Andrea usually has gone from house to job in underground, before and after his day of work. He was a translator in an office of translators of all arguments and also of fictions from English to Italian; this office was a flat of near 100 m2, provided of a certain elegance and near the Dome at Milan; this has been posed in according to the principles of architecture. He worked with other two persons, whom with the relations were good, but between them he tried in same time to maintain the distance. He was often punctual and liked the cold time of the Milan mornings, while he walked in the streets of the centre plenty of humidity. The coldness of the morning made him stronger, while the smell of pollution give to his mouth an usual sense. The windows of the stores made him happier, but I watched them without attention, for arriving earlier to the job.
At the end of the day, he have got the bag, the umbrella, the coat and he returned at home, that with the underground and some change of bus was sufficiently near, we could tell in half hour.
This regularity could be not too happy, because Andrea didn’t like to see the Milan architecture, surely very interesting by an artistic view, but which about he was unable to tell an individual idea; also the anonymous people who lived in bus was avoided by his attention, also if he observed sometimes a nice girl, but he preferred in this case to remain whit indifference.
At last he believed much in his work; often it arrived in the office some new romances in English, which the agency wanted that he translated it in Italian. He preferred some writers respect others, but he tried however to interest to every argument. Translating famous authors as Mc Inerney, Philip Roth, Hornby, he would like it for their particular style, but he was sure that a similar approach would have been very hard. Mc Inerney describes the events in the jet-set of New York, in the particular back-ground of Manhattan, bad or good facts whom the America communicates to the world, if the people wants so or no.
Philip Roth proposes in an actual way similar stories descript in the first years of 1900 by an other Roth, famous writer of Wien, named Joseph: but while the second lived in a world where there were functionaries, militaries and ease women, in some cases also beaches, the first participates to the crisis of nihilism and also to the narcissism. Hornby talks about auto-referential contexts, where the people likes the music, the good clothes, remembering the old objects; the social behavior results original, but always in a standard way; the back-ground doesn’t more at New-York, but in Great Britain.
Nevertheless he passed his time with friends, whom are also writers, but less serious by a cultural view, more interesting to love comedies, in according to the sweet usual style which we find in the “telenovelas” in TV, with the largest production in the great world of the mass-media.
Finding a job in a similar unverse of activities, it was much more probable than following big ideals of perfection in literature. He often analyzed films related to these situations, whom repeat them-self on the little video, and he had studied them in the expressions, the language, the way of behaviour.
His university preparation was related to serious questions: when he read a Shakespeare brain, he followed his tone of voice and he was able to note the evolution of the English language; but he had equally in the same time studied the new slogans; so in a certain sense the fact made him more riche and gives him new interests.
In fact, he noted as the use of certain “cliché”, near surely obvious, it represented also itself a global events.
Borgess has written that “in the hills of Scotland the old constructions result against the sky of the sunset and the stranger is unhappy because between the lights of morning and the evening there is something of similar to the sunset”. The Argentine writer admitted also that “Edimburgo is no less intellectual to London, but also more”. That was the big literature which he liked, but his job consisted in to renewing concepts, particularly those less important, for constructing brains more ease so to attract the usual clients.
The economical success, that Andrea had in some ways obtained, justified him about the losing of cultural values. But it was very important to obtain some earnings, necessary first because the Milan life was surely expansive, if he wanted to amuse with nice girls. The Campari gin was a symbol of Milan drinking of 90years, no less than Don Perignon of 70 years, and the girls of “Under the clothes nothing” wanted one and the other.
But returning to Borgess, he reported also the fact that a poet of 1800 as Morris had considered in a completely different way the rules of the traditional musics, because he retained that the better romances had been already written and it shouldn’t write the news; it was sufficiently important to remember the ancient mythology. This trend is known as post-modern art and in fact Morris has been also an architect. If a great literate as him retained the same thing, also Andrea was justified to repeat the same logics to infinity without a real innovation.
When Andrea has gone to an art gallery, he noted that the painting had had a similar development to the literature. But he was interested particularly to the persons whom were been to see the painting: in fact he didn’t think that they did it for a mode or for a consuetude: but also if the question had been that, it didn’t be so important. He noted interesting about situations, whom happened in the street of the Milan centre and they are similar to those which he has read in the American romances.
In fact, the Milan economical activity was principally in according to the fashion market issues, when Wall Street had the particular characteristics, depending much by the university research and by the consequences of technological innovations. The same gap existed between the “telenovelas” Tv of production by Usa market respect to Europe . Andrea had followed some times the Bicocca University and by his view it wasn’t true that it didn’t give a sufficient preparation, but its operative context was principally that of little Lombard industry. Bocconi has a better level in the world, but do have sense this approach respect the Boston MIT and the Columbia University? He remembered a famous affirmation of Wilson: “That is useful for the General Motors, is useful also for the Usa”. The same affirmation told by an Italian political about the Fiat would result irregular.
Those cultural connections were an aspect of the actual situation, and he noted as many American, English, Spanish people whom walk the Milan streets represented the way for a ideal challenge. In most cases, those people come in the Lombard city for working, posed in the hotel halls and the restaurant rooms, and they talked about agency programs or urban plans. He would talk about some arguments, but often he has lost the dialogue sense. His English was surely good, but out the literature context it wasn’t able to have a certain approach the global complexity, remaining often only with obvious considerations about those arguments.
Baumann writes that “ the best innovation, around the last activities, consists in the fact that the cost differences are fewer between the information transmission than between local and global size” That has a strong consequences around the information market: because the cost of internet call is no important, it has the same importance to talk with a friend who is a Brno or Napoli than the near flat. We risk to live between incompatible messages and it exists the question that we need select between the many communicative possibilities which this society allows.
