Old records and now ‘Laggiù la gioventù’. A nymph reads the latest Panella

Nature gives us the chance to be overwhelmed by a flutter of the heart. Thank you, nature. A flutter of the heart is a lub-dub of a certain depth, amidst the incessant metallic clang of the chain of necessities that swings before us day after day. Let’s imagine a nymph bathing who spots Pan behind the reeds, only to discover that Pan is a certain Pan: it’s Pasquale Panella. And Pasquale Panella is standing there with a gift for her in his hands. So to speak, because it’s only in digital format. It’s his new book, "Laggiù la gioventù". Pan hands it to her, but she’s so flustered that she can’t even take it – partly because it’s digital, partly because if she takes the gift, her hands will no longer cover her and she’ll be left naked. The nymph in question could be anyone, and again, so to speak. But there are those who never speak just for the sake of it; there are those who speak to take action. And indeed, about a year before that encounter, the nymph rediscovers some old burnt CDs by Enzo Carella and Lucio Battisti. The childhood trauma works in reverse.

What is the opposite of trauma? Perhaps a pounding heart, a dream you can feel in your flesh. The nymph can no longer put it into words, but she immediately buys everything in the original; now that she’s being paid a two-figure hourly rate, she can afford those records. And the thump-thump turns into tachycardia. She listens to "La sposa occidentale", "L’apparenza", "Don Giovanni" and "Hegel" for ten months on end, without pause. She can’t stop; she can’t listen to anything else. There’s something that pins her down, licking her, gluing her in place: language. She finally recognises her homeland: it was there—language, words. Thank you, words. And it annoys her to have to agree with the sayings, but it really is true that all that glitters is not gold, because Panella is made of gold too; he has golden words, he really does. And he’s never run out of them. But he’s never even started them either; the golden words are Panella himself – you can tell from every linguistic affront he makes, because his entire body of work is a work of abolishing the world, and for that very reason he cannot represent it, and for that very reason, he makes it almost pleasant.

Thank you, Panella. A book – not about youth, who knows – claims to have discovered this manuscript, as if it belonged to others, and to have brought it to light; yet it is in fact his own, and the protagonist, if there must be one, is a Cavalcanti, though we do not know where he is leading us. The palpitations are now almost a heart attack. Let’s recap: ‘Thank you, Panella, for writing those golden words,’ the nymph tells him, and he waits for the book to come out and hands it to her, lovingly, without another word. And she, still reeling, her hair dripping, reads it voraciously and searches, searches for all the lovers of her love. She sits down at the computer and starts browsing. She even opens YouTube, which usually leaves nymphs like her in tatters. And she finds very little. Who’s this bloke in the cap asking her: ‘And you, do you know who Pasquale Panella is?’ ‘But who are you? Me? Who’s this guy talking to?’ For goodness’ sake, it’s a worthy cause, but what manner of behaviour is that? And let’s stick to the first person, if we must. She wanders through the circles of hell, then – oh, for heaven’s sake – she stumbles upon Giulio Casale singing "Don Giovanni".

The heart attack turns into a stroke, but it’s a blessing: thank you, Giulio, for hurting me too. I reread "Poema bianco", leaf through it, read: to write, at its best, is to finish crafting the text, and the best thing about any text is to imagine it: to replace memory with an airy scaffolding in the air, which will happen, which would happen. And she thinks: Ah! But what does it do, the power of thought, what does it do? And I don’t know where I’d drifted off to, but I snap back to reality with a text message on my phone. A colleague sends a YouTube link: Immanuel Casto. "The lyrics are mine, for the most part," he says. Right, but now we want to know what that "most part" is.