in general. What would I do if I couldn't write reviews anymore? Would I read differently, maybe give less thought to what I read since I wouldn't have an audience for my post-reading thoughts and discoveries?
Then I wondered what sort of person I have become that I don't read in the privacy of my mind anymore but need to air every reading thought I have in public? But at least I'm producing something with all this, I tell myself. I'm writing a reflection on books every week, and that can't be bad for my psyche, can it?
And so I feel grateful to live in this moment in time that allows me to write and be read, and to discuss and learn from GR friends' review writing and reading. After all, we can't all have review columns in newspapers as Virginia Woolf and many other committed readers did in the past. Readers like us could never have aspired to writing reviews in newspapers!
If you're wondering why this book prompted so much soul-searching, it's because it is about two people who live almost their entire lives on the internet. They are a couple, Anna and Tom, who work from home as graphic designers for websites—which means that every minute of their work day is spent online, and any breaks from work tasks are spent checking their social media profiles for Likes and comments on the well-curated images of their well-curated lifestyle which they constantly post on their social media platforms.
When they are not checking their own profiles, they are searching their virtual friends' feeds for new life-style trends, whether in furnishings, cooking, art exhibitions, or holiday destinations, which they then incorporate into their own lifestyle choices, ordering more and more trending 'things' for their apartment, refining their images of their lives further and further in the search for some ideal of perfection, a search that takes them from Berlin to Lisbon, where there are great sunsets but the food chosen from the laminated menus full of garish photos is served on grubby formica tables, and from Lisbon to Sicily, where the scenery is fabulous but the airbnb is dark and dusty and "crammed with what could only be a dead relative’s furniture", and then back to Berlin because, you've guessed it, the perfect lifestyle is not as easy to create in reality as it is on social media posts. But Berlin isn't the end of the road for Anna and Tom, and Real Life steps in and redirects their lives in an unexpected way.
This book is something of a reality check for the way we live now and yet the really surprising thing is that it was inspired by and based closely on a book from the 1960s—long before internet screens and social media. That book, by French writer Georges Perec, was called (The Things).
Perec's book is about a couple called Jérôme and Sylvie who aspired to a particular lifestyle—a classic apartment in the heart of Paris full of rich fabrics, precious objects, fine art, and beautifully bound books.
Perec used a documentary style in presenting the couple and their lives, the narration like a camera panning across their surroundings with little close-ups of their day-to-day activities but never giving much glimpse of the interior thoughts of his two characters—they never speak—so that at the end of the book, they remain as opaque as they were at the beginning. He uses the conditional tense for the first part in which he outlines the life-style the couple aspired to, the present tense for the second part, and the future tense for the final part, their projected future.
Vincenzo Latronico does exactly the same thing—even to the three tenses and the lack of dialogue. And while we hear a lot about Anna and Tom's life, just as in Perec's book, we don't ever get to know them as people. The skill and discipline shown by both authors as they continually keep their characters at a distance from themselves and from us makes their texts a treat to read. At the end of Vincenzo Latronico's book, I still saw Anna and Tom as the blank avatars they were at the beginning, one short-haired, one shoulder length, both in dark grey on a pale grey background.
..................................
I think it was interesting that Anna and Tom's story finished in 2019 when they seemed to have finally found their perfect lifestyle (far from Berlin) because the reader is aware of how their ultimate choice of a way to live would be impacted by the 2020 pandemic, something the author must have been aware of too because he wrote this book during 2020/2021 when he himself must have been living the isolating life he gave his characters though he had situated their story during the ten years leading up to it.
That awareness leads me to think about how big a role the 'little rush' plays in my reading life—indeed in my life in general. What would I do if I couldn't write reviews anymore? Would I read differently, maybe give less thought to what I read since I wouldn't have an audience for my post-reading thoughts and discoveries?
Then I wondered what sort of person I have become that I don't read in the privacy of my mind anymore but need to air every reading thought I have in public? But at least I'm producing something with all this, I tell myself. I'm writing a reflection on books every week, and that can't be bad for my psyche, can it?
And so I feel grateful to live in this moment in time that allows me to write and be read, and to discuss and learn from GR friends' review writing and reading. After all, we can't all have review columns in newspapers as Virginia Woolf and many other committed readers did in the past. Readers like us could never have aspired to writing reviews in newspapers!
If you're wondering why this book prompted so much soul-searching, it's because it is about two people who live almost their entire lives on the internet. They are a couple, Anna and Tom, who work from home as graphic designers for websites—which means that every minute of their work day is spent online, and any breaks from work tasks are spent checking their social media profiles for Likes and comments on the well-curated images of their well-curated lifestyle which they constantly post on their social media platforms.
When they are not checking their own profiles, they are searching their virtual friends' feeds for new life-style trends, whether in furnishings, cooking, art exhibitions, or holiday destinations, which they then incorporate into their own lifestyle choices, ordering more and more trending 'things' for their apartment, refining their images of their lives further and further in the search for some ideal of perfection, a search that takes them from Berlin to Lisbon, where there are great sunsets but the food chosen from the laminated menus full of garish photos is served on grubby formica tables, and from Lisbon to Sicily, where the scenery is fabulous but the airbnb is dark and dusty and "crammed with what could only be a dead relative’s furniture", and then back to Berlin because, you've guessed it, the perfect lifestyle is not as easy to create in reality as it is on social media posts. But Berlin isn't the end of the road for Anna and Tom, and Real Life steps in and redirects their lives in an unexpected way.
This book is something of a reality check for the way we live now and yet the really surprising thing is that it was inspired by and based closely on a book from the 1960s—long before internet screens and social media. That book, by French writer Georges Perec, was called (The Things).
Perec's book is about a couple called Jérôme and Sylvie who aspired to a particular lifestyle—a classic apartment in the heart of Paris full of rich fabrics, precious objects, fine art, and beautifully bound books.
Perec used a documentary style in presenting the couple and their lives, the narration like a camera panning across their surroundings with little close-ups of their day-to-day activities but never giving much glimpse of the interior thoughts of his two characters—they never speak—so that at the end of the book, they remain as opaque as they were at the beginning. He uses the conditional tense for the first part in which he outlines the life-style the couple aspired to, the present tense for the second part, and the future tense for the final part, their projected future.
Vincenzo Latronico does exactly the same thing—even to the three tenses and the lack of dialogue. And while we hear a lot about Anna and Tom's life, just as in Perec's book, we don't ever get to know them as people. The skill and discipline shown by both authors as they continually keep their characters at a distance from themselves and from us makes their texts a treat to read. At the end of Vincenzo Latronico's book, I still saw Anna and Tom as the blank avatars they were at the beginning, one short-haired, one shoulder length, both in dark grey on a pale grey background.
..................................
I think it was interesting that Anna and Tom's story finished in 2019 when they seemed to have finally found their perfect lifestyle (far from Berlin) because the reader is aware of how their ultimate choice of a way to live would be impacted by the 2020 pandemic, something the author must have been aware of too because he wrote this book during 2020/2021 when he himself must have been living the isolating life he gave his characters though he had situated their story during the ten years leading up to it.
August 24, 2023
SPATRIATI
Breve romanzo su una coppia di italiani espatriati. Emigrazione intellettuale, per scelta più che per necessità. Anche se si capisce che la patria è sonnolenta e offre meno chance di crescita professionale. “Spatriati� per avventura, per curiosità, per inquietudine: via da Roma (o da Milano?) verso Berlino, quando partono hanno entrambi più di ventitrè e meno di trenta.
La città tedesca viene raccontata come una Parigi degli anni Venti, piena di stimoli sollecitazioni incontri. Anche se il loro tedesco rimane sempre insufficiente, e anche l’inglese è meno che “fluent�.
Presentato allo Strega di quest’anno (nella dozzina) con questa motivazione (tra altre): Lo propongo per la scrittura, così precisa da mettere in comunicazione e a nudo i protagonisti senza mai farli dialogare: non una parola tra virgolette.
Aspetto che per me rappresenta un valore aggiunto. È stato un primo incontro con la scrittura di Latronico più che positivo.
Anna e Tom erano dei creativi. Il termine sembrava vago e urticante anche a loro. I loro titoli professionali variavano ma anche in patria sarebbero stati in inglese � web developer, graphic designer, online brand strategist. Quello che creavano erano differenze� Fanno per soldi quello che un tempo avevano fatto per passione
Diviso in quattro capitoli, Presente, Imperfetto, Remoto, Futuro, che rappresentano quattro fasi della loro vita e sono raccontate ricorrendo perlopiù a quel tempo verbale. Anche questo è un aspetto che mi ha colpito positivamente.
Di Anna e Tom Latronico ci racconta la vita professionale, vissuta fianco a fianco, da casa (in smart working?), senza cartellini da timbrare, neppure figurativamente, ma scadenze, consegne.
Latronico ci racconta la loro ovvia attenzione all’estetica, a cominciare da quella domestica, anche se l’appartamento che affittano è già completamente arredato. La loro vita sociale, a cominciare da quella sui social, che costituisce attività quotidiana sin dal risveglio, senza mai abbandonare cellulare e tablet. La loro vita sessuale, in pagine molto belle e attente (come tutte le altre, d’altronde). La loro vita gastronomica, con una tendenza al vegetariano, forse più per trend che vera scelta.
Inseguono la perfezione? Forse inseguono la soddisfazione, la realizzazione, un’esistenza da “persone normali� che non vogliono essere normali. Senza volerla per forza chiamare felicità.
E quando si accorgono che
Le loro giornate passeranno a spostare di qualche millimetro una guida, a bilanciare i toni cromatici di un’interfaccia responsive in base alle particolarità dei vari display, a elaborare ennesime variazioni sugli stili visivi in voga�
Anche Berlino comincia ad andargli stretta. Seguono tentativi di trasferimento, di nuova partenza, qualche mese a Lisbona, qualche altro nel “Chiantishire� siciliano, per poi approdare nel Salento.
E vattelapesca quale sarà la prossima tappa. Ma mi viene da credere che un’altra ci sarà. Perché, casa è ovunque, ma anche da nessuna parte.
Breve romanzo su una coppia di italiani espatriati. Emigrazione intellettuale, per scelta più che per necessità. Anche se si capisce che la patria è sonnolenta e offre meno chance di crescita professionale. “Spatriati� per avventura, per curiosità, per inquietudine: via da Roma (o da Milano?) verso Berlino, quando partono hanno entrambi più di ventitrè e meno di trenta.
La città tedesca viene raccontata come una Parigi degli anni Venti, piena di stimoli sollecitazioni incontri. Anche se il loro tedesco rimane sempre insufficiente, e anche l’inglese è meno che “fluent�.
Presentato allo Strega di quest’anno (nella dozzina) con questa motivazione (tra altre): Lo propongo per la scrittura, così precisa da mettere in comunicazione e a nudo i protagonisti senza mai farli dialogare: non una parola tra virgolette.
Aspetto che per me rappresenta un valore aggiunto. È stato un primo incontro con la scrittura di Latronico più che positivo.
Anna e Tom erano dei creativi. Il termine sembrava vago e urticante anche a loro. I loro titoli professionali variavano ma anche in patria sarebbero stati in inglese � web developer, graphic designer, online brand strategist. Quello che creavano erano differenze� Fanno per soldi quello che un tempo avevano fatto per passione
Diviso in quattro capitoli, Presente, Imperfetto, Remoto, Futuro, che rappresentano quattro fasi della loro vita e sono raccontate ricorrendo perlopiù a quel tempo verbale. Anche questo è un aspetto che mi ha colpito positivamente.
Di Anna e Tom Latronico ci racconta la vita professionale, vissuta fianco a fianco, da casa (in smart working?), senza cartellini da timbrare, neppure figurativamente, ma scadenze, consegne.
Latronico ci racconta la loro ovvia attenzione all’estetica, a cominciare da quella domestica, anche se l’appartamento che affittano è già completamente arredato. La loro vita sociale, a cominciare da quella sui social, che costituisce attività quotidiana sin dal risveglio, senza mai abbandonare cellulare e tablet. La loro vita sessuale, in pagine molto belle e attente (come tutte le altre, d’altronde). La loro vita gastronomica, con una tendenza al vegetariano, forse più per trend che vera scelta.
Inseguono la perfezione? Forse inseguono la soddisfazione, la realizzazione, un’esistenza da “persone normali� che non vogliono essere normali. Senza volerla per forza chiamare felicità.
E quando si accorgono che
Le loro giornate passeranno a spostare di qualche millimetro una guida, a bilanciare i toni cromatici di un’interfaccia responsive in base alle particolarità dei vari display, a elaborare ennesime variazioni sugli stili visivi in voga�
Anche Berlino comincia ad andargli stretta. Seguono tentativi di trasferimento, di nuova partenza, qualche mese a Lisbona, qualche altro nel “Chiantishire� siciliano, per poi approdare nel Salento.
E vattelapesca quale sarà la prossima tappa. Ma mi viene da credere che un’altra ci sarà. Perché, casa è ovunque, ma anche da nessuna parte.
March 22, 2022
Ho imparato il nome di molte zone di Berlino. E di parecchie piante d'appartamento. Posso fermarmi qua.
April 8, 2025
Now shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025!
Seriously enjoyed this short snapshot of life from the expat/hipster/creative/digital nomad perspective. The prose is cutting and fun, and hits just close enough at home to be both hilarious and kind of uncomfortable to any millennial
Home fermentation, socials, rave parties, contemplating threesomes, IPAs, genmaicha, rooftop bars of Sohohouse but not having a pension plan; I found this novel a whirlwind of zoomed in observations on millennial life and the emptiness seemingly perfectly curated Instagram posts can hardly hide. It's like or ’s , but with more of a narrative, more interesting and shorter.