Sometimes in the pubs he followed English people, whom usually were technical operators or engineers returning after the job. Arbasino writes, about the approach of the English intellectual, or also his little interest for certain facts, that this ambivalence “likes a same large fastidious against the good conventional and false ways, and the old traditions of the policy, and the fact that the society more is developed and more is levelled”.
In those urban contexts, the people talked about arguments between mass-media and art, and they heard them with interest: more experts were able to
tell some concept with particular competence. The art should become a dialogue as an auto-reference, that at last talks always about it-self, or the objective parameters were possible to be given?
What about Andrea was interested respect the English trends? He had read something written by a Chicago lawyer, particularly that “the most source of economic development is the financial incentives. The key-lesson about all that is that we should see with particular attention every objection “a priori” against the market incentive”. This expert had different ideas respect “the idealists whom think that their aesthetical sensibility produces an natural reaction about the social issue about the human life”.
Just about those considerations Andrea justified him-self for the losing of great literary activities for an approach more soft about love- stories, because he retained the pleasure of single more important than ideology. If he had a good situation, because he had send some books more than usually, he could know some nice girl of the fashion world, who out this back-ground was also particularly quietly.
But the Milan life is so a struggle that it didn’t allow love relations sufficiently stable. He had known very well some particular quarters, but usually he considered very chaotic great part of the Milan city. If he was interested to have some relation with a woman in a deeper way, he preferred the life of the little cities. Also here the people worked, with a force sometimes stronger than the his, but the individual relations were free and certain ways of thinking more easy can be known.
In the little countries the life happened in a more quietly way, the people usually was at bar. At 6 a.m. the workers had got the coffee and milk here before to going to the job, someone preferred also a whiskey. The people was talking about sport and policy, and the polemics are often hard, but always related to a certain reality.But while at Milan those workers made their job quietly, giving a certain importance to their time, for going at home early, in the little countries the people was happier and was telling some words. Surely the situation was different respect the times when the people talked about Brera, Mina or Rivera. When Craxi was still at power, the conversations were about the fashion context or the young actresses of Italian cinema, to the big economic choices. The people talked about the articles of Ronchey or Bettiza.
Now the people was interesting about the question of the Lega. The Rome government was badly seen, and the polemics were also against the stranger workers. Nevertheless this approach for certain aspects similar to racism, many persons coming from other States were living in this context and were getting the same mentality of Italians. That would be a sufficiently normal scenario, but Andrea had friends who were manager or technicians, who had the East girl in the suburbia, or particularly around the Garda lake.
He considered the fact that the actual society was going at the imagine world, where certain ways of thinking became global and were made of strong uncertainty. Andrea didn’t think if that was good or bad, therefore he accepted the job stress, few times he had lost his time. The Milan life so speed, as we have told previously, didn’t allow to him love relations with women for long time. But also he didn’t see the friends for more time, for a cinema or a theatre. It was important for him to study several cultural arguments, and this approach leaved few space for other things. Nevertheless this life situation was so obvious, or just for this fact, he had achieved a flat around the Garda lake.
He had known some women from Romania sufficiently affective, who were trying a better job. He would like to have a stable love-story with someone of those. Some his friends made so by long time in the same place. But he liked much the lake life so quietly. The silence of those nights was different by the hard noise of traffic where he went every day. He would go at dinner with some girl in typical restaurants, he would have gone with her in her flat and they would have a good situation.
Often he asked him-self if it existed a relation between the literature arguments and the type of life which really was made, what that communicated to him a strong uncertainty, because for him it didn’t be clear as the new global questions could influence his life choices. In fact, to consider too those questions produced difficulties, but he was thinking about the impossibility to maintain the traditional parameters, just because he was very interested to the English culture and he noted the sense of certain innovations, also in an intuitive and not very rational way.
Telling it particularly with fashion operators or architects, he considered that it was very important to go often out of Italy. In this context, they achieved a dimension about certain problems which so he liked strongly. The Italian agencies of design were famous in the entire world and they must have an approach to the market from Tokyo to Mosque, from Paris to London. But it was New York the centre of innovation.
Andrea was passing this week-end in the lake as usually; he had passed a good afternoon at Saturday and it was going the time to return at Milan. He had seen his girl; the way which with they lived was sufficiently usual, but every time they tried new interests. They were interested to maintain a stable relation, in the sense that they had seen them-self often. She was a rumen working in an agency near Bergamo, without doubt she had a certain culture and earned also some money.
They loved them-self naturally, but they didn’t think to have a more regular situation. The dinner in a quietly restaurant passed without that the conversation had particular tones.
But the night happened in loving and was rich of affects. The day after, Andrea waked early with the morning lights which were in the room. They made their break-fast telling few words. Next he wrote something as translator and she had got his car to returning at home.
The afternoon Andrea returned at Milan thinking usually, in the traffic, of being happy of passing a good week-end. Tomorrow he would live the job stress, after to tell something to the friends at bar and to read the Sport paper about the last match of soccer. Andrea is a man with strong roots, but in the same time has the uncertainty which prevails about the actual world. His translator job makes him similar to the English culture, but for a natural reaction of the mind that gives him a stronger relation with the Lombard reality.
He considers that also the relation with the rumen girl doesn’t give more stability to his life, it is by contrary an index of his uncertainty. This story has an hard ambivalence, not because her presence wasn’t nice, but just for the fact that Andrea had of the present time a sense which remained undefined. This way of having the problem didn’t also a way of seeing this love with less importance, but in his heart he continued to think that the global questions could be resolved with a critical lecture of Montale or Calvino, no less than the artificial contexts of Mc Inerney.
Events of a romances writer.