Impossible by Erri De Luca (2019) French title: Impossible. Translated by Danièle Valin.
| Je lui ai parlé du sentiment de la fraternité. Elle est avec la liberté et l’égalité dans la devise de la Révolution française, mais elle est différente. On se bat pour obtenir ou pour défendre une liberté, une égalité. Pour la fraternité, on ne peut pas. | I talked to her about the feeling of brotherhood. Fraternity is in the motto of the French Revolution, along with Liberty and Equality but it’s different from the other two. One fights to gain or defend a freedom or for equality. For brotherhood, you can’t. |
Erri De Luca is an Italian writer and activist, considered as one of the most gifted Italian writers of his generation. Impossible is a novella published in 2019. I have already reviewed Me, You and Three Horses and I was happy to spend time in De Luca’s company. His prose is magnificent and this novella is a gem.
In the Dolomite mountains, a man falls from a cliff and dies. Another hiker who was behind him calls 112. (That’s 911 for the EU, folks) These two men know each other. Forty years ago, they were members of the same revolutionary organization. The man who fell had cooperated with the police and given the names of all his fellow activists, leading to prison time for all of them. Including the man who called the emergency services.
Now the man is in custody because the law suspects that his comrade in arms’ death wasn’t an accident and it was damned convenient that he was the one to call 112. The judge who interrogates him doesn’t believe in serendipity.
The novella alternates between transcripts of the judge’s questioning and letter he writes from his prison cell to his lover. In the book, the transcripts are in type-writer font and the letters in italic.
As the novella progresses, we see the man’s inner thoughts in his letters and the man’s answers to the judge’s questions. The reader goes back and forth betwwen a personal point-of-view with the first-person narrative in the letters and an omniscient point-of-view with the clinical rendition of the questioning.
With Impossible, Erri De Luca has achieved the impossible. The question is in the air: did the man fall off the cliff accidentally or did someone give fate a little push?
In a novella of 159 pages, De Luca manages to dive into the personal story of the narrator, discuss the loyalty of an ageing person to her younger self, challenge the idea of justice, describe the peace a hiker feels on a remote mountain trail, muse about daily love between partners, assess the concept of forgiveness and write a suspenseful tale.
All this wrapped up in a chiseled prose where each word is important and light and deep issues come and go, in the tidal movement of the character’s inner thoughts and the verbal volley between him and the judge.
You’ll read paragraphs like these, about the mundane of coupledom…
| Tu ne supportes pas les chatouilles et je te les épargne. L’hiver, tu as les pieds froids et je te les réchauffe. L’été, je suis ton protecteur contre les moustiques, je les empêche de t’approcher. Tu souris quand je regarde tes bras et tes jambes pour chasser l’intrus. En échange, tu es ma conseillère en épices, en chaussures, tu me coupes les poils des oreilles. L’affaire conclue entre nous tient à ces prévenances. L’élégance n’est pas dans la garde-robe, mais dans les attentions de deux êtres qui vivent ensemble. | You hate to be tickled and I spare you. In winter, you have cold feet and I warm them up. In the summer, I’m your protector against mosquitoes, I prevent them from approaching you. You smile when I look at your arms and legs to chase the intruders. In exchange, you are my spice and shoes advisor. You clip my ear hair. Being considerate seals the deal between us. Elegance is not in the wardrobe but in the kindness between two beings who live together. |
…and more political and philosophical passages like this one:
| La langue est un système d’échange comme la monnaie. La loi punit ceux qui impriment de faux billets, mais elle laisse courir ceux qui écoulent des mots erronés. | Language is a trading system, like a currency. People who print fake banknotes are punished by law but the ones who spread erroneous words get scot-free. |
Some politicians are professional counterfeiters, aren’t they?
I have much to say about Impossible but can’t analyze it further if I want this billet to remain spoiler-free. This book is an excellent candidate for a book club as it’s short and may raise a lot of discussion about activism, justice, forgiveness, getting older, loyalty to one’s youth and one’s moral values. In English, it’s published by Mountain Leopard Press, rush for it.
PS : I have the book in French translation, sorry for the clumsy translation of quotes. I’m sure the official translator, N.S. Thompson did a great job translating De Luca’s voice into English.
