How much can the house we live in say about us? “Actually everything. There are all our secrets and everything we do not want to explain. They are our soul and our heart and, for this reason, it is so important that we listen to them", points out Andrea Bajani (Rome, 1975), whose latest work, The Book of Houses, has just arrived in bookstores thanks to Anagrama and from Periscopi in Catalan.
The Italian writer dares with this novel of which we do not know the name of the protagonist although, he admits to La Vanguardia, "it is quite autobiographical." The idea arose after he was reunited in Rome with his childhood home, "the one you never forget." That led him to remember all the homes that have been part of his life, which are not few, a total of forty, and to consider whether or not all the 'I's' that had lived in each of them were similar. “I have rediscovered parts of myself that I did not remember,” he admits.
Thus, he assures, “I am interested in each and every one of them, whether or not I have good memories of them. The one I lived when I was a child but, also, the one from my first marriage, because there I swore eternal love for the first time". love will vanish."
In addition to his nostalgia, another factor that has allowed Bajani to expertly write the book is his "absolute passion for observation" because, as he himself admits, "I am a kind of voyeur, in the good sense of the word."
Thus, he confesses that "I love to contemplate everything that happens from the balcony. What people do, how they dress, if they fight or if they walk busy. Sometimes I also get curious about what my neighbors eat or what program they watch on the television. It is not something you should be afraid of if you read me, it is information that I use exclusively for my stories. Every day inspires me more than I ever imagined. Everyday life makes my head go to a thousand revolutions for hours," he admits.
Beyond a human portrait of the different spaces in which the protagonist inhabits over the years, the novel also reflects other aspects such as the complex relationship with his violent father, the presence of an anguished mother, the emigration of the family north or the relationship he has with a lover. Plots that are intertwined with different historical events, from the seventies to the future, and that have marked the history of Italy, such as the deaths of Aldo Moro, who was prime minister on two occasions, and the filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini. Two events that place the story in the lead years of the country and that, according to Bajani's confession, occurred near one of his multiple homes.
With this book, Bajani considers that "I have written everything I had to write. I have even finished a new book", for which he hopes "one day to be able to fulfill my plan to dedicate myself exclusively to poetry". However, he concludes, "this is something I say every time I finish a book but it always ends up lurking in a new story."
