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Rating: Before reading it, I thought I knew what I was getting into, and the prejudices against singers who write books or act in films immediately arose. But a true Liga fan cannot afford such an oversight, so I began reading this short novel (234 pages divided into, even, 25 chapters...)
The story is very original, and the author seems inspired by Orwell (here come the criticisms and the 1s).... We are in an undefined town of the future, around 2166, and everything is regulated by the Vidor Plan: everyone has been matched with the ideal partner, each person is allowed a set number of adulteries, a job that gives rise to their name (in the case of the protagonist, he is called Difo because he is a Director of Photography), a car, a house with a garden, a food supply calculated based on their needs, a holovisor (a kind of interactive television), free access to museums, stadiums, gyms, and all that is meant for leisure, as well as a clean world full of greenery and smog-free.... one might think of a perfect world, and it is what the highest offices of the country aspire to, always showing how close they are to achieving 0% of unpunished crimes or accidental deaths but never actually getting there.
To maintain control over citizens, privacy is compromised: all people are observed by micro-cameras placed inside and outside their homes.
The last element, but not least, is the course of life: everyone exits a mythical bubble at a certain age, the luckiest at 80 years, the least at 50... as if they were normal elders who, over time, see their once flabby skin tighten, dark hair grow, achieving greater physical fitness, beauty: as if time flowed contrary to ours, until they reach kindergarten age and then die (although Liga doesn't dwell on this point).
The protagonists are DiFo, who is also the narrator, and ViPa, DiFo's wife, in charge of park surveillance and protection, although she is referred to by her last name, Natura.
The first part of the story is focused on the Vidor Plan, the power it holds, the couple's social life (even neighbors are programmed to get along well with them), and, above all, their romantic life... both are beautiful, very passionate, and seem to live in constant happiness.
The second part is much more moving and poignant; the couple, besides having to overcome a crisis dictated by an "unplanned" betrayal, will have to deal with a mysterious hormonal dysfunction that will cause Natura's belly to grow (in that reality, motherhood is unknown since every creation is programmed by the Vidor Plan to keep the population constant), and to avoid an unwanted birth, the Higher Plans secretly decide to call in a prisoner from the Opal (prison) who, through the transmission of ancient oral knowledge, was able to make Natura abort.
The couple will not realize what happened until, years later, the prisoner who operated on Natura reappears, explaining to them how life works just 200 years earlier: they will talk during a snowfall, which will prevent the micro-cameras from hearing and seeing them (hence the title...). Natura will become pregnant again after many years and... It's better not to reveal the end...
The writing style is very simple, almost conversational, typical of the singer-songwriter from Correggio, and at times it almost feels like hearing Ligabue himself narrate the fairy tale in the role of DiFo...
A sweet love story that makes one detest the Perfect and love, at least a little, our world as it is, with all its contradictions and flaws...
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