Celestiale

Comment:

Love is at the heart of this coming-of-age novel. In 32 short chapters, the author voices the thoughts, dreams, emotions, feelings, and adolescent anxieties of Maddalena, Ivano, and Fabrizio. Three adolescents in search of identity, certainties, and self-confidence, who live in a desolate concrete suburb, where beauty and kindness seem long forgotten. Paying particular attention to language and words, starting from the title adjective “heavenly,” a leitmotif of the story, Francesca Bonafini describes love as experienced with the typical youthful authenticity and the difficulty of being oneself, while also including literary (Leopardi, 13th-century Italian love poets) and artistic (the Venetian artists, the Tuscan painters) quotations. Many secondary themes emerge in the pages: gender-based violence, disrupted families and family relationships, environmental degradation and suburban life, widespread violence, alcoholism. In this journey of growth and discovery of love for the three young protagonists, the author portrays male characters who are far from a stereotypical representation and offers alternative models of masculinity. Fabrizio, for example, is shy, introvert, clumsy, sensitive and indulges in long and deep meditations. Ivano, behind his armour, his appearance as a tough guy, hides an enormous inner emptiness and misses Professor Zarri terribly, who made him discover Leopardi and the beauty of words. Boys who are able to cry and show their feelings, even when masked, because, as Fabrizio points out, never crying either inside or out “is not a good sign.”