By Daniela Angioletti and Luciano Capaldo
Direct and vivid in its telling of the details of the adoption of a 7-year old boy from Romania after the collapse of Communism, the novel manages ultimately to deliver much more.
Through reminiscence of his happy childhood, his family ties, his values, his father figure, the environment he grew up in, Antonio Capaldo portraits the widening gap between that real world and the current virtual one:
“In the village everybody knew one another, as kids we had the feeling we were doing what we wanted, but, the truth is we were closely watched. Anyone, uncle, aunt, friend was of course entitled to reproach us, threatening us to inform our parents. It was a kind of extended family that seemed to work fine”.
Difficulties inevitably connected with the adoption bring the writer to explore the darkest places of human nature: schizophrenia, mental disorders, drugs and homosexuality.
In the everlasting clash between Law and Faith, Rules and Revealed Truth, Relativism and Absolutism, the only Law we can hold on to is the Law of Nature, the natural order of things:
“If you get rid of the absolute (principles) you’ll find out a world surprisingly made of balance, serenity and tolerance […] you feel master of yourself, […] fear of death vanishes and death reveals itself as an act of life”.
If we rise above the myth of the Revealed Truth, we’ll be able to finally set some Shared Rules which do not claim to have any divine link:
“[…] even if we are labelled as Christian and Muslim we belong to the same rich yet diverse pack. […] Everybody will enjoy – in their differences – the purpose of unity”.
Thus many current subjects such as politics, information, justice, war, death, euthanasia, religion, fundamentalism can be seen from a much more balanced, yet trenchant viewpoint.