Devilishly fun and scathing, drawing uncomfortable comparisons in the difference our society makes between expats and migrants. The general vapidness of modern day life, the corrosiveness of wanting an instagram proof life, and the lack of real money and security despite all the glitz and glamour on the socials, make this a highly recommended read.
Added bonus: easily read in a day, ideal for all our digitally reduced attention spans!
Dutch quotes and observations which I found both hilarious and sometimes too close to home for comfort:
Anna en Tom, creatieve professionals in Berlijn, waar ze geen Duits spreken
Een identieke behoefte naar een ander leven
De stad definieerde hen veel meer dan hun beroep
Een verlaat Erasmus verblijf
Boven de 23 maar onder de 30
Ze voelden ze zich decadent en benijdenswaardig
Seksuele onzekerheid en de drang om een triootje te doen om erbij te horen.
Ze waren bang dat ze tevreden waren omdat ze zich er op de een of andere wijze mee tevreden hadden gesteld
Het kon verlangen zijn of het verlangens naar verlangen
Socials als basis voor werk en feestjes, een essentieel deel van het leven
Dingen die ergens in de wereld gebeurd waren, dat wil zeggen California of New York
Thuis fermentation en geflambeerde bloemkool, IPAs en single origin koffies, dagmenu’s op leisteen
The Guardian en de New Yorker, de New York Times
Gentrificatie, een term die alleen maar bekend was bij mensen die het veroorzaakten
Een jasmijnthee of een venkel infusie
Die weemoed was een beetje hypocriet
Genmaicha en kombucha
De sauna van de Sohohouse
Van Lissabon naar Sicilie, op zoek naar het nieuwe Berlijn
Permanente ontevredenheid over het leven wat permanent vergeleken wordt met de timelines van klasgenoten
Fear of being replaced by AI
Longlist International Booker Prize 2025 ranking
Shortlisted books in bold
1 - 4.5 stars rounded up, review here: /review/show...
2 - 4.5 stars rounded down, review here: /review/show...
3 - 4 stars, review here: /review/show...
4 - 4 stars, review here: /review/show...
5 - 3.5 stars rounded up, review here: /review/show...
6 - 3.5 stars rounded down, review here:
/review/show...
7 - 3 stars, review here: /review/show...
8 - 3 stars, review here: /review/show...
9 - 3 stars, review here: /review/show...
10 - 3 stars, review here: /review/show...
11 - 2.5 stars rounded up, review here: /review/show...
12 - 2.5 stars rounded up, review here: /review/show...
13 - 2.5 stars rounded up, review here: /review/show...
Seriously enjoyed this short snapshot of life from the expat/hipster/creative/digital nomad perspective. The prose is cutting and fun, and hits just close enough at home to be both hilarious and kind of uncomfortable to any millennial
Home fermentation, socials, rave parties, contemplating threesomes, IPAs, genmaicha, rooftop bars of Sohohouse but not having a pension plan; I found this novel a whirlwind of zoomed in observations on millennial life and the emptiness seemingly perfectly curated Instagram posts can hardly hide. It's like or ’s , but with more of a narrative, more interesting and shorter.
Devilishly fun and scathing, drawing uncomfortable comparisons in the difference our society makes between expats and migrants. The general vapidness of modern day life, the corrosiveness of wanting an instagram proof life, and the lack of real money and security despite all the glitz and glamour on the socials, make this a highly recommended read.
Added bonus: easily read in a day, ideal for all our digitally reduced attention spans!
Dutch quotes and observations which I found both hilarious and sometimes too close to home for comfort:
Anna en Tom, creatieve professionals in Berlijn, waar ze geen Duits spreken
Een identieke behoefte naar een ander leven
De stad definieerde hen veel meer dan hun beroep
Een verlaat Erasmus verblijf
Boven de 23 maar onder de 30
Ze voelden ze zich decadent en benijdenswaardig
Seksuele onzekerheid en de drang om een triootje te doen om erbij te horen.
Ze waren bang dat ze tevreden waren omdat ze zich er op de een of andere wijze mee tevreden hadden gesteld
Het kon verlangen zijn of het verlangens naar verlangen
Socials als basis voor werk en feestjes, een essentieel deel van het leven
Dingen die ergens in de wereld gebeurd waren, dat wil zeggen California of New York
Thuis fermentation en geflambeerde bloemkool, IPAs en single origin koffies, dagmenu’s op leisteen
The Guardian en de New Yorker, de New York Times
Gentrificatie, een term die alleen maar bekend was bij mensen die het veroorzaakten
Een jasmijnthee of een venkel infusie
Die weemoed was een beetje hypocriet
Genmaicha en kombucha
De sauna van de Sohohouse
Van Lissabon naar Sicilie, op zoek naar het nieuwe Berlijn
Permanente ontevredenheid over het leven wat permanent vergeleken wordt met de timelines van klasgenoten
Fear of being replaced by AI
Longlist International Booker Prize 2025 ranking
Shortlisted books in bold
1 - 4.5 stars rounded up, review here: /review/show...
2 - 4.5 stars rounded down, review here: /review/show...
3 - 4 stars, review here: /review/show...
4 - 4 stars, review here: /review/show...
5 - 3.5 stars rounded up, review here: /review/show...
6 - 3.5 stars rounded down, review here:
/review/show...
7 - 3 stars, review here: /review/show...
8 - 3 stars, review here: /review/show...
9 - 3 stars, review here: /review/show...
10 - 3 stars, review here: /review/show...
11 - 2.5 stars rounded up, review here: /review/show...
12 - 2.5 stars rounded up, review here: /review/show...
13 - 2.5 stars rounded up, review here: /review/show...
April 9, 2025
Now Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025
Very much a Berlin novel - and, at the same time, not a Berlin novel: Latronico, an Italian living in Berlin, gives us a young Italian couple who moves from Italy to Berlin, and then proceeds to not live there - Tom and Anna hardly spend time with Germans, they mostly speak English and are part of a fluid community of expats, they get their news from international sources and remain partly in Italy via their social media feeds. They arrive at the heyday of the Berlin hype, after the fall of the Berlin wall when the city seemed to be vast and full of opportunities, and live through gentrification, before they chase their youth in Portugal and Sicily. Because yes: A lot of what they experience is simply called aging, growing out of a community and phase in life, in this case a nomadic escapist life as digital freelancers.
The protagonists with their generic names (in Germany, the joke goes that people in Berlin novels are usually called Paul and Marie and moved to the city from Swabia) are not real people, they stand pars pro toto for a social phenomenon, and this narrative decision has all the repercussions that are to be expected: Cardboard characters make for cold detachment and a lack of dynamic, everything is over-explained and described in excess, and the author amps up these effects by cutting all dialogue - Latronico hammers his message home without subtlelty. Tom and Anna arrive in Berlin at an intersection of personal and world history, they use the place as a projection surface, and then are starting look for another canvas to project the same image, which is impossible, because time has passed.
The aspect of digital staging and performance that has intruded on how we see and frame the real world gives the text an air of melancholy - and this is where Perec's fits in, a novel Latronico explicitly refers to. Perec ponders the mores of the sixties with a focus on materialism and capitalism, also focusing on two freelancers, who also get politicized in current events - in Perec's case, the Algerian war, in Latronico's, the refugee crisis, which appears like another project to boost up one's self-image.
And yes, it's short and pleasant to read, but all the Perec references in the world can't hide that the message is stale and kind of obvious. I want my novels about the impact of the digital world to be more nuanced, and I've always hated 's epic theater for his non-characters that serve pedagogic rather than narrative functions. And that's kind of my problem with this one, too. Also, I've always agreed with Kraftklub when it came to the (now pretty much dead) Berlin hype:
Very much a Berlin novel - and, at the same time, not a Berlin novel: Latronico, an Italian living in Berlin, gives us a young Italian couple who moves from Italy to Berlin, and then proceeds to not live there - Tom and Anna hardly spend time with Germans, they mostly speak English and are part of a fluid community of expats, they get their news from international sources and remain partly in Italy via their social media feeds. They arrive at the heyday of the Berlin hype, after the fall of the Berlin wall when the city seemed to be vast and full of opportunities, and live through gentrification, before they chase their youth in Portugal and Sicily. Because yes: A lot of what they experience is simply called aging, growing out of a community and phase in life, in this case a nomadic escapist life as digital freelancers.
The protagonists with their generic names (in Germany, the joke goes that people in Berlin novels are usually called Paul and Marie and moved to the city from Swabia) are not real people, they stand pars pro toto for a social phenomenon, and this narrative decision has all the repercussions that are to be expected: Cardboard characters make for cold detachment and a lack of dynamic, everything is over-explained and described in excess, and the author amps up these effects by cutting all dialogue - Latronico hammers his message home without subtlelty. Tom and Anna arrive in Berlin at an intersection of personal and world history, they use the place as a projection surface, and then are starting look for another canvas to project the same image, which is impossible, because time has passed.
The aspect of digital staging and performance that has intruded on how we see and frame the real world gives the text an air of melancholy - and this is where Perec's fits in, a novel Latronico explicitly refers to. Perec ponders the mores of the sixties with a focus on materialism and capitalism, also focusing on two freelancers, who also get politicized in current events - in Perec's case, the Algerian war, in Latronico's, the refugee crisis, which appears like another project to boost up one's self-image.
And yes, it's short and pleasant to read, but all the Perec references in the world can't hide that the message is stale and kind of obvious. I want my novels about the impact of the digital world to be more nuanced, and I've always hated 's epic theater for his non-characters that serve pedagogic rather than narrative functions. And that's kind of my problem with this one, too. Also, I've always agreed with Kraftklub when it came to the (now pretty much dead) Berlin hype:
March 21, 2025
This was a painful book to read. Proceeding through these pages is like pressing down on an infected fingernail. Is the book about the loss of youthful joy that almost inevitably attends growing older? Or is it about the trap set by influencers on social media, always promising more than the real world can deliver? Or maybe the way a life, or even an entire society, can be compromised not by big bold strokes but my the millions of small decisions we make throughout the day, failing to see where it's leading us? Or is it about the role of luck in whether we end up prosperous and satisfied (or dissatisfied) or hanging on by a thread?
It's about all of these things. The happiness in reading books like this, despite the pain, is the celebratory feeling inherent in realizing there are truly talented artists writing like this. The technique in this book was very impressive -- an omniscient, disengaged narrator describing events with a consistent tone throughout, drip-feeding us enough information to see the bigger picture long before the young married couple at the center of the story do.
I don't relate to these people, but I certainly recognize them. I was truly impressed by this economically-told tale.
It's about all of these things. The happiness in reading books like this, despite the pain, is the celebratory feeling inherent in realizing there are truly talented artists writing like this. The technique in this book was very impressive -- an omniscient, disengaged narrator describing events with a consistent tone throughout, drip-feeding us enough information to see the bigger picture long before the young married couple at the center of the story do.
I don't relate to these people, but I certainly recognize them. I was truly impressed by this economically-told tale.
March 7, 2025
Longlisted for International Booker Prize 2025 - People with good intentions can be shallow, and so is this book about them. I am afraid that by tomorrow, I may forget it.
April 24, 2025
I’ve decided to read some of the shortlisted novels for the Booker this year. Perhaps a mistake, since I generally don’t like the winners of the Booker, even when I like the authors. My least favourite Barnes and Carey novels were both winners. Anyway, I thought I would start with this one � short and sweet. Except, not particularly sweet.
This read like someone was thinking of writing a novel and decided to do a kind of fast draft � except, hardly even that. The whole thing is written in third person � so, you never feel like you get close to either of the characters. They are pretentious and dull and spend most of their time thinking how grateful they are that they moved to Berlin when they could still afford a nice apartment � in pistachio tones I think, lots of things in this are in pistachio � and so much of the book is descriptions of their flat or the clubs they go to or their equally dull friends who aren’t really friends.
There isn’t particularly much of a story here � it is meant to be a kind of sociological examination of the life of millennials and their working from home, designing webpages in pretty Scandinavian fonts. Man, I’m glad this one was short, because otherwise I would never have finished it. I spent the first half of the book wanting it to start and the second half wanting it to end.
Can’t say I would recommend it � perhaps I’m too damn old for it. Maybe you need to have had dull sex after a weekend on MDMA to really ‘get� this one. When even the discussion on sex toys nearly puts you to sleep…anyway, each to their own. If my experience with the Booker is anything to go by, this will probably win.
This read like someone was thinking of writing a novel and decided to do a kind of fast draft � except, hardly even that. The whole thing is written in third person � so, you never feel like you get close to either of the characters. They are pretentious and dull and spend most of their time thinking how grateful they are that they moved to Berlin when they could still afford a nice apartment � in pistachio tones I think, lots of things in this are in pistachio � and so much of the book is descriptions of their flat or the clubs they go to or their equally dull friends who aren’t really friends.
There isn’t particularly much of a story here � it is meant to be a kind of sociological examination of the life of millennials and their working from home, designing webpages in pretty Scandinavian fonts. Man, I’m glad this one was short, because otherwise I would never have finished it. I spent the first half of the book wanting it to start and the second half wanting it to end.
Can’t say I would recommend it � perhaps I’m too damn old for it. Maybe you need to have had dull sex after a weekend on MDMA to really ‘get� this one. When even the discussion on sex toys nearly puts you to sleep…anyway, each to their own. If my experience with the Booker is anything to go by, this will probably win.
