A girl, her mother and her grandmother: three generations, three women who act, more or less, to safeguard the other, according to usable uses and customs, now appropriate, now whether they arouse a smile or a surprise.
They are the three protagonists of the “of mother in daughter”, the book that reconciled De Gregorio, a famous signature of La Repubblica, sent to the bookstore, with Feltrinelli, on thirteen May last. And Mr. Camillo, our friend’s friend on Friday, that the text made up at the Turin Book Motor Show, took advantage of the latter highly crossed and sleepless nights to immerse himself in the coolness of that wood that leads to the house of Marilù, the grandmother.
There he goes to spend an summer adè, sent by the mother, at the suggestion given by the dad, since both committed. Here’s how Adè tells the facts: “My grandmother lives on an island of rocks, alone, in a house on top of a road where there is nothing more, they sent me from her because the sea air is good for you, they said, but above all because they had to do and did not know where to put me, this is clear. They had to leave for an” important job “and did not know who to leave me”.
Thus starts a journey inside the heads of the three women, as well as the house of the grandmother, and the nearby country: the Council De Gregorio is skilled, in 151 pages, to sculp the characters, past, magnets, hopes of Marilù, of his daughter Angela, who is also the mother of Adè. And then, from time to time, to make everything even more appetizing, Arturo, Alma, Olga, Gregor, Agata appear. They appear, alive or dead: everyone contributes to making a small existential vademecum.
For example: “I taught you music, art beauty travel without luggage, freedom, I did this. The most important thing: I taught them to be free and always get away with it, to recognize the good. I showed her that it does not matter what happens to you but how you react: you cannot decide what happens to you but you can always choose how to react. If you laugh, if you cry, it’s up to you”. Here it is Marilù who dissects his Mother of Angela.
And again: “Where is the scale? Which balance. The one to weigh the flour, sugar. There is no need to be a scale, just a spoon is enough. There is no right amount, it changes every time. It depends on the combination of the ingredients, on the taste of those who eat. You have to understand, above all you have to taste”. It is Marilù who reasoned with his nephew around the apple pie.
And then, hearing De Gregorio, gives passages that remain stuck to the heart: “The grandmother had gray eyes and even light hair, but lighter. The eyes were like a mirror, if you were careful you could see you inside. So she said to me: Angela, look well. In the eyes of people if you look carefully you will see that you are there”. They are words that leave astonished, since in the current everyday life, which sees reflecting in the eyes of the people what I scrub on the smartphone, it is difficult to get two creatures that have the patience to stay there looking at each other, or rather, to get lost in the eyes of the other.
Without forgetting a crazy event: the grandmother subtract the cell phone from her granddaughter, put it under key, leaves it without connection, without WhatsApp, social, music, Google … The grandson does not accept, protest, survives, however. So, you can live without those gadgets!
And the mother, so, calls – storm of phone calls – the grandmother, then the daughter, on the home phone, the fixed one. By calling unlikely times for the grandmother. Making long, anxious phone calls. Because the daughter is afflicted by some problems, which for obvious reasons we do not reveal here. And the mother, in relating to others, has a strange, heavy, way, that we miss us reveal.
And then grandmother and nephew also begin to dialogue: “You don’t have to import you to what people say. Don’t listen to them.” Makes the grandmother. And Adè: “My doctor says so too. But it’s not easy you know? If I don’t think about what people say then I end up thinking all the time of what I think, how things could have gone if that time, or that other. To do, not to do, etc. I go crazy.
It is a book in which we find ourselves: an attitude, an expression, a way of understanding relationships with mom, with her daughter, with grandmother … with an insistence on the absolute necessity of living: “You have to keep the smile, living again and again. Avil with life by living. We learn the most difficult thing: to choose what destiny imposes on you as an act of freedom, not as a punishment. Choosing how to respond to fate is always possible”.
In short, thank you dearly for this precious bookym: we will make good use of it, since life is so hard, complicated, uphill that, from time to time, it is good to remember that “you have to be careful, things must be noticed. People when they change”.
