I asked for this book as a Christmas present from my sister, and started reading it the day after I received it.
I really like Alessandro Baricco: some of the best book I have read are written by him: Oceano Mare, Omero Iliade, Seta, Castelli di rabbia.
Hi seems to tell you the story with a low voice, and seems te be asking all time for the permission to enter the lives of the characters he tells about.
This is the story of four guys (they are 16-17 at the beginning), told by one of them. It's the story of their distance from another world, the world of rich people, the ones who have intense and dramatic lives, as opposite to the four boys, their parents and their aquaintances, who live almost silently.
They have some sure, unamovable things in their lives, and one of them is religion.
At some point, one of the members of the other "group", the rich and beautiful Andre, comes down and has some contact with them.
At this point, first comes the knowledge that life can simply "be" without religion to axplain and justify it, then the little group composed by the four boys gets destroyed. Each of them falls "to hell", if we can say so, after being "contaminated" in some way by Andre, and the last one will be the narrating voice. At the same tme, Andre manages to keep her beauty, her innocence and her almost "virginal status".
It's a sad book, and a mean one, but everything is narrated, as usual, with a slow and calm voice, as if all this is just - unavoidable.