April 25, 2025
E mezzo.
Bello questo ritratto di una generazione che non è la mia ma che conosco molto bene. Vivono a Berlino (o a Amsterdam o, ormai più raramente, a Londra). Hanno case da Ig piene di piante che non si ricordano di annaffiare e di gatti che poi non sanno a chi piazzare quando vanno in vacanza. Hanno una rete di amici e serate e inaugurazioni di mostre e librerie e car sharing e lavoro ma solo di una certo genere. Poi gli anni passano.
Mi è piaciuto il raccontare di Latronico, il suo prosare, il suo sguardo disincantato sui suoi coetanei e su Berlino, ma non solo. Un romanzo breve, poco più di un racconto, ma che racchiude un mondo su cui è stato molto interessante gettare uno sguardo.
Bello questo ritratto di una generazione che non è la mia ma che conosco molto bene. Vivono a Berlino (o a Amsterdam o, ormai più raramente, a Londra). Hanno case da Ig piene di piante che non si ricordano di annaffiare e di gatti che poi non sanno a chi piazzare quando vanno in vacanza. Hanno una rete di amici e serate e inaugurazioni di mostre e librerie e car sharing e lavoro ma solo di una certo genere. Poi gli anni passano.
Mi è piaciuto il raccontare di Latronico, il suo prosare, il suo sguardo disincantato sui suoi coetanei e su Berlino, ma non solo. Un romanzo breve, poco più di un racconto, ma che racchiude un mondo su cui è stato molto interessante gettare uno sguardo.
March 4, 2025
4.5. A picture perfect rendering of a generation caught in a specific time and place.
Anna & Tom are millennials, living the creative freelancer life in Berlin before the explosion of that lifestyle. In some ways, they were lucky; they were one of the firsts to the scene in a Berlin still finding its way after the fall of the Wall, tapping into the untapped potential in this city teeming with abundance. From the outside—meaning, from social media—their lives are perfect: a plant filled and spacious apartment, weekends spent lounging or clubbing, and the occasional weekend getaway to a warmer climate. They care about the right social causes and they “step up� in 2015 during the migrant crisis, though their graphic design skills are of little help to the refugees.
Though the likes keep climbing and for all intents and purposes they are successful, they ache for more—though not overtly and not always consciously. Berlin begins to feel equally too much of the same and changing too fast. The grass begins to look greener and they kick themselves for not having thought sooner to make the move to Lisbon or some other burgeoning city as yet to be fully transformed by gentrification, that still has something “authentic� to offer.
Latronico has really captured something here. Readers of a certain age and with a certain predilection for aesthetics will find a lot to relate to and at least some part of their world being mirrored back at them, for better or for worse. We all know Anna & Tom, we know so many Annas & Toms, we are Annas & Toms. Fighting the urge to pick up my phone while reading about these characters� inability to stop picking up their phone or check social media was quite the experience.
The writing is appropriately distanced, observing, as we are, this life from the outside and giving the book almost the feel of a case study. We don’t get inside Anna & Tom’s heads, we don’t get dialogue, the characters could just as well be nameless. We get to know them through the things they buy, the way they style their apartment, the types of cafes and breweries that they work at. We just sit back and watch in horror because we recognize every step they take in their search for fulfillment.
Some may say it's shallow or that we don't really get to know the characters well, but I would argue that that is the point.
A perfect little book that will make many feel very seen, and then perhaps a little disgusted with how seen they feel. The age old adage still stands—wherever you go, there you are.
Anna & Tom are millennials, living the creative freelancer life in Berlin before the explosion of that lifestyle. In some ways, they were lucky; they were one of the firsts to the scene in a Berlin still finding its way after the fall of the Wall, tapping into the untapped potential in this city teeming with abundance. From the outside—meaning, from social media—their lives are perfect: a plant filled and spacious apartment, weekends spent lounging or clubbing, and the occasional weekend getaway to a warmer climate. They care about the right social causes and they “step up� in 2015 during the migrant crisis, though their graphic design skills are of little help to the refugees.
Though the likes keep climbing and for all intents and purposes they are successful, they ache for more—though not overtly and not always consciously. Berlin begins to feel equally too much of the same and changing too fast. The grass begins to look greener and they kick themselves for not having thought sooner to make the move to Lisbon or some other burgeoning city as yet to be fully transformed by gentrification, that still has something “authentic� to offer.
Latronico has really captured something here. Readers of a certain age and with a certain predilection for aesthetics will find a lot to relate to and at least some part of their world being mirrored back at them, for better or for worse. We all know Anna & Tom, we know so many Annas & Toms, we are Annas & Toms. Fighting the urge to pick up my phone while reading about these characters� inability to stop picking up their phone or check social media was quite the experience.
The writing is appropriately distanced, observing, as we are, this life from the outside and giving the book almost the feel of a case study. We don’t get inside Anna & Tom’s heads, we don’t get dialogue, the characters could just as well be nameless. We get to know them through the things they buy, the way they style their apartment, the types of cafes and breweries that they work at. We just sit back and watch in horror because we recognize every step they take in their search for fulfillment.
Some may say it's shallow or that we don't really get to know the characters well, but I would argue that that is the point.
A perfect little book that will make many feel very seen, and then perhaps a little disgusted with how seen they feel. The age old adage still stands—wherever you go, there you are.
September 19, 2022
Vita di due giovani web-creativi innamorati (stranamente, un ragazzo e una ragazza), a Berlino (e qui si torna alla normalità: se non a Berlino, dove?). In omaggio a Le cose di Perec, descrizione iper-analitica di casa (con perfezioni e imperfezioni), sesso (come con la casa), città (idem come sopra), lavoro (molto e solo smart), cucina (immancabile la passione per “l’impiattamento� e preliminari), pensieri (“un paesaggio interiore dissestato da vent’anni di internet�: diciamo confusi, ecco). Un capitoletto di impegno compassionevole (l’impegno politico, si sa, è diventato impossibile, anche a Berlino). Un paio di puntatine veloci a Lisbona e in Sicilia (finiscono per annoiarsi anche là). Piccolo colpo di scena finale. La cosa che mi ha colpito di più? Mai che leggessero un libro, neanche in formato elettronico piratato, neanche americano sul managerialismo (che per me è il ground zero della lettura).
Non ho capito bene se il romanzo è così ben scritto e centra così bene il problema (il loro, reale e interessante, ma sarebbe lungo parlarne seriamente) da portare il lettore (che sarei io) ad oscillare tra depressione e irritazione perché loro sono deprimenti e irritanti. Oppure se è proprio il romanzo che fa questo effetto a pendolo. Il dubbio resta, ma comunque l’effetto quello è. Fortuna che è brevissimo.
E non aiuta a dissiparlo (il dubbio, dico), il tono narrativo (peraltro, gradevole) che sembra prendere tutto talmente sul serio (piante, pub, leccate, videate, tiramenti mentali) che non capisci se è empatico o raffinatamente ironico (insomma, li commisera, li descrive con distacco o sottosotto li percula?).
Confesso che certe frasi mi sono rimaste sospese in testa come UFO (oggetti non identificati), però un loro effetto lo fanno (come gli UFO, appunto). Tanto per riportarne una: “La città saliva e scendeva come una marea�: “c’avrá voluto dì?� (come diceva la Simona Marchini a Black Out). Che poi è la considerazione che potrei estendere a tutto il romanzo. Però trestelle perché lo dice bene e perché il problema esiste (il loro, dico).
Non ho capito bene se il romanzo è così ben scritto e centra così bene il problema (il loro, reale e interessante, ma sarebbe lungo parlarne seriamente) da portare il lettore (che sarei io) ad oscillare tra depressione e irritazione perché loro sono deprimenti e irritanti. Oppure se è proprio il romanzo che fa questo effetto a pendolo. Il dubbio resta, ma comunque l’effetto quello è. Fortuna che è brevissimo.
E non aiuta a dissiparlo (il dubbio, dico), il tono narrativo (peraltro, gradevole) che sembra prendere tutto talmente sul serio (piante, pub, leccate, videate, tiramenti mentali) che non capisci se è empatico o raffinatamente ironico (insomma, li commisera, li descrive con distacco o sottosotto li percula?).
Confesso che certe frasi mi sono rimaste sospese in testa come UFO (oggetti non identificati), però un loro effetto lo fanno (come gli UFO, appunto). Tanto per riportarne una: “La città saliva e scendeva come una marea�: “c’avrá voluto dì?� (come diceva la Simona Marchini a Black Out). Che poi è la considerazione che potrei estendere a tutto il romanzo. Però trestelle perché lo dice bene e perché il problema esiste (il loro, dico).
June 5, 2024
Prima lettura del 2024, su sollecitazione del vulcanico bookclub portoburci (a proposito se qualcuno è della zona può unirsi quando vuole).
Praticamente un saggio sociologico camuffato da romanzo breve su due nativi digitali della prima ora che riescono a cavalcare l'onda di internet e socialmedia, sino a fare del cazzeggio un lavoro e viverci pure e per di più a Berlino. Praticamente il sogno di ognuno.
Senonchè i nostri due protagonisti, che nonostante siano gli unici personaggi, minuziosamente descritti nelle loro abitudini, gusti, preferenze sessuali, non hanno alcuna consistenza e sono piuttosto due avatar sovrapponibili a qualsiasi individuo appartenente a quella generazione e con quel vissuto.
Il pamphlet alla fine ci mostra come anche vivere nella comunità di artisti visuali, web designer & co nella stimolante Berlino, si ammanti abbastanza rapidamente di tristezza, resa evidente dalla distanza tra la realtà e l'immagine che si deve dare di sé sulle reti sociali, specie di mostro onnivoro che tutto fagocita, assimila ed appiattisce.
Gli impiattamenti meglio riusciti venivano fotografati, taggati, condivisi. Le immagini attraversavano il pianeta.......arrivavano sugli schermi dei loro coetanei a Lione, ea Helsinki e a Valencia, che le osservano rapidamente........Poi premevano una combinazione di tasti impressa nella loro memoria muscolare e tornavano a lavorare.......un uovo diventava più famoso del Papa. Un virus contagioso devastava l'Africa occidentale. Un miliardario si rovesciava un secchio di ghiaccio sulla testa. Un marchio di moda sfruttava le tessitrici dell'est asiatico. Una ragazza registrava tutte le volte che la fischiavano in strada. Due afroamericani venivano uccisi dalla polizia. Un uomo filmava primi baci. Un aereo spariva sulla rotta per Pechino. Una donna era bella. Una casa piena di piante era bella. Una quiche vegana era bella. Un bambino aveva bisogno di soldi per la chemio. Il tempo spariva. pag. 68
Scrittura scorrevole, incisiva la resa delle immagini, solido l'argomentare. Resta il rammarico che si tratti poco più di uno spunto: l'entomologo sembra avere maggior simpatia per l'insetto a cui toglie le zampe per studiarlo, di quanta Latronico ne dimostri per Anna e Tom, tanto sono descritti come piatti ed inerti.
Sarebbero 2 * e mezzo, ma è comunque lettura istruttiva per chi ha figli di quella fascia di età (è il mio caso), con lunghe o definitive esperienze da espatriati (è sempre il mio caso).
Declassamento dopo aver visto quello che ha scritto nella quarta di copertina de "La parte sbagliata" di D. Coppo.
Praticamente un saggio sociologico camuffato da romanzo breve su due nativi digitali della prima ora che riescono a cavalcare l'onda di internet e socialmedia, sino a fare del cazzeggio un lavoro e viverci pure e per di più a Berlino. Praticamente il sogno di ognuno.
Senonchè i nostri due protagonisti, che nonostante siano gli unici personaggi, minuziosamente descritti nelle loro abitudini, gusti, preferenze sessuali, non hanno alcuna consistenza e sono piuttosto due avatar sovrapponibili a qualsiasi individuo appartenente a quella generazione e con quel vissuto.
Il pamphlet alla fine ci mostra come anche vivere nella comunità di artisti visuali, web designer & co nella stimolante Berlino, si ammanti abbastanza rapidamente di tristezza, resa evidente dalla distanza tra la realtà e l'immagine che si deve dare di sé sulle reti sociali, specie di mostro onnivoro che tutto fagocita, assimila ed appiattisce.
Gli impiattamenti meglio riusciti venivano fotografati, taggati, condivisi. Le immagini attraversavano il pianeta.......arrivavano sugli schermi dei loro coetanei a Lione, ea Helsinki e a Valencia, che le osservano rapidamente........Poi premevano una combinazione di tasti impressa nella loro memoria muscolare e tornavano a lavorare.......un uovo diventava più famoso del Papa. Un virus contagioso devastava l'Africa occidentale. Un miliardario si rovesciava un secchio di ghiaccio sulla testa. Un marchio di moda sfruttava le tessitrici dell'est asiatico. Una ragazza registrava tutte le volte che la fischiavano in strada. Due afroamericani venivano uccisi dalla polizia. Un uomo filmava primi baci. Un aereo spariva sulla rotta per Pechino. Una donna era bella. Una casa piena di piante era bella. Una quiche vegana era bella. Un bambino aveva bisogno di soldi per la chemio. Il tempo spariva. pag. 68
Scrittura scorrevole, incisiva la resa delle immagini, solido l'argomentare. Resta il rammarico che si tratti poco più di uno spunto: l'entomologo sembra avere maggior simpatia per l'insetto a cui toglie le zampe per studiarlo, di quanta Latronico ne dimostri per Anna e Tom, tanto sono descritti come piatti ed inerti.
