A better man than I ?

Thursday, 05 October, Year 9 d.Tr. | Author: Mircea Popescu

This is always the important question, and so therefore always the easily dismissed. Yet consideri :

Questa generazione di giovani mi fa orrore. Mantenuti per anni da questo Stato, appena scoprono di avere due neuroni li prendono e vanno a studiare o lavorare in America o a Londra, fregandonese di chi li ha mantenuti. Non hanno nessuna vocazione civile. Io da ragazza a Lettere occupata grondavo vocazione civile.

Tu grondavi vocazione civile?

Si, perchè?

Lasciamo perdere.

Tu che ne sai, tu? Tu a quelli anni tu eri a Napoli a fare il vitellone insieme a le ragazzete borghesi, e a scrivere il tuo unico romanzetto.

La grande Storia me pasava a canto e io no me acorgevo

Romanzetto? Ma' ha segnato la storia della letteratura italiana il romanzetto!

Posso confermare che Gep e la vocazione civile non sono mai andato tanto d'accordo. Lui era pigro, l'altra era iperattiva.

Dai, Romano, piantala di fare sempre le fusa al tuo idolo, sei patetico. "L'apparato umano" era un libro limitatissimo, frivolo. E pretenziosetto, come il suo titolo. E questo Gep lo sa benissimo, in tanto ha evitato di scrivere altro.

Scuza. E tu invece?

Io ho provato a cambiare le cose con la Letteratura. Io ho scritto undici romanzi di impegno civile e il libro sulla storia ufficiale del Partito.

Hai dimenticato la colaborazione per i testi di quel reality... como si chiama...

"La Fattoria delle Ragazze." si chiama.

Guardate que l'esperienza della televisione è molto formativa. E quando mi invitano, io ci vado sempre. Io mi sporco le mani, io sperimento, provo... Io non passo la vita a fare la snob.

Senti un po', stai dicendo che un romanziere impegnato ha una sorte di vantaggio, diciamo di salvacondotto rispetto a romanziere chi si occupa che ne so, di... sentimenti?

Ma certo que sta dicendo questo, certo.

La causa per cui uno impegna la propria vita non è secondaria. Metti l'importanza di costruire una famiglia, di dedicarsi con sacrificio e impegno cotidianamente all'educazione dei ragazzi. Io e Eusebio abbiamo quattro figli, facciamo insieme un percorso, progettiamo. Io faccio i salti mortali per essere madre e donna. Ma'lla fine della giornata sento che sono stata utile, che ho fatto qualcosa di importante e interessante.

Noi che non abbiamo figli, secondo te, dovremmo accarezzare la ideea del suicidio?

Non parlo di te, naturalmente.

Parla di me.

Dadina, lo sai quanto ti stimo, no ? Tu sei una donna "cazzuta".

Usi "cazzuta" in uno dei tuoi undici romanzi?

Si, uso la parola "cazzuta" nei mei romanzi. Ci provo a essere moderna.

La modernità è cazzuta.

De gustibus... Quante certezze, Stefania. Non so se invidiarti o provare ribrezzo.

Si, ho delle certezze. Ho cinquantatre anni...

Portati benissimo.

Molto.

Ho cinquantatre anni, ho sofferto, mi sono rialzata e adesso ho imparato molte cose dalla vita. Bene, vedo che non ribattete più, finalmente.

Stavo bevendo.

Stefa', no ribattiamo perche ti vogliamo bene. Non vogliamo metterti in imbarazzo. Ma insomma tutto queste vanterie, tutta questa ostentazione seriose del tuo "io, io"... Questi giudizi sprezzanti tagliati con l'accetta nascondono una tua fragilità e un tuo disagio. Sopra tutto una certa serie di menzogne. Noi vogliamo bene, ti conosciamo. Certo conosciamo anche le nostre menzogne ma proprio per questo, a differenza tua, finiamo per parlare di vagueita, di sciocchezzone e di pettegolezzi. Proprio perche non abbiamo intenzione di misurarci con le nostre meschinità.

Di che menzogne stai parlando? Tutto quello che ho detto è vero. È come sono, quello in cui credo.

Ti prego, mi vanto di essere un gentiluomo, non farmi crollare la mia unica certezza che ho.

