The third edition of the event has concluded Books and Roses with a good turnout of the public (around 4000 participants over the three days of the event, ed.), in a climate of cultural exchange not without moments of authentic hilarity and others of profound reflection. Gleaning between the different events, the sensation emerges of a great commitment on the part of the organizers to promote reading in a natural way and without academicism.
Starting from poetry, in the opening meeting of the event, dedicated to students, Andrea Kerbakerof the Catholic University of Milan, was able to choose the right tone to speak to boys and girls who have had, or will have, the opportunity to compare Ungaretti, Montale, Quasimodo on the pages of their anthologies.
Why read poetry
Why read poetry? «Because in it there is the history of the world, there is the language of the environment in which the poets live, there is the landscape that they see before their eyes and their words also help us to understand who we are» he began Kerbaker reading Ungaretti, interventionist and linked to Mussolini, a poet with a new language, in free verse, to express the terrible condition of the soldiers in the trenches.
And then Montale’s verses, less close to the war and without a fascist card, which uses the hendecasyllable of the Dante and Petrarchan tradition, in rhymes similar to assonances. In an intermediate position between the two, Quasimodo, not very interested in politics and more to intimate matters. He comes from Sicily and settles in Milan, a migration that he shares with many of his countrymen, feeding on nostalgia and becoming part of the group of “hermetic” poets. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1959, triggering envy and rudeness that embittered him greatly.
Even Montale, widely read and well known, was awarded the prize in 1975, when the death of the other two greats of the twentieth century had already occurred, «Poets who must be read» concluded Kerbaker without hesitation.
Franz Kafka’s centenary
This year marks the centenary of the Bohemian writer Franz Kafka (1883-1924) and the Trieste author Mauro Covacich dedicated the volume to him Kafka (The Ship of Theseus, 2024). He spoke about it to the students, accompanied by Kerbaker, immediately surprising them with a surprising question, since most of Kafka’s work is posthumous and published by his friend Max Brod, despite having left precise instructions to destroy it. Is it therefore legitimate for us to read it or would it have been better to observe the author’s will?
Covacich himself admitted that he has not yet resolved the dilemma. Kafka is an author for whom the truth is fundamental, which he does not intend to entertain because he wants to go «to the heart of things, beyond the veil that covers them» declared Covacich, «because literature for him must function as an alarm clock, shock, cause discomfort and ultimately be enlightening. The book is like an ax that breaks the frozen sea inside us.”
An author whose surname, not surprisingly, has become an adjective, “Kafkaesque”, which alludes to mystery. After all, Kafka makes non-belonging his banner. Starting with the language, he writes in German and lives in Prague, Jewish but not practicing, he also experiences sexuality in a conflictual way, he is a foreigner in his own home. A complex author that we can still read and study thanks to disobedience.
The story told with the graphic novel
Hello Rocchi And Matteo Demontevideo maker, authors and illustrators of many books (Chinamen. A century of Chinese in MilanBeccogiallo, 2017; The zero machineSolferino, 2021; Dora’s starsSolferino, 2022) and collaborators of the weekly insert of the Corriere della sera, Readingthey explained to the students how they construct their stories and how the technique of drawing and composing comics has changed in the digital age.
We begin with the work of iconographic research to realistically set the story in its time and then we divide the tasks, who writes and who draws, and finally we build the sequences. «It was Will Eisner who invented the Graphic novels», states Demonte «and today it seems to be a form of authorial novel highly appreciated also, but not only, by the new generations».
Write to Verona
Inclusion and exclusion in the social fabric of the city is the theme addressed by Tim Parks, Matteo Bussola And Jana Karšaiováin dialogue with Donatella Boni. Parks and Karšaiová come from Great Britain and Slovakia respectively and said they had seen some problems first-hand, or their children had experienced them, at least in the early days.
For Parks, the choice to write about our country came later, and not about Italians in general, but only about his neighbors because he noticed particularities of some interest. Instead, for Karšaiová, who was also engaged as an actress, the Italian language allowed her a greater detachment than her native language, in which she weighed the legacy of propaganda. And paradoxically she felt truly inserted in the new city by acting together with people with psychiatric problems.
Even it Veronese writer Matteo Bussola he experienced the label of “strange” on himself, but suggested not to stop at the surface of judgments, sensations and move from we-you to you-I, «The writer’s job is precisely not to stop at prejudice but stay on the ridge.”