Sarebbero 2 * e mezzo, ma è comunque lettura istruttiva per chi ha figli di quella fascia di età (è il mio caso), con lunghe o definitive esperienze da espatriati (è sempre il mio caso).
Declassamento dopo aver visto quello che ha scritto nella quarta di copertina de "La parte sbagliata" di D. Coppo.
April 16, 2025
I’m thinking back to what seemed like decades ago, although it was probably only 10 years. Waiting in line in Starbucks one day I found myself furious at a display bearing the description “These snack bar choices have been carefully curated for your pleasure.� What could that possibly mean? My tolerance for the omnipresence of the word “curated� had finally been exhausted. I snapped a picture of the display and posted it with some snarky comment on the dilution of meaning in the English language.
Clearly I have little tolerance for chasing trends. Although I’m hardly a technophobe, I’ve never been an early adopter of advancements. I need to be convinced that they would have benefit for me, because I’m not unhappy with what I have now. (Sometimes circumstances intervene, such as when I dropped my BlackBerry and then drove over it. Hello, smartphone.)
Yes, I did have a FB account back then, and I will admit to occasionally drooling over vacation photos posted by friends. But I always assumed that what I was seeing was the tip of the iceberg. People’s lives were more than just those images, and that other part may have been much worse than my life.
All of which is to say that the world as perceived by Tom and Anna, the only characters in this book, is one that is alien to me. The couple are graphic designers who in the early 2010’s migrate from an unnamed city in southern Europe to Berlin, capital of all that is hip at the time. Their lives are structured around their carefully curated (grr�) apartment and experiences that represent, to them, the cutting edge of culture. They convince themselves that they have achieved happiness through their design work and their life in this best of all possible worlds.
Except that things change. Berlin takes on a new vibe as more Americans and their damned dollars move in. The friends they made so easily move out, back to their home cities. Life becomes stale for Tom and Anna, with the options for growth on any level having become limited.
There is a brief interlude in the book when the real world inserts itself into theirs, as Syrian refugees flow into Berlin. Tom and Anna make what turn out to be ineffectual efforts to help, but their graphic design backgrounds and less-than-perfect German language skills have poorly equipped them to do anything meaningful. They struggle to understand whether their efforts were a genuine desire to help, or to be part of a movement that helped.
The couple try to recapture the joy they felt when first in Berlin by temporarily relocating to Lisbon and then Sardinia, but the reality of those places is only dimly related to the online images they absorbed before leaving. Eventually they return to Berlin, where fate steps in and sends them on a quite different life path.
The book is short and structurally interesting. The opening is particularly well done, as images of their apartment taken for potential sublettors are contrasted with the day to day reality.
We are kept at a distance from Tom and Anna; Latronica does not want us to feel any genuine connection to them. They are, in essence, symbols for a subset of millennials seeking something but not knowing exactly what that is. Fortunately for Tom and Anna, their skills allow them some financial independence to navigate these confusing feelings. I’ve known millennials who are similarly afflicted, although they seem to end up in dead end jobs and spend their days with video games.
The bottom line is that I had trouble connecting with these characters or their dilemma. This book may be set in the 2010’s, but a similar story could be set in any decade of the post-industrial era. (Latronico’s epigraph is by Georges Perec, who wrote another version of this tale set in 1960’s Paris.). Unless I have completely missed some key element, the evolution of Tom and Anna’s story seemed self-evident, which limited its interest for me.
The book ends in 2019, an interesting choice by Latronico since it was published within the past year. How would Tom and Anna have coped with the pandemic?
Clearly I have little tolerance for chasing trends. Although I’m hardly a technophobe, I’ve never been an early adopter of advancements. I need to be convinced that they would have benefit for me, because I’m not unhappy with what I have now. (Sometimes circumstances intervene, such as when I dropped my BlackBerry and then drove over it. Hello, smartphone.)
Yes, I did have a FB account back then, and I will admit to occasionally drooling over vacation photos posted by friends. But I always assumed that what I was seeing was the tip of the iceberg. People’s lives were more than just those images, and that other part may have been much worse than my life.
All of which is to say that the world as perceived by Tom and Anna, the only characters in this book, is one that is alien to me. The couple are graphic designers who in the early 2010’s migrate from an unnamed city in southern Europe to Berlin, capital of all that is hip at the time. Their lives are structured around their carefully curated (grr�) apartment and experiences that represent, to them, the cutting edge of culture. They convince themselves that they have achieved happiness through their design work and their life in this best of all possible worlds.
Except that things change. Berlin takes on a new vibe as more Americans and their damned dollars move in. The friends they made so easily move out, back to their home cities. Life becomes stale for Tom and Anna, with the options for growth on any level having become limited.
There is a brief interlude in the book when the real world inserts itself into theirs, as Syrian refugees flow into Berlin. Tom and Anna make what turn out to be ineffectual efforts to help, but their graphic design backgrounds and less-than-perfect German language skills have poorly equipped them to do anything meaningful. They struggle to understand whether their efforts were a genuine desire to help, or to be part of a movement that helped.
The couple try to recapture the joy they felt when first in Berlin by temporarily relocating to Lisbon and then Sardinia, but the reality of those places is only dimly related to the online images they absorbed before leaving. Eventually they return to Berlin, where fate steps in and sends them on a quite different life path.
The book is short and structurally interesting. The opening is particularly well done, as images of their apartment taken for potential sublettors are contrasted with the day to day reality.
We are kept at a distance from Tom and Anna; Latronica does not want us to feel any genuine connection to them. They are, in essence, symbols for a subset of millennials seeking something but not knowing exactly what that is. Fortunately for Tom and Anna, their skills allow them some financial independence to navigate these confusing feelings. I’ve known millennials who are similarly afflicted, although they seem to end up in dead end jobs and spend their days with video games.
The bottom line is that I had trouble connecting with these characters or their dilemma. This book may be set in the 2010’s, but a similar story could be set in any decade of the post-industrial era. (Latronico’s epigraph is by Georges Perec, who wrote another version of this tale set in 1960’s Paris.). Unless I have completely missed some key element, the evolution of Tom and Anna’s story seemed self-evident, which limited its interest for me.
The book ends in 2019, an interesting choice by Latronico since it was published within the past year. How would Tom and Anna have coped with the pandemic?
March 17, 2024
È tutto davvero perfetto. È proprio come nelle immagini.
Iniziamo dalla trama. La storia è una non-storia. Non c'è praticamente un arco narrativo (eccetto solo un paio di reali avvenimenti) e nemmeno una vera e propria conclusione, solo la descrizione minuziosa di due personaggi, che non hanno una vera e propria identità personale, ma sono fantocci vuoti che rappresentano una categoria intera (gli expat nati negli anni '80, primi professionisti in quelli che, all'inizio del millennio, erano i "nuovi lavori"). E, devo dire, questa cristallizzazione mi è piaciuta, complice, anche, la bravura dell'autore nel rendere accattivante una lunga descrizione/analisi. In particolare, molto a fuoco alcune parti: eccellente il capitolo sull'apparenza, le nuove forme di comunicazione ed il ruolo del digitale in questi due ambiti, così come le riflessioni sui contemporanei mutamenti sociali. Era come attraversare il mercato di strada più caotico del mondo sotto cocaina. Era come fare zapping su una parete intera di televisori sintonizzati su canali diversi. Era come entrare in comunione telepatica coi pensieri di uno stadio gremito di gente. Non era come nient’altro, in realtà, perché era qualcosa di nuovo. Anche gli stati d’animo che attraversavano erano nuovi, e per questo mancavano di un nome condiviso. Per definirli si prendevano a prestito termini riferiti ad altri tipi di esperienze a cui parevano in qualche modo associabili, che però non calzavano del tutto a un paesaggio interiore dissestato da vent’anni di internet.
La cura dei dettagli in questo libro è evidente ed innegabile, credo che ogni parola di ogni frase sia scelta con cura e calibrata; si può notare, per esempio, dalla scelta di scrivere le quattro sezioni del libro utilizzando solo i tempi verbali relativi al titolo del capitolo (nello specifico: presente, imperfetto, remoto, futuro). O ancora: la vita dei due protagonisti ruota attorno alle immagini e quindi la loro visione del mondo passa attraverso la valutazione costante di queste, rendendo anche spesso un senso di superiorità con cui vengono giudicate le persone fuori dalla loro cerchia, descritte dai gusti non sempre raffinatissimi, per cui dovranno inserire anche scatti un po' banali . Devo aggiungere quanto mi faccia piacere leggere qualcosa scritto con un linguaggio a me contemporaneo e la scrittura di Latronico, si può definire, bene o male, fluida, ma alcune (parecchie, a dirla tutta) frasi mi hanno solo fatto innervosire: apprezzo la ricercatezza, ma qua valica decisamente il concetto di letterarietà, finendo nel campo del pretenzioso. In più, il German dropping. Ogni tanto organizzavano persino una Besichtigung, quando a rispondere non era un’agenzia. Visita, Vincenzo, visita. Per te o tutti devono sapere il tedesco o il mio tempo vale così poco da mandarmi CONTINUAMENTE, per tutto il libro, su google translate a cercare parole. Certo, alcune espressioni si deducono dal contesto (la riga sopra, cartello ZU VERMIETEN ho immaginato, senza controllare, significasse in vendita; ma nella citazione sopra sarebbero state bene varie opzioni: sopralluogo, offerta, progetto e, appunto, visita). Peraltro, interrompere per andare a cercare su internet spezza completamente il ritmo in un testo che non ti tiene, per sua natura, senza essere necessariamente un difetto, incollata alle pagine. Le parti dedicate ai personaggi (alle loro dinamiche più intime o a condizioni sociali su scala più ampia, alla loro relazione e a considerazioni generali sulla società contemporanea) funzionano, ma le descrizioni sono eccessivamente prolisse, andrebbero sfrondate (quando parla di piante da casa, con questi elenchi lunghi pagine intere di specie, o della topografia a Berlino, che credo significhi qualcosa solo per qualcuno che conosce bene la città).
Il tedesco di Google Translate memorizzato a macchia di leopardo ogni volta che la loro traiettoria intersecava l’apparato della città: Kurzstrecke. Krankenkasse. Rohrreinigungsspirale. Vorderhaus. Steuernummer. Ich hätte gerne. Steuer-ID. Schlüsseldienst. An die Ecke. Schwangerschaftsverhütungsmittel. Vielleicht. Ebenso. Le serate negli scantinati. Le serate negli appartamenti Jugendstil a Prenzlauer Berg con i bovindi e i soffitti stuccati. Le serate al Berghain. Le serate nelle gallerie d’arte. Le serate sulle chiatte sulla Sprea. I ritorni sfocati sulla metropolitana che circola tutta la notte. Le serate al Weekender. Le serate al Freischwimmer. Le serate illegali a Wedding cercate e mai trovate vagando fra capannoni remoti, appigliati a un SMS di istruzioni. Le serate al Rodeo. Le serate al Tresor. . Ecco, quello che intendo è in questo passaggio del primo capitolo ben rappresentato: è necessario inserire 16 parole tedesche (non tradotte) per chiarire un concetto? Ne ho cercate un paio, e mi sono usciti "contraccettivo orale","anche a te" e "percorso". Mi sembra abbastanza intuitivo che, vivendo tanto anni in un paese straniero, qualche frase di " sopravvivenza" nella lingua locale si finisca per interiorizzare (i due protagonisti decidono di non imparare il tedesco), ma se credi che sia necessaria un'esemplificazione, un paio di parole, toh, cinque. Stesso discorso per le serate: eh, vivono a Berlino, usciranno ovviamente in vari locali di Berlino, che, però, a me dicono poco o niente; ma non è che dopo aver letto questo elenco sterile ne sappia più di prima.
Tirando le somme, i numerosi pregi oggettivi di questo libro non superano il fastidio viscerale (e totalmente personale) che mi ha procurato. Credo tratti di una tipologia di persone molto lontana da me, e credo anche sia fondamentalmente indirizzato a lettori appartenenti a questa stessa categoria: giovani secondo un criterio italiano, diciamo così, abbonati a lifestyle magazine britannici, con una collezione di vinili di nicchia, che tengono una grande edera pensile in un bagno minuscolo e che dormono su un tatami con federe di lino grezzo. E, soprattutto, che fanno un lavoro creativo. Leggendo ho avuto la sensazione che se una Anna e un Tom fossero miei conoscenti, nonostante il gap generazionale, e ci incontrassimo quella volta l'anno che tornano in Italia, li troverei insopportabili. Tom sussurrerebbe ad Anna che rosico perché loro vivono a Berlino ed io sono bloccata nella provincia italiana, io commenterei: "la prossima volta che sento del delizioso mercatino biologico dietro casa o della monstera dalle foglie che sembrano nuvole mi faccio brillare".
Iniziamo dalla trama. La storia è una non-storia. Non c'è praticamente un arco narrativo (eccetto solo un paio di reali avvenimenti) e nemmeno una vera e propria conclusione, solo la descrizione minuziosa di due personaggi, che non hanno una vera e propria identità personale, ma sono fantocci vuoti che rappresentano una categoria intera (gli expat nati negli anni '80, primi professionisti in quelli che, all'inizio del millennio, erano i "nuovi lavori"). E, devo dire, questa cristallizzazione mi è piaciuta, complice, anche, la bravura dell'autore nel rendere accattivante una lunga descrizione/analisi. In particolare, molto a fuoco alcune parti: eccellente il capitolo sull'apparenza, le nuove forme di comunicazione ed il ruolo del digitale in questi due ambiti, così come le riflessioni sui contemporanei mutamenti sociali. Era come attraversare il mercato di strada più caotico del mondo sotto cocaina. Era come fare zapping su una parete intera di televisori sintonizzati su canali diversi. Era come entrare in comunione telepatica coi pensieri di uno stadio gremito di gente. Non era come nient’altro, in realtà, perché era qualcosa di nuovo. Anche gli stati d’animo che attraversavano erano nuovi, e per questo mancavano di un nome condiviso. Per definirli si prendevano a prestito termini riferiti ad altri tipi di esperienze a cui parevano in qualche modo associabili, che però non calzavano del tutto a un paesaggio interiore dissestato da vent’anni di internet.
