The figure that unites the stories of the last book of Bianca Garavelli L'oscurità degli angeli it's the fantastic. A great dimension declined in a very Italian (the one moving fotm the Scapigliati to Landolfi, to Buzzati) but that seems to also mindful of the lesson of the Nordic writers (Hoffmann). There is palpable anxiety, supported by a strong suspense, the first and longest text collection, L'amico di Arianna.
A girl seemingly serene, once back in the Mantuan countryside where he spent his childhood and adolescence, falls into the abyss dug by trauma ever developed a tragic event, the death of both parents, which at one point she seems to have been the same origin. At the expense is the boyfriend Alexander, who accompanies her in this return to the roots, in the foggy moors of a Christmas holiday that will have a horrible outcome. In addition to the human characters there is the disturbing presence of a dog, Wolf, That in the end will prove to be one of the main actors in the drama.
Pets are a recurring presence in other of the remaining stories, all shorter. In Qui tollis peccata mundi, a cat, only the company of a priest, is found murdered in the sacristy, the priest will then receive the unwelcome visit of an arrogant boy with eyes the same color as the poor kitten. A little girl wants to prevent the flight of swallows in autumn; evil will not succeed where they sell a valuable (La bambina che amava i rondoni).
There is also a story, the last of the collection, which welds the two passions of Bianca Garavelli, lin the narrative and the study of Dante (on one of the comments to the Divine Comedy most common in schools). It takes its title from one of the most discussed verses of the Comedy, «E sua nazion sarà tra feltro feltro». Through an original invention, the author speculates that the "greyhound" Dante (referred to in the verse quoted) was neither a pope or an emperor nor a religious reformer, but the poem of Dante himself wrote on the paper, the new media for writing nat Fabriano around 1265, the date of birth of the poet.
Roberto Carnero
il Sole 24 Ore - Letteratura