Ian McEwan
Il mio romanzo viola profumato

In yesterday's brief editorial, I forgot (due to latent amnesia probably caused by age) to include the reading of this very short novel (it consists of only 64 pages that can be read in less than an hour) with an even shorter reflection centered on the self in literature, practically, it can be considered a story where (and here I steal the 6 words from Einaudi.it) “the perfect crime can be committed”, in the sense that the one who is criminalized doesn’t even realize (or pretends not to realize) it has happened.

The peculiarity, or rather the peculiarities of this story are more than one; first and foremost, it was previously published in the famous American cultural magazine “The New Yorker”, the first part related to the novel, while the second part (regarding the essay on the self) is a speech by IME, delivered at the awarding of the Bottari Lattes Grinzane 2018 prize. Secondly, this book was originally published in 2016 while it was released in Italy only in 2018 by Einaudi on the occasion of IME’s 70th birthday. Thirdly, I cannot reveal it without spoiling the little grand theft contained in the little volume, ehm, you will discover it only by reading...

WARNING

For those who are interested (and at the same time don’t care much about spoilers), here are some very brief excerpts highlighted by me during the reading on my Kindle that serve as ingredients for “My Purple Scented Novel”:

• we made love to each other’s girlfriend and, in some sporadic circumstances, attempted to engage in a homoerotic relationship.
• The relationship between us was simply a non-conformist pose. We thought it made us irresistible. The truth was that the sight of the other's penis made us repellent.
• We were both working on our first novels that had a lot in common: sex, disorder, a certain apocalyptic taste, a hint of violence, a bit of stylish gloom, and incredibly strong jokes about everything that can go wrong between a boy and a girl.
• (2 unusual terms for me...) loppa, barbonismo
• His physique, the stature (to say Nazi-like would be unfair - let's say something like Bruce Chatwin with a sullen air, like Mick Jagger)
• Lost in thought. I watched a slightly scruffy thrush pacing back and forth on the grass, hunting for a worm.
• I was simply enjoying the warmth of an extraordinary reading experience, a form of deep gratitude that all literature lovers know well.
• In one of those barbaric "prunings" of the so-called "medium runs", my publisher had "with immense regret" decided to sacrifice me.

And these that serve as ingredients for the self:

• A couple of years ago I was in Venice in Piazza San Marco sitting in front of a cup of coffee observing the passage of thousands of tourists like me. Almost all had a camera. Dozens were taking photos not of the Doge's Palace so splendidly described by John Ruskin, but of themselves in front of that palace. They held the phones as far as possible or used special extenders. The wonders of Venice were not complete without the testimony of a self among them. Look at me, I'm here. Many of those tourists, especially the younger ones, would go on Facebook that very day to let the world know of their deeds and their irreplaceable, most special selves.
• I have always felt awed in the presence of authors like Saul Bellow, John Updike, or Charles Dickens.
• In support of one's sense of self, he appeals to Emerson: "We are carried along by fate down the river of life with the serious expression and absolute ignorance of infants taken for a ride in a wicker carriage."
• None of us is a brain on a Petri dish.
• the shiver down the spine we feel while listening to a particular piece of Schubert.
• In a sense, we know nothing about the inner life of the ancient Egyptians.
• "We are all of pieces," he declares. "The greatest thing in the world is to know how to be for oneself."
• Nothing shortens thoughts more than fear and hunger.
• We live in harsher yet more interesting times. We can gather en masse in tourist places like Piazza San Marco, armed with smartphones and ready to take selfies, but we are alone in the face of the tragic impermanence of our self as we, like Hamlet, confront the mortality of this "quintessence of dust."

Ehm, after these seven hundred words of which only about two hundred and fifty are not copied from the booklet, I will not further discuss the sensations and the plot but, I will tell you openly that it does not end as everyone would expect, not at all, and nothing...