La cura dei dettagli in questo libro è evidente ed innegabile, credo che ogni parola di ogni frase sia scelta con cura e calibrata; si può notare, per esempio, dalla scelta di scrivere le quattro sezioni del libro utilizzando solo i tempi verbali relativi al titolo del capitolo (nello specifico: presente, imperfetto, remoto, futuro). O ancora: la vita dei due protagonisti ruota attorno alle immagini e quindi la loro visione del mondo passa attraverso la valutazione costante di queste, rendendo anche spesso un senso di superiorità con cui vengono giudicate le persone fuori dalla loro cerchia, descritte dai gusti non sempre raffinatissimi, per cui dovranno inserire anche scatti un po' banali . Devo aggiungere quanto mi faccia piacere leggere qualcosa scritto con un linguaggio a me contemporaneo e la scrittura di Latronico, si può definire, bene o male, fluida, ma alcune (parecchie, a dirla tutta) frasi mi hanno solo fatto innervosire: apprezzo la ricercatezza, ma qua valica decisamente il concetto di letterarietà, finendo nel campo del pretenzioso. In più, il German dropping. Ogni tanto organizzavano persino una Besichtigung, quando a rispondere non era un’agenzia. Visita, Vincenzo, visita. Per te o tutti devono sapere il tedesco o il mio tempo vale così poco da mandarmi CONTINUAMENTE, per tutto il libro, su google translate a cercare parole. Certo, alcune espressioni si deducono dal contesto (la riga sopra, cartello ZU VERMIETEN ho immaginato, senza controllare, significasse in vendita; ma nella citazione sopra sarebbero state bene varie opzioni: sopralluogo, offerta, progetto e, appunto, visita). Peraltro, interrompere per andare a cercare su internet spezza completamente il ritmo in un testo che non ti tiene, per sua natura, senza essere necessariamente un difetto, incollata alle pagine. Le parti dedicate ai personaggi (alle loro dinamiche più intime o a condizioni sociali su scala più ampia, alla loro relazione e a considerazioni generali sulla società contemporanea) funzionano, ma le descrizioni sono eccessivamente prolisse, andrebbero sfrondate (quando parla di piante da casa, con questi elenchi lunghi pagine intere di specie, o della topografia a Berlino, che credo significhi qualcosa solo per qualcuno che conosce bene la città).
Il tedesco di Google Translate memorizzato a macchia di leopardo ogni volta che la loro traiettoria intersecava l’apparato della città: Kurzstrecke. Krankenkasse. Rohrreinigungsspirale. Vorderhaus. Steuernummer. Ich hätte gerne. Steuer-ID. Schlüsseldienst. An die Ecke. Schwangerschaftsverhütungsmittel. Vielleicht. Ebenso. Le serate negli scantinati. Le serate negli appartamenti Jugendstil a Prenzlauer Berg con i bovindi e i soffitti stuccati. Le serate al Berghain. Le serate nelle gallerie d’arte. Le serate sulle chiatte sulla Sprea. I ritorni sfocati sulla metropolitana che circola tutta la notte. Le serate al Weekender. Le serate al Freischwimmer. Le serate illegali a Wedding cercate e mai trovate vagando fra capannoni remoti, appigliati a un SMS di istruzioni. Le serate al Rodeo. Le serate al Tresor. . Ecco, quello che intendo è in questo passaggio del primo capitolo ben rappresentato: è necessario inserire 16 parole tedesche (non tradotte) per chiarire un concetto? Ne ho cercate un paio, e mi sono usciti "contraccettivo orale","anche a te" e "percorso". Mi sembra abbastanza intuitivo che, vivendo tanto anni in un paese straniero, qualche frase di " sopravvivenza" nella lingua locale si finisca per interiorizzare (i due protagonisti decidono di non imparare il tedesco), ma se credi che sia necessaria un'esemplificazione, un paio di parole, toh, cinque. Stesso discorso per le serate: eh, vivono a Berlino, usciranno ovviamente in vari locali di Berlino, che, però, a me dicono poco o niente; ma non è che dopo aver letto questo elenco sterile ne sappia più di prima.
Tirando le somme, i numerosi pregi oggettivi di questo libro non superano il fastidio viscerale (e totalmente personale) che mi ha procurato. Credo tratti di una tipologia di persone molto lontana da me, e credo anche sia fondamentalmente indirizzato a lettori appartenenti a questa stessa categoria: giovani secondo un criterio italiano, diciamo così, abbonati a lifestyle magazine britannici, con una collezione di vinili di nicchia, che tengono una grande edera pensile in un bagno minuscolo e che dormono su un tatami con federe di lino grezzo. E, soprattutto, che fanno un lavoro creativo. Leggendo ho avuto la sensazione che se una Anna e un Tom fossero miei conoscenti, nonostante il gap generazionale, e ci incontrassimo quella volta l'anno che tornano in Italia, li troverei insopportabili. Tom sussurrerebbe ad Anna che rosico perché loro vivono a Berlino ed io sono bloccata nella provincia italiana, io commenterei: "la prossima volta che sento del delizioso mercatino biologico dietro casa o della monstera dalle foglie che sembrano nuvole mi faccio brillare".
April 12, 2025
I think millennials can stop writing fiction now
January 23, 2025
Thoroughly enjoyed this short novel which, I learn at the end, is a form of homage to "Things: A Story of the Sixties" by Georges Perec (so another to add to the list).
Perfection is the story of Anna and Tom who we meet as twenty-somethings newly arrived in Berlin. They are a new breed of workers who deal with digital content. It means their work space and time is fluid. They are in the rapidly evolving city at the height of change. And everyone around them mirrors their own. Buy nothing stays the same and Anna and Tom must adapt as they age even if the city they fell in love with in their twenties does not.
Perfection is a deceptively simple story but it's possible to recognise something of ourselves in them - wanting to stay young but recognising it is impossible.
It's a really good read and even though I've still no idea what their job really was I could empathise with the characters.
Highly recommended.
Thankyou to Netgalley and Fitzcarraldo for the advance review copy. Much appreciated.
Perfection is the story of Anna and Tom who we meet as twenty-somethings newly arrived in Berlin. They are a new breed of workers who deal with digital content. It means their work space and time is fluid. They are in the rapidly evolving city at the height of change. And everyone around them mirrors their own. Buy nothing stays the same and Anna and Tom must adapt as they age even if the city they fell in love with in their twenties does not.
Perfection is a deceptively simple story but it's possible to recognise something of ourselves in them - wanting to stay young but recognising it is impossible.
It's a really good read and even though I've still no idea what their job really was I could empathise with the characters.
Highly recommended.
Thankyou to Netgalley and Fitzcarraldo for the advance review copy. Much appreciated.
April 11, 2025
There was a British sitcom in 2005 called Nathan Barley, created by the brilliant Chris Morris, which focused on the emergence of the internet hipster, a clownish nightmare of performative cool in the face of ennui and pointlessness all while using modern parlance and consuming the newest, most pointless products whilst espousing safe opinions but packaging them as edgy. In his own words he was 'a self-facilitating media node.' This is what we have here, but in book form, only it uses a third person narration to colour the dead-behind-the-eyes lives of its expats protagonists, Tom and Anna, and forces their relationship to embody a more up-to-date version of this awful type of vacuous human. With added likes, subscribers, and boredom.
Latronico laments (via this flimsy neo-liberal, Berlin based couple) the banal aspects of being bored, comfortable, and safe; of being middle-class people living in the West and engaging with all the right-on facilities, opinions, and technology. He hits all the obvious targets with accuracy and (necessary) venom, but it's nothing new and that's the problem with the book, all his targets are easy -- tediously so. They range from the monotonous lifestyle of eating avocado on toast, coffee shops, internet culture, social media, and the endless consumption of digestible left-wing opinions and branding which, under the slightest scrutiny, are bland and performative, possessing no real bite or consequence. These people give monthly donations to all the most righteous causes, read the approved of media and embrace the correct and most noble narratives (BLM, LGBT, etc). They like art but the kind which is demonstrably bad (and therefore annoys the uneducated yokels). They worry that they aren't doing anything interesting with their sex lives. They worry that they aren't vegan enough, environmentally conscientious enough, aren't in touch with the plight of the poor, the immigrants, the refugees, the oppressed. And so on.
If your idea of fun is tired social media (and all its ironic smugness) in book form then go nuts.And don't get me wrong, it is kinda fun to play along and acknowledge the tedium of this kind of western existence, the mundane and stale daily grind which inevitably manifests as a debilitating ennui. But the fundamental problem I had with the book (ignoring the the fact that his writing isn't fun to read) is that it lacks any meaningful authenticity. This polemic (because that's what it is) is wrapped up in the contrived narrative of a couple that aren't real, don't feel real, and serve no purpose other than to be cardboard placeholders, caricatures and punching bags, for his painfully clichéd diatribe. In that regard, this is a book that is very similar to something like 'Harassment Architecture' by Mike Ma but done with a greater literary flourish therefore making it more palatable to the chattering classes (his mimicry of Perec will also get them excited). But lets not kid ourselves, it's the same thing -- whining about the nightmare of modernity. In fact, I would say this is less original and more derivative. And the fact that Latronico's audience are the very bedwetters he is satirising makes it worse. Had this been written by someone from a council estate, or an immigrant (the kind which Tom and Anna romanticise), then it might have had more impact, and certainly would have been more insightful. But instead it's the bored middle-class analysing and satirising the bored middle-class.
Putting the content to one side, the book's prose is not fun to read (at least not for me). As mentioned, it openly mimics Perec (not a good thing in my opinion but each to their own) and Latronico acknowledges the book as a kind of sequel to 'Things: A Story of The Sixties' and utilises a narrative style which usespast, present, and future tense in the narration creatinga sense of (unpleasant) detachment and voyeurism. Thisonly further distances the reader from his already unconvincing false creations, Tom and Anna, describing them as abstracts rather than people. He uses the word 'would' over and over again to describe his protagonist's experiences and views.
This is obviously a deliberate choice and the final chapter (named Future) switches to 'will' to reiterate this past, present, and future presentation, but it's not fun to read and, again, only results in a feeling of being outside the character's lives, to such an extent that they don't feel like real people at all, only deformed props for Latronico to hang his aloof condescension on. More precisely he turns the couple into a facsimile of human beings who must endure the banality and boredom of a world he clearly finds distasteful. Sure, these people are vapid and empty (that's the point) but that doesn't mean his language needs to be. I struggled to find a paragraph that didn't bore me. Yes,Latronico knows he's one of them (so what) and hits his targets but given that they're fish, inside a barrel, that are already dead, it's not much of an accomplishment. And like I said, this has been done by others and done better. Nathan Barley is two decades old now after all. We get it. Late stage capitalism, blah blah blah, by-the-numbers liberalism, blah blah blah, postmodern ironic, blah blah blah, IKEA, Vegan oat milk, FaceBook, Latte, Twitter storm, Trans non-binary, gluten free biscuits, blah blah blah, ennui doesn't come from life being too hard, it comes from life being too easy, blah blah blah. We get it. We're all bored now and life is shit and the only thing that makes us feel better about any of it is having enough self-awareness to know and point at it (and buying shiny things from Amazon).
No one is more thrilled than me that middle-class people hate themselves but none of that changes the fact that the book isn't very original or very good
Latronico laments (via this flimsy neo-liberal, Berlin based couple) the banal aspects of being bored, comfortable, and safe; of being middle-class people living in the West and engaging with all the right-on facilities, opinions, and technology. He hits all the obvious targets with accuracy and (necessary) venom, but it's nothing new and that's the problem with the book, all his targets are easy -- tediously so. They range from the monotonous lifestyle of eating avocado on toast, coffee shops, internet culture, social media, and the endless consumption of digestible left-wing opinions and branding which, under the slightest scrutiny, are bland and performative, possessing no real bite or consequence. These people give monthly donations to all the most righteous causes, read the approved of media and embrace the correct and most noble narratives (BLM, LGBT, etc). They like art but the kind which is demonstrably bad (and therefore annoys the uneducated yokels). They worry that they aren't doing anything interesting with their sex lives. They worry that they aren't vegan enough, environmentally conscientious enough, aren't in touch with the plight of the poor, the immigrants, the refugees, the oppressed. And so on.
If your idea of fun is tired social media (and all its ironic smugness) in book form then go nuts.And don't get me wrong, it is kinda fun to play along and acknowledge the tedium of this kind of western existence, the mundane and stale daily grind which inevitably manifests as a debilitating ennui. But the fundamental problem I had with the book (ignoring the the fact that his writing isn't fun to read) is that it lacks any meaningful authenticity. This polemic (because that's what it is) is wrapped up in the contrived narrative of a couple that aren't real, don't feel real, and serve no purpose other than to be cardboard placeholders, caricatures and punching bags, for his painfully clichéd diatribe. In that regard, this is a book that is very similar to something like 'Harassment Architecture' by Mike Ma but done with a greater literary flourish therefore making it more palatable to the chattering classes (his mimicry of Perec will also get them excited). But lets not kid ourselves, it's the same thing -- whining about the nightmare of modernity. In fact, I would say this is less original and more derivative. And the fact that Latronico's audience are the very bedwetters he is satirising makes it worse. Had this been written by someone from a council estate, or an immigrant (the kind which Tom and Anna romanticise), then it might have had more impact, and certainly would have been more insightful. But instead it's the bored middle-class analysing and satirising the bored middle-class.
