Einaudi, 2006.

(Seasons)

A book in which the author traces the path of a life, relived according to the slow flowing of the time of the nature and its seasons.

Mario begins telling his birth, at the beginning of winter, and starting from this fragment of life every event is placed within a broader framework, which dictates its rules and gives it meaning. Winter is the season of the nursery rhymes at school, of the dry wood that burns in the kitchen. But it is also the season of the terrible cold of 1942. Spring is the season when the seasonal emigrants departed for Prussia or Bohemia, but also the time of the awakening of nature and the return of the swifts, as well as the best time to die, as it was for the grandfather of Mario, his mother and himself, while life is reborning. And then here is the summer, the season of the jumps on jaystacks, of the hunts of the hornet nests, of some vacation on the beaches of Puglia or Istria. And finally the autumn of the return of the flocks, of hunting, of the trips in the woods. “These are the best days to walk on the high mountains of the Plateau, alone or with a small company. The larches begin to take on the colour of the old gold… it is in autumn that the wood let you read it clearly… Under a larch, in a dry place, you too are looking for a place to crouch and meditate on the seasons of your life and the existence that runs away with memories…”

On all this the sharing eye of the “Sergeant” rests, witness of his time and of a past that continues to resurface.