Niccolò Ammaniti
Come Dio comanda

A punch in the stomach. Perhaps even a little lower. An immense, inscrutable God, yet so close to us that He is in the violent love of a father (for Cristiano), in a painted fisherman-clown (for Aprea), in the voice of a lumberjack, protagonist of a porn movie (for Quattroformaggi). A God as our alter-ego, with whom we inevitably confront and clash. A long descent into the inferno just like Dante's, although this one does not end with reaching paradise, nor with the reconquest of the stars. These are three "canticles" that are circular and always return to the deepest and blackest abyss, where the law of contrapasso prevails and everything you do comes at a high price. A God who, like a puppeteer, weaves the lives of puppets so imperfect that they transform into men. Men so lonely and marginalized that they transform into beasts. Has everything already been written? Or no, perhaps that God so invoked by the characters in this "dark fable" has left them a margin of choice, a bit of that free will that differentiates us from animals.

Or maybe He has simply made them believe they could build their own destiny, deceiving them until the end, leading them to that thin shadow line between life and death. Six days in which the tragedy unfolds and just like in a tragedy the acts are three, although here we are far from the noble sentiments and heroic virtues of classic characters; here we face a post-modern tragedy where madness rhymes with normality, where everything is dark and damp (like the night and the river). Six days that will forever change the protagonists, six days of free fall into that bottomless chasm. However, Ammaniti is brilliant, seasoning all the malice, oddities, and ugliness of this fable with irony and lucid simplicity; the portraits that emerge are chilling, yet human, real, almost tangible; as are the themes that emerge and are essentially not a backdrop to the story, but are the story itself. The love of a Nazi but strongly Catholic father who loves his son so deeply that he teaches him that surviving always means attacking first. The reciprocated love of a son who risks everything to save his father (even being accused of a crime he didn't commit), the only and great God he has ever known. A boy, therefore, who takes on living an adult life just to be with his father. The madness of a man born from marginalization; that marginalization made of pitying looks and whispers at the ear (Quattroformaggi).

The corroding melancholy that only someone who loses a child can know (Aprea). A horrendous, inhuman crime yet somehow pure, like only the abruptly shattered life of a girl growing up too fast can be. The shame and horror of such a misdeed can only be washed away with redemption, catharsis, the ultimate communion with God. Only then, perhaps, will the damage be repaired and balance restored; only then will a corpse hanging above a multifaceted nativity scene make sense; only then will God have accomplished His will.