something to read
A splendid ruin
A review of Vincenzo Latronico’s book, published by Einaudi, 248 pp., €19.50
“What was unfolding before us in those months was this: an opportunity for reinvention, a dream to be realised as a couple – in other words, a path we had chosen.” Choosing always has two sides to it: giving something up and making a preference. The initial enthusiasm driving two thirty-somethings who met and immediately fell in love stems from a preference. They choose each other because they prefer each other; they choose to take a leap of faith and buy a three-storey nineteenth-century house on the outskirts of a tiny village in Pomerania. They choose to move in the same direction, which for them means renovating that immense, splendid ruin and building one of the many possible lives there together. A life that had simply happened had become a choice. Elsa shows no doubts or hesitations; she throws herself into the venture without displaying the slightest uncertainty, as if it were the most natural and sensible thing in the world. Her partner, on the other hand, begins to feel something inside him cracking—a fracture, something that does not quite add up and that prevents him from feeling entirely at ease with that choice. Initially he pays it no mind, living only intermittently as if in a trance (when it was still possible, however, to turn back, to pull himself out of that venture). He lets himself be swept along by events: new encounters, Elsa and her animals, the allure of a happier, ever-changing future that no longer seems so distant. However, the hitches and detours also begin: the unexpected costs of renovating the house, which keep mounting; the asbestos; the mould infesting the property. Gradually, the spectre of failure, the end of illusions and discouragement begins to loom on the horizon. Elsa’s and her partner’s desires start to diverge. “The inner experience of someone who lies to themselves is different from that of someone who lies to others: you are not denying a fact that you know for certain. You are polishing a story, setting aside a hypothesis, favouring a particular perspective.” The choice of a life in the countryside increasingly appears as a sacrifice, as something that can no longer contain all their longing. A prospect to be viewed with suspicion. Fellow travellers on that journey are lost, his relationship with Elsa becomes strained, and trust begins to falter. Was it a foolish choice brought about by difficult and precarious times, or a genuine attempt to try and be happier? Perhaps just a daring desire, born of someone who still has so much time ahead of them. Splendid and ruinous in equal measure.