Description
Sitting at the Fontanella, Rosinello Capobianco counts the tiles and lines up the memories, both beautiful and ugly – which, just like the tiles, are always counted three by three. Half-true and half-false stories, second and third-hand tales, fragments of brushed lives, echoes of fables, dreams, prayers: the illustrious master Nicola Trabaccone, who taught him the craft of bookbinding, Giacomino Tiracchia, who read Verga in the middle of his sunflower field, Cenzino who returned from America while Rosinello could only dream of it, Libbò who spoke only in proverbs, and Ginetta Petrosemolo with her flowered skirt, from whom Rosinello stole a few kisses on the sly and who perhaps, if he had had a little more courage, could have been his great love.
The memories and stories intertwine, fragments of light lives like pieces of fabric carried by the wind, with all their small and great despairs, their load of desire, joy, and pain, the things longed for and never had, the things endured, the things savored until the end, like the last drop in the glass before the tavern closes.
After Liborio, after Mengo, the unmistakable and poetic voice of Rosinello adds a new chapter to the epic of the sfasulati, another piece to that landscape where every fragment can contain stars, moons, planets, galaxies, and where the very sweet and painful act of remembering is an outstretched hand, a fraternal gift, a song that discourages death and tears the promise of an eternal tale.