No, no, no, no, no. Adesso tu per favore mi dici quali sarebero le mie menzogne e le mie fragilità, bello mio. Io sono una donna con le palle. Parla. Avanti, su. Parla.

Su "donna con le palle" crollerebbe qualsiasi gentiluomo. Stefà, l'hai voluto tu, e ? In ordine sparso, la tua vocazione civile alli tempi d'Università no se la ricorda nessuno. Molti invece ricordano personalmente un'altra tua vocazione. Una vocazione che si consumava nei bagni dell'Università. La storia ufficiale del Partito l'hai scritta perchè per anni sei stata l'amante del capo del partito. I tuoi undici romanzi pubblicati da una piccola casa editrice foraggiata dal Partito, recensiti da piccoli giornali vicini al Partito, sono romanzi irrilevanti. Lo dicono tutti. Certo, hai ragione, anche il mio romanzetto giovanile era irrilevante. La tua storia con Eusebio... Ma quale? Eusebio è innamorato di Giordano. Lo sanno tutti. Da anni pranzano tutti gli giorni da Arnalda, al Pantheon, sotto l'attaccapanni come due innamorati sotto la quercia. Tutti lo sanno. L'educazione dei figli che tu condurresti con sacrificio minuto per minuto... Amore, lavori tutta la settimana in TV, esci tutte le sere, pure il lunedi, quando non se manifestano neanche gli spacciatori di popper. I tuoi figli son sempre senza di te, neanche per le vacanze lunghe che ti concedi. Poi hai per la precisione un maggiordomo, un cameriere...un cuoco, un autista che accompagna ragazzi a scuola, tre baby-sitter. In somma, come e quando si manifesta il tuo sacrificio? Queste sono le tue menzogne e le tue fragilità. Stefà... Madre e donna. Hai cinquantatre anni e una vita devastata. Come tutti noi. Allora, invece di farci la morale e di guardarci con antipatia, dovresti guardarci con affetto. Siamo tutti sull'orlo della disperazione. No habiamo altro rimedie que guardarci en faccia e farci compagnia, prenderci in giro. O no?

I've never tolerated the uppity bitch.

Not socially, not intellectually, not otherwise. I do not permit her vain assault upon the proper values. I do not permit the airs of "independence" and whatnot, and I especially do not permit their manifestation as idle bites towards the second echelon -- be they in the disgustingly patronizing form she always directs towards women or in the supposedly emasculating variation she usually sends towards men. No, Romano is not pathetic, no, Dadina is not someone who she "esteems" or gets to label.

And, most importantly of all, Stephania is not someone who may sit there, at all. Stephania instead gets her clothes torn off, and her hair sheared by sheep shears, and her orifices probed by toilet plungers, and her guts burned in front of her very eyes. Because no, we don't fucking care for Stephania, nor for whatever idiocy she's been trying to import from Condolezza Niggerice, Victoria Nullhead or whatever other nobodies on a stick the rebelious Haiti of America has ashed its sad forehead with in mourning.

Perhaps this means Gep is a better man than I ; though I confess to holding the opposite belief. Not against him, not personally, not to the point of action, it's true. But still!

Other than this, the filmii enjoys the considerable advantage of a sane relation with the human body, as well as a notion of luxury grounded in actual lived experience, as opposed to the pointless imagination of Haitians.

I would propose it's worth seeing ; especially if you speak Italian. Or at the very least -- if you understand there's something fundamentally wrong, or at the very least something fundamentally inhuman about Haiti, understood as both the island, and the continent, and most importantly their unifying substance.

———
  1. If you don't speak that most fluent language, here's an English version :

    This crop of youths disgusts me. Kept for years by this State, just as soon as they discover they've two neurons to rub together they take them and run to work or study in the US or London, not giving a shit about their erstwhile patrons. They've no public spirit whatsoever. I, as a university girl in occupied Italy seeped public spirit.

    You seeped public spirit ?

    Yes, why ?

    Eh forget it.

    What do you know ? In those times you were in Naples to play the veal for bourgeois girlies, and to write your only novelette.

    The Great Story was passing me by and I wasn't even catching on.

    Novelette ? But it's signed for in the history of Italian literature, that novelette!

    I can confirm that Gep and public spirit never went too well together. He was lazy, and she was imperative.

