Alessandro Baricco
City

A simple book, as a detective novel can be, never requires a second reading. Dogma. Period. City is an elusive work, not fully graspable. The fast-paced, lively, ironic writing, often deliberately self-referential and irresistibly captivating, often surprises you by hitting you "at the bullseye" with this or that event, witticism, dialogue, or pseudo-philosophical assumption, contrasts and battles with a structure worthy of a suggestion produced by the latent dreamlike thoughts of a nocturnal Calatrava, still dazed by excesses.

The light baroque eclecticism (it seems an oxymoron, I am conscious of it) of, calembour allowing, Baricco, never tending to narrative rococo or lyrical hodgepodge, creates a multitude of literary suites, blended into each other, until creating a pantagruelian figurative labyrinth, winking just enough at the collective imagination of the 'barbarian' of the moment, a modern figure, indeed very current, and a universal fetish of the new generation's average citizen.

One of the merits that I feel obliged to recognize in the densely printed 319 pages, including the epilogue, is the flypaper effect activated even before a minimal narrative takes shape in the minds of readers of the story itself, of a sterile hint of the Demiurge to shape the material, fresh and naive, presented to us in the form of a brief and enigmatic phone call during which the main characters of the novel, the special observers, emerge. It is inaccurate to identify them with the most prominent personalities: Gould, the genius child, and Shatzy Shell, his young governess, not the gas station as she will point out several times herself, are perhaps overshadowed in terms of complexity and originality by the teacher Mondrian Kilroy, a generous dispenser of free existential-philosophical theses to those who have the goodwill to lend their ear.

'So, Mr. Klauser, does Mami Jane have to die?' - They can all go to hell. - Is it a yes or a no? - What do you say?

Love at first sight. Hard to part with it. 'City' is a veritable magnet, an innocent little trinket on the surface, revealed as an atomic bomb if entrusted in the right hands, that is, placed on the bedside tables of readers suitable to grasp its original uniqueness. The author, an expert reader and cunning creator of fantastic worlds, knows his tactics all too well, so much as to institutionalize it in practice, to elevate it to a peculiar style. One can easily detect a meticulous tendency in making comprehensible to his literary entourage, writing forms, narrative rhythms, paradoxical fake-avant-garde situations, youthful expressions, and even playful creations derived from elided verbal voices, of terms like ‘nondire’. And the consumers of the novel to whom Baricco seems to refer are the new generations, the under 30s, the pioneers of 'multitasking,' the bards of Gem Boy, the Internet, and McDonald’s, of literary absence, that is, the almost total lack of books in their daily lives, the heralds of rejuvenation, so much like ‘00 Futurists (as unaware of their hypothetical predecessors' existence), predicting with good reason, a staunch defense by them (the young readers, not Marinetti & co) against harsh perplexities (coming from) high university faculties or (worthy of) noble pens affected by purism.

And it is precisely they, according to the author's acute plan, who will accept the experimental will (credible or not, individual critique rights will determine it) emerging from the paper, the engaging unconventional pulsations, without turning up their noses too much at a passage blatantly inspired by Salinger or a phrase lightly borrowed from the long tradition of overseas Beat writers, precisely because they are unaware of the terms of comparison from which their new spotless icon would have shamelessly drawn. I don't entirely feel like defining the novel in question as a pastime for dimwits engaged in an anti-intellectual activity but rather a valid product overall, and at times truly unmissable, for all those who metaphorically strip themselves of highbrow intellectual pretensions or have the patience to overlook fawning constructions and blatantly underground solutions.

Allowing myself a haute cuisine comparison, City is like a dinner of Lucullan memory during a Gala evening, where exquisite dishes and libations are not lacking. All normal, except that these are served in accommodating little plastic plates and the room adorned with festoons and balloons of questionable taste. And then you just have to eat, savoring the inviting delicacies, bringing the champagne to your lips with a sense of strangeness, as if something didn't add up, occasionally glancing furtively to the other end of the table to gauge the situation and see if your feeling is shared by the fellow diners.

Since childhood, our brain harbors the ability to confront stories, tales, or nursery rhymes, deriving meaning or a key to interpretation from them. A solution to the problem. And there is in us the innate need always to attempt it, the search for the end. Reading City, it seems it doesn't happen: just the opening lines are enough to make us forget the unstoppable urge to find a why to the product here and now analyzed, to free us, at least for a moment, from our higher human sense. Thus lowering our guard for just a fraction of a second and bam! without even having time to brandish the weapons of literary criticism, common sense, intellectual snobbery, we find ourselves as if stunned by a heavy jab from the boxer Larry ‘Lawson’ Gorman, a realistic figure born from the imagination of the young Gould during his 'sessions' in the bathroom. Moments of daze with a glassy stare.

Or if you prefer, shot by a fatal bullet from the gun of the gunslinger Bird, an Indian now one-eyed and tired; also a clear example of a meta-character, owing his birth to Shatzy, who brings to life a Leonean-style western that runs lucidly through the book's entire duration, postponing its unexpected ending. Stuck in the swamp of flowing words and vitriolic direct speeches, aware that any attempt to escape would terrifically complicate the matter, raising the level of muck above the waist. What seems paradoxical is that being practically submerged in mud up to the neck provides us with a certain amusement. All this, in the good name of pleasure and innocent disengagement.

Forgetful of the time spent without discounts on the set paper dining table, one gets up, pardon, pulls away from the reading, sated, satisfied, and a bit bewildered. With the awareness of desiring yet another portion of that so exhilarating dessert.