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21 November 2016

the book on the nightstand

The book on the nightstand: The Art of Being Frail

by admin

Finding words “art” and “frail” in a sentence with positive attitude is as much strange as talking of a durable happiness, Alessandro D’Avenia has tried in his new book The Art of Being Frail.

It so happens that a poet, that in memory of nearly all high school students is remembered as pessimistic and unfortunate (a loser in short), for the first time is chosen as a partner from which to draw inspiration to lead an happy life: Giacomo Leopardi. 

D’Avenia is strucked and he strucks everybody with reflections that show us, in this timeless exchange of letters, a side of the Recanati poet that until now no one has ever told. It’s a piece of work hardly classifiable but out of any classification (what does it matter if it is a mistery novel or a Bildungsroman when it speaks of the life of any of us!), it looks for beauty even when it meets deception, weakness, pain, loss. It’s passion to stir Leopardi, that suffering – as we remember the Latin etymology – that we no longer feel to achieve what we like, what makes us happy. If it’s true that we don’t passionate about it, we don’t dream, and in front of the obstacles we stop or prefer to work around them, D’Avenia / Leopardi talks about the art of repair: when we choose to throw what we don’t like anymore or which has broken and we buy something new, because to fix it would mean leaving visible the cracks, we don’t see that “behind that crack hides the light.” If we’re weak, perhaps we only need to be “handle carefully”, to give us that attention can make us feel loved, precious, to trust each other and to let someone think to take care of us.

The book by Alessandro D’Avenia deserves to be read no matter what I might write about it, for this – if I didn’t convince you – I’ll conclude with the author’s words:

these pages contain no simple solutions, because life is never simple, and was not to Leopardi in particular, but they suggest how we could be just a bit simpler.

From today appearing frail it might be easier. Thanks prof. D’Avenia!

 

Time of the reading: three nights in the moonlight

The Art of Being Frail - Alessandro d'Avena

The Art of Being Frail - Alessandro d'Avena

Ph. Sara Cartelli
© The Eat Culture

Photos: Sara Cartelli

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