The review
twelve o’clock, November 6, 2021 – 9:16 PM
Benedetta Palmieri and the memory of a missing man, in a powerful and lyrical language
from Mirella Armiero
Benedetta Palmieri, secluded Neapolitan writer, returns to the bookstore after ten years of silence with «Emergence»(Nutriments). A refined and singular product, quite unusual in the Italian panorama, built on a deliberately elliptical, allusive narrative. It is the reconstruction of an intense love story relived in the memories of the protagonist, after the tragic and unexpected death of man. The narrating voice is not lost in nostalgic yearnings, but with lucidity sinks the scalpel of memory into his own tormented biography. Because the truth is that this love, like any other, has been imperfect and partial, sometimes it has even turned into a trap from which to escape. So did both characters in turn, she the most fragile, he the strongest, but only apparently, only up to a certain point. With all her neuroses, with the imaginary snakes that populate her mind, with the slender self-inflicted volunteers, the protagonist chooses life, while the man shuns it with a definitive gesture. The elements that Benedetta Palmieri offers to the reader are sparse: interiors of shady apartments, plants on the balconies, hugs on the sofa, a small, almost asphyxiated world were it not for this unspeakable and alienating passion. Then there is some synthetic mention of outsiders: Stromboli, a place of the soul, and Naples, “where happiness is a sudden discard, a distracted void in the spasmodic alternation of ugliness and beauty”. Yet, without major events, the story remains compelling in its own way, it is a complex inner journey, which lays bare this ambitious and modest woman at the same time, even irritating, but profoundly true. The backbone that gives substance to the novel, however, is the language, used wisely, powerful and precise, sometimes lyrical. Palmieri casually uses rhetorical devices, without however weighing down the discourse, juggles metaphors and oxymorons: “a gentle armor”, “a ferocious pleasure”. For a result of remarkable literary quality.
November 6, 2021 | 21:16
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