Once the fascinating story of Mattia Pascal and Adrano Meis was over, we asked the kids to try to imagine a new identity; an exercise of imagination that would give life to “another them”, with a family, a history made up of places, relationships, activities.
And so, before delving into the questions and dialogue about the novel, we encounter a gallery of alter ego really interesting and fun. What is especially striking is the meticulous and original research into proper names…
It begins with Cassandra who, having disappeared to the world, became Cloe Dubois who was born and lives peacefully in Lyon; Matilde has become Hanah Tonello, lives in South Africa in Cape Town, where her father has an important role at the embassy. The whirlwind events of Federica, alias Cristiana De Amicis, born poor in Brazil and persecuted by justice for stealing sweets by breaking a shop window (a Jean Valjean story, because Federica is working in the theater on the law!), manages to embark and escape to New York where she becomes Caterina Hargly. Elisa lives on the Island of Elba in a family of builders, the De Leris family, where she was born with the exotic name Asia. Morgana is the English Veronica Giunti and little Letizia, German, is actually called Ramona; he has a brother Peter and the family is very rich…
In short, these hilarious and always surprising academics would seem to have no difficulty in being reborn from their ashes and taking on new roles, as long as, of course, it’s a game…
We then put them face to face with the first question which concerns the real desire to radically change one’s life, to close one story to open another. Of course, and fortunately, their young age does not allow them to pack up the time spent in search of new life and so the answers concern sporadic moments of change dictated by small inconveniences: Cassandra says that she invented Cloe Dubois one day when she was with her mother at the supermarket and a foreigner asked her what her name was; Matilde also resorted to an invention when, on a summer holiday in Abruzzo, a man bothered her: in her excellent English she replied that she was a foreigner and that she didn’t know how to speak Italian.
Adham says that in elementary school one of his classmates had a lot of expensive pens and notebooks and he, out of envy, told her that he had not only many phones but also many cars; she believed it and from that moment on she no longer envied her, perhaps because, despite the many beautiful notebooks, she was a bit of a slob…
Is the desire for change, therefore, always linked to a negative state of mind, as in the case of poor Mattia Pascal? Morgana thinks it could also be linked to a simple whim, a diversion from everyday life; Elisa mentions a book in which a girl who had not been invited to a party pretended to be another person in an attempt to avoid disappointment; Lorenzo thinks that we often invent a change to feel superior to others and Emma recounts an episode in which a girl had invented that she was someone else, probably out of a desire to become her friend. I myself, Beatrice, tell how in elementary school I had invented for years that I had a dog of a specific breed, with a name, with its characteristics and a series of spectacular episodes experienced together. Until, when we got to the fifth grade, a friend who was smarter than the others asked me to finally show this dog that had never appeared, not even at home (where, it was said, he was kept locked up because he didn’t like children). And so, tenacious, I created a great staging, for which the son of a friend of my mother had to come out of school one day with his dog of which I was a great friend: on the way out, Tom celebrated me affectionately and my victory was clear!
So yes, we tend to invent parallel realities when we experience some lack, some discomfort or when we want to impress others.
But fiction involves meticulous work, involves sacrifices and a very high threshold of attention: Mattia Pascal’s freedom, for example, involves separation from all his bonds: he is alone and being alone is the condition for being what he wants. Soon, however, he realizes that the loneliness is unbearable.
Do you ever feel alone? Is there no value in solitude?
Adham appreciates the freedom of being able to stay alone at home, but he knows well that it is a temporary solitude, the charm of which is linked to the fact that, soon, adults will return: none of us has ever had an experience like that of Mattia Pascal, forced to live two lives and, ultimately, to live none of them. Matilde instead introduces an important difference between sentirsi alone and essere alone: we can feel alone even among a thousand people and, vice versa, our thoughts can be inhabited by friends and loved ones; Lorenzo also agrees: loneliness is an internal, subjective dimension, which depends a lot on our perception of things. Elisa says that the difference is made by the decision: a chosen solitude, ultimately, is a space for oneself; an imposed solitude, however, continues Federica, prevents you from carrying out any project. Matilde remembers when, a few years ago, she had to move from South Africa, where she had lived her childhood, to Italy: she had to start all over again, leave her friends, look for new traveling companions… it is in this complicated district that she arrived in the Piccioletta boat.
One of the messages of the novel, ultimately, is this: you cannot live without bonding to others. The kids all agree: the need to talk to someone, to share their secrets, sooner or later, makes itself felt. Even if we don’t want it, we are animals sociali and even those who boast of not needing anyone, after all, often do it precisely to be noticed: Adham tells of a companion who refused to play with others, but then returned every time to ask the group: “are you having fun?”, in the hope that his solitude would attract the attention of others.
We end our question by returning to the theme of fiction: the story of Mattia Pascal is an example, admittedly extreme, of an entire existence founded on a fiction. For Lorenzo, lying is tiring because something inside him connects fiction to the ridiculous: when he invents a lie and the others begin to believe it, he always ends up bursting out laughing, invariably betraying himself. For Morgana, the greatest effort in fiction is to remember what you have invented: like Mattia Pascal you have to plan your lies well, because inhabiting a character whose memories you don’t have is a daring operation. Matilde has a tactic: she builds a sort of collage of other people’s lives, of which she knows something, in order to have coherent pieces of memory.
Elisa suggests that, however, there will always be a part of fiction in our narratives. When recounting a holiday or a beautiful moment, imaginative details are always added, even if only for ‘literary’ needs: our dearest memories are not just a succession of events, but also a flourishing of small inventions that paradoxically make those same events even more real. Adham, who often draws his examples from school, confesses that on various occasions in class, when the teacher asks what happened, he is unable to have one narrative that is the same as another. Of course, Matilde adds, we shouldn’t exaggerate: often to make reality more beautiful we deny the most uncomfortable things to look at; the rich pretend that the poor don’t exist or they tell (especially to themselves) that well-being is a merit and that poverty is a fault. Letizia, a little desperate, concludes that we can never trust stories and that sometimes it is impossible to understand whether we are dealing with reality or a lie. Lorenzo consoles her: he often pretends for the good of others; when faced with a weakness or defect in a companion, most of the time he tends to reassure him, even denying the evidence. Perhaps this desire for the good of others is what authorizes our fictions?
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