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Rating: It's an anorexic book—if it were a human being, I could count its ribs without asking it to lift that faded and baggy T-shirt it wears for a moment. I strongly advise against it if you're going through a period lacking in satisfaction, which can be identified with the faded color of that poorly ironed T-shirt mentioned above. I say this because the little book in question leaves very little room for hope and optimism and it's a story that, despite its years, perhaps fits all too well with current times. Bastards, said a comedian whose name escapes me.
Being somewhat punctual in certain circumstances, instead of trying to abuse my phone to torture the minutes, I find it amusing to watch people walking and, more precisely, their shoes. I couldn't care less about recognizing the models and the absurd prices; it's much more interesting to observe the movements the feet make… There are rubber soles that seem to be full of magnets, eternally condemned to chase in a perpetual waltz those that, just a bit ahead, are evidently covered in iron. The shoes trudging along in the second row have a stride lacking harmony, rhythm, circularity, and especially confidence. Sudden accelerations alternating with clumsy brakes because they would never dare think they could overtake: the narrow and familiar city streets would instantly turn into an ocean, and every shaky choice would be a rock. Barrichello and Schumacher. I don't even need to get closer: I would barely hear the voice of the insecure owner of that pair of clean and shiny tennis shoes, I'm sure. The eyes on the three slanted stripes, and even if I'm too far away to hear the sound of falsehood, I'm certain that laughter is out of place and a clumsy way of trying to deny his complete discomfort. He is the good one, if you want the fool, of the company, and unfortunately, the good ones are very often chewed up, exploited, and finally spat out without much ceremony on the cobblestones of downtown. The dirty and uneven table on which pigeons intermittently feast, amid the attempted kick of a teenager, the mad dash of a smiling child, and an annoyed but composed shooing of a radical chic on the phone.
Tommy Wilhelm is a person who, upon reaching adulthood, discovers that he has gotten everything wrong in his life; lacking a backbone, he is overwhelmed by the problems confronting him in a swirling spiral that seems never-ending. Over the years, he has accumulated too many mistakes, and now these meters of snow on a winter ridge avalanche upon him with a relentless rhythm. It's a short story for a secondary work of Saul Bellow, made famous by “Herzog” and “The Rain King”. Few will know it, but I particularly like it for its themes and duration: I want to recommend it to you for the lucid realism with which it describes the sad struggles of a protagonist who loses the pace no matter how hard he tries. On a gray New York afternoon in the company of his hated and icy father and a mysterious doctor who skins him alive without using anesthetic, he retraces his instinctive and seemingly unshakeable stances with which he wants to try to prove to himself that he is capable of giving a precise meaning to his life. To be its master.
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