    Come on, Romano, quit constantly sucking up to your idol, you're pathetic. "The Human Machinery" was a frivolous, most limited book. And a monument of preciosity, like its title. This much Gep knows well, seeing how he's wisely avoided producing another.

    Excuse me. And as for yourself ?

    I tried to change things in the republic of letters. I've written eleven novels of clear political investment, and the book on the official story of the Party.

    You forgot the collaboration for that reality show... what was it called...

    "The Chick Factory" it was called.

    Look that television experience is very formative. And when they invite me, I always go. I dirty my hands, I experiment, I try... I don't pass my life acting the snob.

    Wait a minute, are you saying that a writer with a political agenda thereby has a sort of advantage, let's say a get out of jail free card when compared to a writer that's preoccupied with whatever it may be, feelings ?

    But of course she's saying that, of course.

    The cause for which one gives his life is not a secondary consideration. Weigh the importance of building a family, to dedicate oneself, sacrificially, with daily investment to the education of the children. I and Eusebio have four children, we're walking a road together, we have a project. I engage in dangerous acrobatics at risk of life and limb to be mother and woman. But at the end of the day I feel that I've been useful, that I've done something important and interesting.

    And we, that don't have children, should caress the notion of suicide in your view ?

    I'm not speaking of you, naturally.

    She's speaking of me.

    Dadina, you know how much I admire you, no ? You're a "badass" lady.

    You say "badass" in your novels ?

    Yes, I use the word "badass" in my novels. I try to be modern.

    This badass modernity.

    De gustibus... Such certainties, Stefania. I don't know if I should envy you or be repulsed.

    Yes, I've certainties. I'm fifty three...

    Well carried.

    A lot.

    I'm fifty three, I suffered, I bounced back and I learned a lot of things from life. Well, I see that you've stopped protesting, at long last.

    I was drinking.

    Stefa', we've stopped protesting because we care about you. We don't want to humiliate you. But in the end, all this Scaramouche fare, all this pedestrian ostentation of I, I, I... All these clueless judgements cut with a Midwestern hatchet hide a certain fragility of yours, and a certain inadequacy of yours. Above all, a whole series of lies. We care for you, we know you. We certainly also know our own lies, but for this very reason, and unlike you, we limit ourselves to discussing vaguely silly things. Precisely because we've no intension to measure ourselves with our own pettiness.

    What lies are you talking about ? Everything I've said is true. It's what I am, it's what I believe in.

    I beg of you, I fancy being a gentleman, don't make me crush my last certainty.

    No, no, no, no, no. Right now you'll kindly tell me what would be those my lies and fragilities, darling. I'm a lady with balls. Speak. Go ahead. Speak.

    Your "woman with balls" would exceed any gentleman. Stefa, you asked for it, yes ? In no particular order, your public spirit of those University years nobody remembers. Many however recall, in the most personal sense, a different sort of public feeling in you. A sort that was consumed in the lavatories of the same University. The official story of the Party you wrote because you were fucking the boss. Your eleven novels, published by a small vanity press maintained by the Party, and reviewed in small alligned publications, were irrelevant. This is not contentious matter. Yes, you're right, my youthful attempt was just as irrelevant. Your story with Eusebio... give me a break. He loves Giordano. Everyone knows it, they've for years eaten at Arnalda, at the Pantheon, they're like lovers under the oak tree. The education of children to which you're dedicating every minute of your life happens somehow while you work all week long in TV, and go out every evening, including Monday, when no one goes out, not even alkyl nitrite dealers. Your children live their lives forever without you, without exception, not even during the lengthy vacations you concede yourself. Then for the sake of precision you've a butler, a chamber maid, a cook, a chauffeur who takes the kids to school, three baby sitters. Altogether, when and how is this sacrifice of yours manifested ? These are your lies and your fragilities. Stefa... mother and lady. You're fifty three and your life is devastated, exactly like our lives are. So, instead of moralizing and regarding us with antipathy, you should look upon us with affection. We're all on the brink of despair. We've no other remedy but to look at each other, and to keep each other company, to take each other lightly. Or isn't that so ?

    You really should speak Italian. There's just too much there to miss out on. []

  2. La Grande Bellezza, 2013, by Paolo Sorrentino. []
Category: Trilematograf
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