Putting the content to one side, the book's prose is not fun to read (at least not for me). As mentioned, it openly mimics Perec (not a good thing in my opinion but each to their own) and Latronico acknowledges the book as a kind of sequel to 'Things: A Story of The Sixties' and utilises a narrative style which usespast, present, and future tense in the narration creatinga sense of (unpleasant) detachment and voyeurism. Thisonly further distances the reader from his already unconvincing false creations, Tom and Anna, describing them as abstracts rather than people. He uses the word 'would' over and over again to describe his protagonist's experiences and views.
"They would line up the glasses on the open shelves... they would go for walks on endless summer evenings... they would spend long weekends together... they would light candles... every once in a while, they would buy a toy... they would send an invoice and check Instagram... on Saturday they would sit down at the double desk... they would spend entire meals browsing Netflix recommendations... they would spend their mornings..." etc
This is obviously a deliberate choice and the final chapter (named Future) switches to 'will' to reiterate this past, present, and future presentation, but it's not fun to read and, again, only results in a feeling of being outside the character's lives, to such an extent that they don't feel like real people at all, only deformed props for Latronico to hang his aloof condescension on. More precisely he turns the couple into a facsimile of human beings who must endure the banality and boredom of a world he clearly finds distasteful. Sure, these people are vapid and empty (that's the point) but that doesn't mean his language needs to be. I struggled to find a paragraph that didn't bore me. Yes,Latronico knows he's one of them (so what) and hits his targets but given that they're fish, inside a barrel, that are already dead, it's not much of an accomplishment. And like I said, this has been done by others and done better. Nathan Barley is two decades old now after all. We get it. Late stage capitalism, blah blah blah, by-the-numbers liberalism, blah blah blah, postmodern ironic, blah blah blah, IKEA, Vegan oat milk, FaceBook, Latte, Twitter storm, Trans non-binary, gluten free biscuits, blah blah blah, ennui doesn't come from life being too hard, it comes from life being too easy, blah blah blah. We get it. We're all bored now and life is shit and the only thing that makes us feel better about any of it is having enough self-awareness to know and point at it (and buying shiny things from Amazon).
No one is more thrilled than me that middle-class people hate themselves but none of that changes the fact that the book isn't very original or very good
April 15, 2023
Ho odiato ogni secondo.
March 1, 2025
Going to Germany again for a bit and have an early flight to Berlin tomorrow. My parents' house is closer to the airport than my own flat, so we're here for the night. I thought my Fitzcarraldo subscription was over, but this had come in the post for me. I read it in a single sitting this evening as my girlfriend watched telly with my parents and did the entertaining part that I should have been doing.
A lot of the book rings true to some of my own experiences. It says something about modern living but a lot of it has been explored before. Nothing groundbreaking. Not a lick of dialogue- it's all tell don't show. Not a single scene, in fact. Anna and Tom live a life that's not necessarily enviable, but actually it is. At least at times. Everyone is chasing something and never quite finding it. Social media is mostly to blame. People build political ideologies from headlines and Instagram posts and fake news. The grass is greener. It's not depressing so much as truthful. People have it better and worse and it averages out for some people who live okay lives, not necessarily exciting or rich, but safe and therefore precious.
A lot of the book rings true to some of my own experiences. It says something about modern living but a lot of it has been explored before. Nothing groundbreaking. Not a lick of dialogue- it's all tell don't show. Not a single scene, in fact. Anna and Tom live a life that's not necessarily enviable, but actually it is. At least at times. Everyone is chasing something and never quite finding it. Social media is mostly to blame. People build political ideologies from headlines and Instagram posts and fake news. The grass is greener. It's not depressing so much as truthful. People have it better and worse and it averages out for some people who live okay lives, not necessarily exciting or rich, but safe and therefore precious.
Read
February 7, 2025Thank you nyrb for the gifted copy
This almost feels like a historical artifact about a generation and about a city.
A young couple move to Berlin when it was still cheap enough to live and work from.Though they present the perfect life through their instagram posts and seem to live a vibrant social life, they feel a dissatisfaction with their life and they aren’t sure why. What is missing? What could possibly be wrong?
A couple of things give away that we’re in this with Anna and Tom. The book opens with descriptions of pictures of their apartment and objects found in it, not their actual apartment. You’re going to recognize these immediately: the honey colored floor, sorta mid-century furniture, bright green monstera leaves, maybe a table full of hoyas and string of pearls, a fiddle-leaf fig in a corner, creamy colored linens on a bed. The second person plural ensnares us all, maybe making us part of the problem or at least not making us judges. We feel what they're going through, have seen or made the same shallow choices, and probably also wonder why we're all miserable.
What makes this novel go beyond being another online ennui book is how it captures the flattening of our lives along with the flattening of cities. It's not just our posts that are looking the same, but cities around the world.
Berlin was once a destination for those with dreams and ambitions; cutting edge and, most importantly, cheap. The digital nomads flocked, creating their own insular ‘expat� community. Anna and Tom barely speak German, the group mostly speaking in accented English. There is a moment when they try to interact with the ‘outside� world as the migrant crisis ramps up, but this was mostly a shallow attempt to get IG points. Eventually Berlin starts to feel old and expensive, so Anna and Tom search for that original feeling in Lisbon. While it's a little cheaper, the city is pretty much the same. I love that they are blind to their own part in this, as their graphic design aesthetic, which mimics what they see online, spreads around the world through their clients. The expats never use the g word on themselves.
Were Xennials and elder Millennials born at the wrong time? Is the digital divide in our lives that was once thought of as an edge actually what's making us feel lost and always searching for, well, what exactly? “Authenticity�? Comfort? This isn't the world we were born into, but it's the world we grew up in. Maybe we're a little too quick in trying to keep up and adapt and this is what's creating this insatiable longing? If social media is how we understand ourselves and we're also recreating what we see, have we created a neverending boomerang effect?
Latronico doesn't give us answers, but, along with Sophie Hughes, wrote a gorgeous and quiet novel that tries to work through the questions.
This almost feels like a historical artifact about a generation and about a city.
A young couple move to Berlin when it was still cheap enough to live and work from.Though they present the perfect life through their instagram posts and seem to live a vibrant social life, they feel a dissatisfaction with their life and they aren’t sure why. What is missing? What could possibly be wrong?
A couple of things give away that we’re in this with Anna and Tom. The book opens with descriptions of pictures of their apartment and objects found in it, not their actual apartment. You’re going to recognize these immediately: the honey colored floor, sorta mid-century furniture, bright green monstera leaves, maybe a table full of hoyas and string of pearls, a fiddle-leaf fig in a corner, creamy colored linens on a bed. The second person plural ensnares us all, maybe making us part of the problem or at least not making us judges. We feel what they're going through, have seen or made the same shallow choices, and probably also wonder why we're all miserable.
What makes this novel go beyond being another online ennui book is how it captures the flattening of our lives along with the flattening of cities. It's not just our posts that are looking the same, but cities around the world.
Berlin was once a destination for those with dreams and ambitions; cutting edge and, most importantly, cheap. The digital nomads flocked, creating their own insular ‘expat� community. Anna and Tom barely speak German, the group mostly speaking in accented English. There is a moment when they try to interact with the ‘outside� world as the migrant crisis ramps up, but this was mostly a shallow attempt to get IG points. Eventually Berlin starts to feel old and expensive, so Anna and Tom search for that original feeling in Lisbon. While it's a little cheaper, the city is pretty much the same. I love that they are blind to their own part in this, as their graphic design aesthetic, which mimics what they see online, spreads around the world through their clients. The expats never use the g word on themselves.
Were Xennials and elder Millennials born at the wrong time? Is the digital divide in our lives that was once thought of as an edge actually what's making us feel lost and always searching for, well, what exactly? “Authenticity�? Comfort? This isn't the world we were born into, but it's the world we grew up in. Maybe we're a little too quick in trying to keep up and adapt and this is what's creating this insatiable longing? If social media is how we understand ourselves and we're also recreating what we see, have we created a neverending boomerang effect?
Latronico doesn't give us answers, but, along with Sophie Hughes, wrote a gorgeous and quiet novel that tries to work through the questions.
April 24, 2025
Comunicato ANSA dell�8 aprile 2025
Le Perfezioni di Vincenzo Latronico è entrato nella shortlist dell'International Book Prize 2025, il prestigioso riconoscimento per la narrativa internazionale introdotto nel 2004 per "integrare" il Man Booker Prize con un riconoscimento ad autori non appartenenti all'area anglofona.
Il vincitore sarà annunciato il 20 maggio in una cerimonia alla Tate Modern di Londra. È la seconda volta che un libro di uno scrittore italiano arriva in finale dopo La Storia della Bambina Perduta di Elena Ferrante nel 2016. Altri due libri di autori italiani - Via Gemito di Domenico Starnone tradotto da Oonagh Stransky e Niente di Vero di Veronica Raimo - erano entrati nella longlist nel 2024, ma non erano avanzati alla seconda fase di giudizio.
Mio commento di aprile 2022.
Nella società dell’apparire, amplificata dall’uso smodato su Instagram, Facebook e di qualsiasi altro social, nel regno degli influencer, sotto il dictat dell’”Appaio, dunque sono�, la storia di Anna e Tom si snoda tra presente, imperfetto, remoto e futuro, in una Berlino così attenta alla facciata.
“L’attenzione alla bellezza e al piacere sembra disciolta nella quotidianità come un granulato in sospensione.�
La loro vita sembra perfetta, dove in quel verbo si racchiude un universo molto ricco di insidie.
“Vivevano due vite. C’era la realtà tangibile, che li circondava; c’erano le immagini. Li circondavano anche quelle.
Erano sullo schermo dello smartphone che li svegliava. Un astronauta che canta dallo spazio. Una ragazza a cavalcioni su una palla demolitrice. Gli illuminavano il cuscino oltre la cortina del sonno, li accompagnavano in bagno sfilando sotto i polpastrelli.�
Il contesto storico non sembra scuoterli più di tanto perché c’� sempre qualcosa da postare: il tema dei rifugiati, ancora così attuale, li tocca con un algido distacco.
“Avevano ritrovato l’abbondanza di tempo, ma in qualche modo quel tempo risultava sprecato. L’entusiasmo sembrava essere sempre un filo più in là, irraggiungibile.�
Anna e Tom da anni sono sotto scacco dei like, ma non ne hanno piena consapevolezza e questo è molto triste, perché nessuno di noi ne è esente
“Un tempo, guardando immagini come quelle con la consapevolezza di quanto fossero frustrate e infelici le persone che le avevano scattate, si sarebbero sentiti manchevoli, in colpa: come se la realtà delle foto dovesse avere la meglio sui loro sentimenti, e l’incapacità di godersi una vita tanto desiderabile rivelasse una qualche carenza nel loro carattere. Questa insicurezza era passata. Ora quelle immagini gli sembravano una truffa.�
Le Perfezioni di Vincenzo Latronico è entrato nella shortlist dell'International Book Prize 2025, il prestigioso riconoscimento per la narrativa internazionale introdotto nel 2004 per "integrare" il Man Booker Prize con un riconoscimento ad autori non appartenenti all'area anglofona.
Il vincitore sarà annunciato il 20 maggio in una cerimonia alla Tate Modern di Londra. È la seconda volta che un libro di uno scrittore italiano arriva in finale dopo La Storia della Bambina Perduta di Elena Ferrante nel 2016. Altri due libri di autori italiani - Via Gemito di Domenico Starnone tradotto da Oonagh Stransky e Niente di Vero di Veronica Raimo - erano entrati nella longlist nel 2024, ma non erano avanzati alla seconda fase di giudizio.
Mio commento di aprile 2022.
Nella società dell’apparire, amplificata dall’uso smodato su Instagram, Facebook e di qualsiasi altro social, nel regno degli influencer, sotto il dictat dell’”Appaio, dunque sono�, la storia di Anna e Tom si snoda tra presente, imperfetto, remoto e futuro, in una Berlino così attenta alla facciata.
“L’attenzione alla bellezza e al piacere sembra disciolta nella quotidianità come un granulato in sospensione.�
La loro vita sembra perfetta, dove in quel verbo si racchiude un universo molto ricco di insidie.
“Vivevano due vite. C’era la realtà tangibile, che li circondava; c’erano le immagini. Li circondavano anche quelle.
Erano sullo schermo dello smartphone che li svegliava. Un astronauta che canta dallo spazio. Una ragazza a cavalcioni su una palla demolitrice. Gli illuminavano il cuscino oltre la cortina del sonno, li accompagnavano in bagno sfilando sotto i polpastrelli.�
Il contesto storico non sembra scuoterli più di tanto perché c’� sempre qualcosa da postare: il tema dei rifugiati, ancora così attuale, li tocca con un algido distacco.