Bussola added that taking sides always means missing out on something, “preventing the possibility of understanding and even resolving a complex situation”. The film based on his book will be released after the summer The invention of the two of us (Einaudi, 2020).
The magnificent illusion
The scientist Guido Tonelli (Matter. The magnificent illusion, Feltrinelli, 2023) has polarized the public’s attention by reasoning on theambiguity of the matter which, in our language, contains the root mater-mother. Democritus’ materialist hypothesis, according to which atoms are indestructible, was weak but successful, Tonelli points out, and prevailed over Plato’s idealist hypothesis.
But the modern and evolved version of atomism no longer contemplates only atoms moving in the void, because the presence of electrons is attested and other particles crowd into the immensely small. Many steps have been taken by science, despite the numerous doubts that still need to be resolved.
«We now know the date of the formation of matter, thirteen million years ago atoms are neither eternal nor immutable» states Tonelli before concluding by saying that «there is nothing more evanescent than matter in its elementary state».
Jihad and Islamic fundamentalism
Traveling in the Arab territories was the occupation of Giovanni Porzio as reporter. She told Libri e Rose about her experience by answering the journalist’s questions Stefano Verzé. When asked if there is an organic nature in the Islamic movement to attack the West, Porzio replies that the problem seems to be the complexity within it, also of a linguistic as well as political nature. «There are groups without a precise ideology, the only glue between the members of different groups is religion, which becomes a canon of civil and criminal law and informs all social life».
The fracture between Shiites and Sunnis was reinvigorated after the Komeinist revolution, underlines Porzio, when the Shiite movement began to govern a state, with strong allies in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and with Hamas itself. As for the current state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to Porzio, the two-state theory would no longer be practicable even in the medium to long term. «It seems strange to say, but the world was more stable and free at the time of the Cold War» underlines Porzio. «The conflict is predominantly within the Muslim worldthe idea that it is against the West is crazy.”
Migration stories
In dialogue with Emanuela Gamberoni professor at the University of Verona, journalist and photographer Sally Hayden presented his book (And the fourth time we drowned. On the path of death that leads to the Mediterranean, translation by Bianca Bertola, Bollati Boringhieri, 2023) which earned her the Terzani Prize 2024. The title, explains the author, is taken from the story of an experience of hers, it highlights her trauma and painful journey, so much so that it made her feel uncomfortable when she collected the story.
«It is a book that challenges us all, it has a lot to say and says a lot» adds Gamberoni. And Hayden comments: « I studied law and not journalism and I discovered that human rights don’t exist everywhere. I wanted to get the message across that we must not become indifferent to power imbalances and violence. There is a race of cruelty in the Mediterranean, it is difficult to maintain hope, but I want to say, with this book, “not in my name”, because we can no longer deny what is happening.”
Happiness, this unknown
Between literature, science, history and migration, the discussion on happiness emerged at Libri e Rose starting from the book by Marco Balzano (What does happiness have to do with it? One word and four storiesFeltrinelli, 2022) which entertained the audience supported by Andrea Kerbaker’s questions.
Well-known and award-winning writer, Balzano is also an appreciated essayist and with this book he explores a difficult theme starting from the etymology of the word. «”happiness” is the most mobile word in the dictionary, a subjective word that is continually updated» declares Balzano. In the Greek, Latin and Judeo-Christian traditions the word takes on different meanings yet with surprising connections: happiness and wealth, happiness and fertility, happiness and nourishment, happiness and care, happiness and abundance, alone happy or happy together.
For Latinos happinessfor the Greeks eudaimonia, in the Celtic English cultural tradition happiness. The author has dealt with the word as a person who changesbecause even language changes and follows the seasons of each of us’s lives “a word is not only used to indicate an object, but to transform it into an idea, a metaphor, a concept”.
The exhibition in the protomoteca
As part of the event, open to the public until May 18, you can visit the exhibition dedicated to some graphic works by Joan Miròcreated specifically by the eclectic painter for the magazine Behind the mirror. «Colorful and imaginative lithographs that combine color, drawing and writing» he underlined Francesca Rossidirector of the Civic Museums of Verona, who led the visit during the vernissage together with Andrea Kerbaker.
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