Digitalplayground Movies

last championship, Francesco Abate, Edizioni Il Mistral, 2004, 10 €

While we are all born with a precise fate sewn in Vanni Visco fate has assigned the role of sample indeed champion of football. Too bad he wanted Tutt 'else: Despite the natural talent, manifested from boy to Vanni like books, culture, the smell of libraries and the chatter on the texts most popular with people who know understand and meet his real personality. But the family thought otherwise, why waste a gift like that? Thus, unwittingly, has become the idol of the stage, made a pile of money and all the envy of so much fame and fortune. No one imagines that behind the facade there is instead a brilliant man unhappy, miserable, oppressed by a series of misfortunes private-like tragic overdose death of his brother, the sad death mother's and father's dementia - and unable to have a relationship with women peaceful and authentic. To infuse energy to go on are just the songs of favorite novels and poems that he repeats in his head from memory, like so many mantra in an attempt to reconcile, at least to himself, what society seems to judge irreconcilable : sport and culture, the glory of the physical and the mind, soul sensibility and cynicism of the world of football. All this he recounts it in person, at the beginning of the first league game ... that it has decided, will be the last. But in what sense?

Born in the wrong body. This seems to be the fate of Vanni Visco. Being born in the wrong body. He shows that from an early age a passion for books, culture and poetry, in spite of himself can not hide another natural aptitude: a talent for the damn football. A talent that turns into the "genius". Targeted by the sniper, the ability to slide in opposing defenses like an eel in the creeks closer, the gift of always knowing how they are arranged without his comrades watch, speed and flair feline murderess for a goal, are all ability is not common, making Vanni Visco is a true champion. A sample. One of those who are born only once every fifty 'years. And a talent like that is hard to hide. Too difficult. So, as soon as his parents are aware of the "market potential" of that child so lonely, with his head always immersed in books, pushing him toward the stock, without even asking their opinion. So that kid can not even argue. It's a good boy and do what they tell their parents. It also would be a fool to give up football. Others for his talent to sell your soul, they say. So Vanni lowers his head and does what he asks. But it soon becomes conto che il calcio è qualcosa di molto diverso da uno sport. Il calcio è business. Lui stesso, i suoi piedi fatati, sono business. Quando se ne rende conto, però, è ormai troppo tardi. È divenuto un campione invidiato e osannato da tutti. Le sue giocate sono poesia, ma a lui non gliene importa nulla. Lui non vorrebbe quel maledetto talento. Lo cederebbe volentieri in cambio di un'esistenza tranquilla, fatta di letture, di librerie e biblioteche, e di persone oneste come Gabriele Rocca, il libraio che lo introduce nel mondo della letteratura, con cui condivide passeggiate segrete sulla spiaggia scandite da discussioni letterarie. Ma Vanni non può sottrarsi dal sistema calcio. Esiste solo un modo. Il più drastic. But the sadness Vanni carries within it take to travel that road with no return? That first championship will really be his last game? If there is a God, he must have spit on the money, cursing them for ever. Why? The money always ruin everything. There's nothing to do. And the more there are, the more trouble they create. In a sense it is as if they were a virus. Once you're infected, they begin to eat your soul. Some people are immune to nature, and in them the virus can incubate. These people are very few. In the other, the virus infects any money principle, any trace of morality. Corrode. Transfigured. Change. And it is what happens in the stadiums, as demonstrated by this novel. The parents of Vanni have pushed the kick see him play because the creeps. No. They did play for the money. Of his interior conflicts, his true passions, its aspirations, do not give anything, even though it is their son. See Vanni as a machine spewing cash. That's it. So off the books, the boy will be forced to read in secret. No cure for the mind, instead dominated by the cult of the body, for the winner. The stadium became an arena, and Vanni Visco, despite himself, a gladiator. The best. It matters little if it is not what he wants. The show must go on. But the money does not infect only football. Infect the passion of a small bookseller, overwhelmed by the economic power of the supermarkets, where most books give you them. And posing on the scales a passion for books and culture and accounts by returning later this month, the result is always sad to learn, as well as the look of libraio.Ultima league is the most literary of the work of Francis Abate. Even the most introspective. Cagliari writer plumbs the soul of the protagonist scratched, reaching depths akin to poetry. His words will come under the skin such as chills and make you feel the same tormento che prova Vanni . Abate è abile a regalare al lettore, per qualche ora, un'immedesimazione totale nella vita del campione tormentato, costretto a nascondere le sue vere passioni e a confrontarsi con delle tristi vicende, che l'hanno colpito negli affetti più cari, cambiandolo. Ogni pagina è sorretta da una finissima sensibilità. A tratti commuove, a tratti fa sorridere, ma non lascia mai indifferenti. Francesco Abate è così: scalfisce l'anima. Costringe il lettore a una profonda riflessione sulla società odierna, dove tutto è mercificato. Anche le passioni più pure, più innocenti. Anche quello che dovrebbe essere un gioco.

Piergiorgio Pulisci