“Avevano ritrovato l’abbondanza di tempo, ma in qualche modo quel tempo risultava sprecato. L’entusiasmo sembrava essere sempre un filo più in là, irraggiungibile.�
Anna e Tom da anni sono sotto scacco dei like, ma non ne hanno piena consapevolezza e questo è molto triste, perché nessuno di noi ne è esente
“Un tempo, guardando immagini come quelle con la consapevolezza di quanto fossero frustrate e infelici le persone che le avevano scattate, si sarebbero sentiti manchevoli, in colpa: come se la realtà delle foto dovesse avere la meglio sui loro sentimenti, e l’incapacità di godersi una vita tanto desiderabile rivelasse una qualche carenza nel loro carattere. Questa insicurezza era passata. Ora quelle immagini gli sembravano una truffa.�
May 28, 2023
La profondità del vacuo
"Le loro amicizie avevano un facilità sorprendente ma anche un che di aleatorio e friabile. Anna e Tom erano stati accolti con una curiosità e un'apertura che a volte sembravano sospette, la spia di una solitudine che tutti si sforzavano di esorcizzare. A quegli amici non avrebbero immaginato come chiedere aiuto in caso di difficoltà."
"I problemi di allora, benché più pressanti, sembravano anche più facili da risolvere in modo chiaro. Oggi le scelte erano troppe e ognuna si dilatava in una selva di biforcazioni che finiva per escludere ogni possibilità di cambiamento drastico. Il futuro più rivoluzionario che erano capaci di figurarsi era la parità di genere nei consigli di amministrazione, le auto elettriche, il vegetarianesimo."
Storia di una coppia italiana impiantata a Berlino, meritoria di lavoro creativo - web designer? mica ho capito bene -, amicizie di convenienza con altri stranieri in terra straniera e tante retate nelle gallerie d'arte moderna; il portafoglio meno gonfio di quanto ci si aspetterebbe. L'intera vita all'insegna di un'insoddisfazione di fondo che sconfina ora nella solitudine ora nell'indistinta noia.
Distillato del più rampante hipsterismo in salsa estera, con una pervasività dei social media dai crismi quasi distopici ed elenchi interminabili di piante, opere d'arte moderna e quartieri berlinesi.
Latronico scrive bene, non albergano dubbi sotto questo aspetto; la storia spazia con una certa naturalezza tra il patinato del vacuo (internet, click, views, social media, trend, immagini instagrammabili della propria vita, call, meeting, webcam, cibo da asporto) e momenti introspettivi di buon livello.
Di negativo vi è un certo approccio asettico: l'assenza di dialoghi e la completa spersonalizzazione della coppia di protagonisti ostacola il processo di empatia - che pure sarebbe necessario, visto il soggetto non propriamente comune.
"Le loro amicizie avevano un facilità sorprendente ma anche un che di aleatorio e friabile. Anna e Tom erano stati accolti con una curiosità e un'apertura che a volte sembravano sospette, la spia di una solitudine che tutti si sforzavano di esorcizzare. A quegli amici non avrebbero immaginato come chiedere aiuto in caso di difficoltà."
"I problemi di allora, benché più pressanti, sembravano anche più facili da risolvere in modo chiaro. Oggi le scelte erano troppe e ognuna si dilatava in una selva di biforcazioni che finiva per escludere ogni possibilità di cambiamento drastico. Il futuro più rivoluzionario che erano capaci di figurarsi era la parità di genere nei consigli di amministrazione, le auto elettriche, il vegetarianesimo."
Storia di una coppia italiana impiantata a Berlino, meritoria di lavoro creativo - web designer? mica ho capito bene -, amicizie di convenienza con altri stranieri in terra straniera e tante retate nelle gallerie d'arte moderna; il portafoglio meno gonfio di quanto ci si aspetterebbe. L'intera vita all'insegna di un'insoddisfazione di fondo che sconfina ora nella solitudine ora nell'indistinta noia.
Distillato del più rampante hipsterismo in salsa estera, con una pervasività dei social media dai crismi quasi distopici ed elenchi interminabili di piante, opere d'arte moderna e quartieri berlinesi.
Latronico scrive bene, non albergano dubbi sotto questo aspetto; la storia spazia con una certa naturalezza tra il patinato del vacuo (internet, click, views, social media, trend, immagini instagrammabili della propria vita, call, meeting, webcam, cibo da asporto) e momenti introspettivi di buon livello.
Di negativo vi è un certo approccio asettico: l'assenza di dialoghi e la completa spersonalizzazione della coppia di protagonisti ostacola il processo di empatia - che pure sarebbe necessario, visto il soggetto non propriamente comune.
August 27, 2022
Piace a tutti perché non dice un bel nulla.
Freddo e noioso
Freddo e noioso
March 4, 2025
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prizer 2025
Vincenzo Latronico's Perfection is a is a sharp, incisive meditation on the contradictions of modern life, following Anna and Tom, a couple who relocate to Berlin in search of a lifestyle that diverges radically from that of their peers back home. Both freelancers working in tech (or tech-adjacent fields), they live in a meticulously curated apartment—so precisely arranged that it doubles as a secondary income stream whenever they embrace the digital nomad lifestyle, renting it out while they spend months abroad, primarily in Southern Europe. Though their income is modest by German standards, it grants them significant financial freedom in these other locations, placing them in the ethically murky position of benefiting from the very inequalities they strive to be mindful of.
Latronico deftly critiques the curated aesthetics and performative mindfulness of his protagonists, drawing clear parallels to the work of french novelist and his 1965 novella, Les Choses (in english: ). Anna and Tom’s carefully designed life—filled with Scandinavian furniture, neutral colour palettes, and low-maintenance plants—becomes a reflection of a broader global homogenization, in which cities like Berlin and Lisbon function as interchangeable backdrops for a rootless, remote-working elite. The novel interrogates how social media shapes personal taste, transforming individual expression into a carefully managed brand.
The detached, third-person narrative voice perfectly mirrors the superficiality of the world it observes, exposing the emptiness that often lurks beneath the pursuit of an aesthetically and ethically "correct" existence. Latronico dissects millennial and Gen Z anxieties with precision: the pressures of social media, the slow death of the city, the transactional nature of modern relationships, and the way Americanized social justice discourse has infiltrated European lexicons. Yet, despite its sharp observations,Perfection never feels moralizing. Instead, it presents its characters� contradictions with a certain neutrality, making its social critique all the more compelling.
In many ways, Perfection serves as both a satire and a mirror, reflecting how contemporary life is shaped by the tension between authenticity and performance. For me, the novel felt uncomfortably honest—perhaps because I recognized so many of its insights in my own reality. It’s this level of self-recognition that makes Perfection such an effective and thought-provoking read.
Vincenzo Latronico's Perfection is a is a sharp, incisive meditation on the contradictions of modern life, following Anna and Tom, a couple who relocate to Berlin in search of a lifestyle that diverges radically from that of their peers back home. Both freelancers working in tech (or tech-adjacent fields), they live in a meticulously curated apartment—so precisely arranged that it doubles as a secondary income stream whenever they embrace the digital nomad lifestyle, renting it out while they spend months abroad, primarily in Southern Europe. Though their income is modest by German standards, it grants them significant financial freedom in these other locations, placing them in the ethically murky position of benefiting from the very inequalities they strive to be mindful of.
Latronico deftly critiques the curated aesthetics and performative mindfulness of his protagonists, drawing clear parallels to the work of french novelist and his 1965 novella, Les Choses (in english: ). Anna and Tom’s carefully designed life—filled with Scandinavian furniture, neutral colour palettes, and low-maintenance plants—becomes a reflection of a broader global homogenization, in which cities like Berlin and Lisbon function as interchangeable backdrops for a rootless, remote-working elite. The novel interrogates how social media shapes personal taste, transforming individual expression into a carefully managed brand.
The detached, third-person narrative voice perfectly mirrors the superficiality of the world it observes, exposing the emptiness that often lurks beneath the pursuit of an aesthetically and ethically "correct" existence. Latronico dissects millennial and Gen Z anxieties with precision: the pressures of social media, the slow death of the city, the transactional nature of modern relationships, and the way Americanized social justice discourse has infiltrated European lexicons. Yet, despite its sharp observations,Perfection never feels moralizing. Instead, it presents its characters� contradictions with a certain neutrality, making its social critique all the more compelling.
In many ways, Perfection serves as both a satire and a mirror, reflecting how contemporary life is shaped by the tension between authenticity and performance. For me, the novel felt uncomfortably honest—perhaps because I recognized so many of its insights in my own reality. It’s this level of self-recognition that makes Perfection such an effective and thought-provoking read.
August 25, 2023
La ricerca dello strafigo. Nelle scelte, negli oggetti, nei luoghi da frequentare.
Essere in nel modo e nel luogo giusto: Barcellona, Berlino, Lisbona, e poi dov’altro. E contribuire a rovinare tutto, a spersonalizzare quartieri, città. E poi scoprire che altri, giovani come eravamo noi prima, ci stanno soppiantando con nuove mode, per rendere il nostro luogo non più unico, ma uguale e omologato al gusto di un momento che non riconosciamo.
Fa riflettere. Specie per chi come me ha figli all’estero, per scelta, per necessità. O per tutti e due.
Mi ha fatto venir voglia di leggere Le cose di J. Perec, da cui sembra abbia tratto ispirazione.
Essere in nel modo e nel luogo giusto: Barcellona, Berlino, Lisbona, e poi dov’altro. E contribuire a rovinare tutto, a spersonalizzare quartieri, città. E poi scoprire che altri, giovani come eravamo noi prima, ci stanno soppiantando con nuove mode, per rendere il nostro luogo non più unico, ma uguale e omologato al gusto di un momento che non riconosciamo.
Fa riflettere. Specie per chi come me ha figli all’estero, per scelta, per necessità. O per tutti e due.
Mi ha fatto venir voglia di leggere Le cose di J. Perec, da cui sembra abbia tratto ispirazione.
April 20, 2025
i have mixed feelings about this one
it felt like a fairly surface-level critique of gentrification. anna and tom are not fully developed characters but rather representations of many real, modern people—which i understand. however, i found their interconnected identity to be a bit irritating to follow; they were rarely described individually, always referred to as a collective “they.� if you’re into character driven stories, this will not intrigue you.
there’s a lot i can appreciate about this story from the rich descriptions to the potential for honest discussions, but i just don’t think it’s super noteworthy. so many other works do “hey, this is gentrification, it’s bad, let’s talk about it� on a deeper level. i just don’t feel like reading about wealthy white millennials whining about how boring their incredibly privileged life is and their desire to conquer a new place.
tl;dr: this would be great for a lot of people, but not for me personally. great book for people who are just finding out capitalism = bad
it felt like a fairly surface-level critique of gentrification. anna and tom are not fully developed characters but rather representations of many real, modern people—which i understand. however, i found their interconnected identity to be a bit irritating to follow; they were rarely described individually, always referred to as a collective “they.� if you’re into character driven stories, this will not intrigue you.
there’s a lot i can appreciate about this story from the rich descriptions to the potential for honest discussions, but i just don’t think it’s super noteworthy. so many other works do “hey, this is gentrification, it’s bad, let’s talk about it� on a deeper level. i just don’t feel like reading about wealthy white millennials whining about how boring their incredibly privileged life is and their desire to conquer a new place.
tl;dr: this would be great for a lot of people, but not for me personally. great book for people who are just finding out capitalism = bad
April 23, 2024
„Anna és Tom egy olyan eszmevilágba nőtt bele, ahol az egyéniség könnyen megfejthető és örökösen megújuló vizuális különbségek rendszerén keresztül nyilvánult meg.�
Először azt hittem, véletlen egy lakberendezési magazint tördeltek bele a regénybe. Tiszta, harmonikus terek, parketták, függönyök és szobanövények aprólékos leírása, amely mintha csak azért született volna, hogy az ember átértékelje a bérhierarchiában elfoglalt helyét. Magyarán: irigykedjen. Egyfajta természetes káosznak álcázott rend, ami addig a pontig tökéletes a maga nemében, amíg meg nem érkezik bele az ember. De nyilván megérkezik.
A megfoghatatlan hiányokról szóló könyveknek van egy hátulütője: úgy kell megírni benne a hiányt, hogy megfoghatatlannak érezzük, de közben nagyon is meg tudjuk fogni. Külön veszélyes, ha egy kifejezetten specifikus hiányról beszélünk � arról, amit azok éreznek (vagyis konstruálnak magukban), akiknek igazából per def nem hiányzik semmi az életükből. Anna és Tom is ilyen közösséghez tartoznak, egyfajta nemzetek feletti értelmiséghez, ahhoz a csoporthoz, akiket a Momentum kampányszövegeivel megcéloz. A magyar lakosságon belüli arányukról pedig mindent elmond az említett párt szavazóinak száma. Persze attól még, hogy a szereplők problémái távoliak, az olvasó még közel kerülhet hozzájuk � tulajdonképpen erről szól az irodalom. De Latronico szemmel láthatóan nem törekszik erre, figuráit (alighanem tudatosan) távol tartja tőlünk, amitől az egész szöveg sokkal inkább hajaz a dzsentrifikáció társadalmi és pszichológiai hatásairól szóló esettanulmányra, mint irodalmi műre. Aminek köszönhetően nem is tudtam közel kerülni hozzá � hiába tartottam érdekesnek és helyenként sziporkázóan okosnak, empátiát nem tudott ébreszteni bennem.
Először azt hittem, véletlen egy lakberendezési magazint tördeltek bele a regénybe. Tiszta, harmonikus terek, parketták, függönyök és szobanövények aprólékos leírása, amely mintha csak azért született volna, hogy az ember átértékelje a bérhierarchiában elfoglalt helyét. Magyarán: irigykedjen. Egyfajta természetes káosznak álcázott rend, ami addig a pontig tökéletes a maga nemében, amíg meg nem érkezik bele az ember. De nyilván megérkezik.
A megfoghatatlan hiányokról szóló könyveknek van egy hátulütője: úgy kell megírni benne a hiányt, hogy megfoghatatlannak érezzük, de közben nagyon is meg tudjuk fogni. Külön veszélyes, ha egy kifejezetten specifikus hiányról beszélünk � arról, amit azok éreznek (vagyis konstruálnak magukban), akiknek igazából per def nem hiányzik semmi az életükből. Anna és Tom is ilyen közösséghez tartoznak, egyfajta nemzetek feletti értelmiséghez, ahhoz a csoporthoz, akiket a Momentum kampányszövegeivel megcéloz. A magyar lakosságon belüli arányukról pedig mindent elmond az említett párt szavazóinak száma. Persze attól még, hogy a szereplők problémái távoliak, az olvasó még közel kerülhet hozzájuk � tulajdonképpen erről szól az irodalom. De Latronico szemmel láthatóan nem törekszik erre, figuráit (alighanem tudatosan) távol tartja tőlünk, amitől az egész szöveg sokkal inkább hajaz a dzsentrifikáció társadalmi és pszichológiai hatásairól szóló esettanulmányra, mint irodalmi műre. Aminek köszönhetően nem is tudtam közel kerülni hozzá � hiába tartottam érdekesnek és helyenként sziporkázóan okosnak, empátiát nem tudott ébreszteni bennem.
July 29, 2023
„𝐌𝐨𝐫� 𝐝𝐚 𝐣𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐣𝐚𝐨 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐝 𝐭𝐨𝐤𝐨𝐦 𝐤𝐨𝐠 𝐣𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐨 𝐳𝐚 𝐜̌𝐢𝐦 𝐬𝐮 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐥𝐢 𝐢 𝐝𝐚𝐥𝐣𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐣𝐚𝐥𝐨, 𝐭𝐨𝐤𝐨𝐦 𝐤𝐨𝐠 𝐣𝐞 𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐨 𝐝𝐨𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐣𝐧𝐨 𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢 𝐮 𝐯𝐨𝐳 𝐢𝐥𝐢 𝐧𝐚 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐣𝐞𝐤𝐭 𝐝𝐚 𝐛𝐢 𝐬𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐥𝐨 𝐮 𝐬𝐚𝐬𝐯𝐢𝐦 𝐝𝐫𝐮𝐠𝐚𝐜̌𝐢𝐣𝐢 𝐬𝐯𝐞𝐭, 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜̌𝐚𝐧 𝐢 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧, 𝐬𝐯𝐞𝐭 𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐚 𝐬𝐥𝐮𝐳̌𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐠 𝐮 𝐤𝐫𝐜̌𝐚𝐳𝐢𝐦𝐚 𝐢 𝐨𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐥𝐣𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐡 𝐤𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐚 𝐬 𝐩𝐨𝐠𝐥𝐞𝐝𝐨𝐦 𝐧𝐚 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞; 𝐦𝐞đ𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐦, 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐣𝐚𝐥𝐨 𝐢𝐦 𝐣𝐞 𝐬𝐯𝐞 𝐣𝐚𝐬𝐧𝐢𝐣𝐞 𝐝𝐚 𝐣𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐯𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐚𝐝𝐚𝐥𝐨 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐬̌𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐢 𝐢 𝐝𝐚 𝐜́𝐞 𝐳𝐛𝐨𝐠 𝐧𝐞𝐝𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐤𝐚 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐣𝐞 𝐢𝐥𝐢 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐣𝐬𝐤𝐨𝐠 𝐤𝐚𝐬̌𝐧𝐣𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐚 𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐢 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐢 𝐝𝐚 𝐠𝐚 𝐬𝐤𝐮𝐩𝐨 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞. 𝐀 𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐮 𝐬𝐞𝐛𝐢 𝐦𝐨𝐠𝐥𝐢 𝐝𝐚 𝐠𝐚 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐮𝐬̌𝐭𝐞.�
Sudeći po slabim ocenama Italijana, zaključujem da tamo zaista vlada dolce vita i da nemaju pojma kako je biti milenijalac u današnjem svetu.
Ovo je knjižica bez dijaloga, bez karakterizacije likova, koja se svodi na opise i jednolično pripovedanje. Ana i Tom su par koji je svoj novi dom našao u Berlinu (nedostaje mi taj grad i raj za hipstere!), u stanu prepunom biljaka, časopisa, detalja koji vrište kojoj generaciji pripadaju, da, „onoj nesrećnoj�, a njihova zanimanja � freelance web developer i grafički dizajner, uz brand strategiju � samo ih dodatno stereotipno približavaju very relatable stadijumu čitaoca poput mene. "Savršenstva" su u tom stanu i biljkama, na branču, u berlinskim klubovima, parkovima, galerijama i muzejima, u kafeterijama sa brzim netom, u restoranima koji pored dobre hrane nude i estetiku. Savršenstva su na slikama na Instagramu i teško dostižna, uz večitu prazninu ili osećaj da nešto može i treba bolje. Ko smo zaista, gde idemo, ima li išta smisla i kad će već jednom da nas zameni veštačka inteligencija da se malo odmorimo od buljenja u računar... Sve je to roman Vinčenca Latronika i nije me oduševio, ali neću se pretvarati da me nije isprozivao i razumeo.
Sudeći po slabim ocenama Italijana, zaključujem da tamo zaista vlada dolce vita i da nemaju pojma kako je biti milenijalac u današnjem svetu.
Ovo je knjižica bez dijaloga, bez karakterizacije likova, koja se svodi na opise i jednolično pripovedanje. Ana i Tom su par koji je svoj novi dom našao u Berlinu (nedostaje mi taj grad i raj za hipstere!), u stanu prepunom biljaka, časopisa, detalja koji vrište kojoj generaciji pripadaju, da, „onoj nesrećnoj�, a njihova zanimanja � freelance web developer i grafički dizajner, uz brand strategiju � samo ih dodatno stereotipno približavaju very relatable stadijumu čitaoca poput mene. "Savršenstva" su u tom stanu i biljkama, na branču, u berlinskim klubovima, parkovima, galerijama i muzejima, u kafeterijama sa brzim netom, u restoranima koji pored dobre hrane nude i estetiku. Savršenstva su na slikama na Instagramu i teško dostižna, uz večitu prazninu ili osećaj da nešto može i treba bolje. Ko smo zaista, gde idemo, ima li išta smisla i kad će već jednom da nas zameni veštačka inteligencija da se malo odmorimo od buljenja u računar... Sve je to roman Vinčenca Latronika i nije me oduševio, ali neću se pretvarati da me nije isprozivao i razumeo.
October 26, 2023
" Stvarnost nije uvek bila u saglasju sa slikama"
Roman koji ne prirasta za srce ali ga ujeda
� Roman Vinčenca Latronika je možda najlakše svrstati u onu posebnu kategoriju "knjiga za milenijalce" koje su postale poprilično popularne proteklih par godina po društvenim mrežama. U srži ovog žanra je opšta zbunjenost i preplavljenost opcijama u vremenu gde nema konstanti, gde je sve moguće ali te izbori parališu da napraviš korak prema bilo čemu konkretnom. Radi se o rapidnom napretku tehnologije, ne baš sjajnom stanju ekonomije (bar u mojoj zemlji), stvaranju novih profesija, dekonstrukciji mnogih sistema verovanja i društvenih normi.
Latroniko govori o univerzalnim osećanjima mnogih milenijalaca, njegovi junaci mogu biti bilo ko jer ih lišava dublje karakterizacije. U stvari, jedino što ovim likovima daje identitet jeste život koji su sami sebi skrojili ali u kojem se nažalost, ne pronalaze. Ana i Tom verovatno i sami ne znaju kako da se izraze i žive u svom vremenu. Rade poslove od kuće, kretivne prirode (Veb developer, grafički dizajner) provodeći sate nad računarom, disocirani jedno od drugog i od spoljašnjeg sveta. U slobodno vreme izlaze po restoranima, posećuju zanimljiva dešavanja u Berlinu i Evropi, obilaze galerije i gostuju na svakoj žurki, eksperimentišu sa svojim seksualnim životom i slično. Uprkost ovoj raznolikosti, čitalac ne stiče utisak da oni pripadaju tim krugovima. U prvom planu, oni se otuđuju od svoje rodne države i biraju mesto gde ne znaju jezik i kulturu jer ih privlači "onostranost" i uzbuđenje evropskog grada; ne druže se sa stanovnicima, nego sa drugim migrantima. Oni ne znaju da stvore iskrenu povezanost sa ljudima, njihovo vezivno tkivo sa strancima u Berlinu je istovetna zbunjenost, večita neodređena potraga za "nečim boljim" i viralne informacije preko društvenih mreža - oni i jesu deca i ljudi svojeg doba, deca internet kulture.
� Roman nema dijaloga, distanciran kao i njegovi likovi a opet atmosferičan i napisan jednostavnim jezikom samim tim i lak za čitanje, ipak nije naivan. Daje nam sliku novog načina života koji nosi sa sobom poseban skup problema sa kojima se ljudi pre nisu suočavali. To su situacije i dileme sa kojima se mnogi od nas nose na dnevnom nivou (kako naći prijatelje kao odrasla osoba, kako priuštiti svoj stan ili kuću u ovoj ekonomiji, zašto nas privlači kultura hrane i pripremanja obroka, da li je stav da treba hedonistički uživati u životu i ne brinuti za sutra samo privid i rasipanje energije i novca?).
Možda ovo nije roman za svakoga, mene lično nije oduševio ali mi jeste dao teme za razmišljanje, što je verovatno i bila namera autora, preispitati šta vrednujemo i šta dopuštamo da nas oblikuje kao osobe, i pre svega da li smo zadovoljni svojim životom ili se frustrirano vrtimo ukrug.
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U suštini nije loša, ali nešto tu fali za "savršenstvo". Prikaz sledi kasnije 😁
Roman koji ne prirasta za srce ali ga ujeda
� Roman Vinčenca Latronika je možda najlakše svrstati u onu posebnu kategoriju "knjiga za milenijalce" koje su postale poprilično popularne proteklih par godina po društvenim mrežama. U srži ovog žanra je opšta zbunjenost i preplavljenost opcijama u vremenu gde nema konstanti, gde je sve moguće ali te izbori parališu da napraviš korak prema bilo čemu konkretnom. Radi se o rapidnom napretku tehnologije, ne baš sjajnom stanju ekonomije (bar u mojoj zemlji), stvaranju novih profesija, dekonstrukciji mnogih sistema verovanja i društvenih normi.
Latroniko govori o univerzalnim osećanjima mnogih milenijalaca, njegovi junaci mogu biti bilo ko jer ih lišava dublje karakterizacije. U stvari, jedino što ovim likovima daje identitet jeste život koji su sami sebi skrojili ali u kojem se nažalost, ne pronalaze. Ana i Tom verovatno i sami ne znaju kako da se izraze i žive u svom vremenu. Rade poslove od kuće, kretivne prirode (Veb developer, grafički dizajner) provodeći sate nad računarom, disocirani jedno od drugog i od spoljašnjeg sveta. U slobodno vreme izlaze po restoranima, posećuju zanimljiva dešavanja u Berlinu i Evropi, obilaze galerije i gostuju na svakoj žurki, eksperimentišu sa svojim seksualnim životom i slično. Uprkost ovoj raznolikosti, čitalac ne stiče utisak da oni pripadaju tim krugovima. U prvom planu, oni se otuđuju od svoje rodne države i biraju mesto gde ne znaju jezik i kulturu jer ih privlači "onostranost" i uzbuđenje evropskog grada; ne druže se sa stanovnicima, nego sa drugim migrantima. Oni ne znaju da stvore iskrenu povezanost sa ljudima, njihovo vezivno tkivo sa strancima u Berlinu je istovetna zbunjenost, večita neodređena potraga za "nečim boljim" i viralne informacije preko društvenih mreža - oni i jesu deca i ljudi svojeg doba, deca internet kulture.
"Sreća je bila tu, nadohvat ruke, bilo je dovoljno da joj se prepuste, pa ipak, trenutak kasnije, pogled na betonski skelet neke nedovršene kuće ili trošne straćare okružene smećem ili auto otpadom bio je dovoljan da ih podseti na to da je to što su oni želeli bilo negde daleko."
� Roman nema dijaloga, distanciran kao i njegovi likovi a opet atmosferičan i napisan jednostavnim jezikom samim tim i lak za čitanje, ipak nije naivan. Daje nam sliku novog načina života koji nosi sa sobom poseban skup problema sa kojima se ljudi pre nisu suočavali. To su situacije i dileme sa kojima se mnogi od nas nose na dnevnom nivou (kako naći prijatelje kao odrasla osoba, kako priuštiti svoj stan ili kuću u ovoj ekonomiji, zašto nas privlači kultura hrane i pripremanja obroka, da li je stav da treba hedonistički uživati u životu i ne brinuti za sutra samo privid i rasipanje energije i novca?).
Možda ovo nije roman za svakoga, mene lično nije oduševio ali mi jeste dao teme za razmišljanje, što je verovatno i bila namera autora, preispitati šta vrednujemo i šta dopuštamo da nas oblikuje kao osobe, i pre svega da li smo zadovoljni svojim životom ili se frustrirano vrtimo ukrug.
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U suštini nije loša, ali nešto tu fali za "savršenstvo". Prikaz sledi kasnije 😁
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