«Love», by Johan Dag Haugerud

I watched Love, by Dag Johan Haugerud. A film of apparent formal simplicity, constructed almost entirely through dialogue. Of rare depth. What struck me most was the characters’ emotional honesty. Neither Marianne nor Tor seem particularly concerned with conforming to conventional narratives about love, sexuality or commitment. They seek an intimacy that feels alive, grounded in presence, freedom and the ability to see another person without turning them into property. The film suggests that tenderness springs from the quality of the attention we bring to the moment, whatever form the relationship takes or however long it lasts.

I was left with the sense that many of the emotional conflicts of contemporary life arise from trying to fit human experience into models that promise security, yet often sacrifice truth. Deep down, all the characters seem to be looking for the same thing. To be seen in their uniqueness, in all their humanity. I am left thinking that, beneath our narratives, fears and choices, we all long for the same thing: genuine existential recognition and, if possible, a little tenderness.

Reading of the month

«It is not indifference, nor a clouding of the senses brought on by age, as I had suspected. It is complete mastery of the emotions and a supreme awareness of every precious moment life grants us as a reward, if we have a steady hand and courage… Slowly, Carmine climbs the steps of the Carmelo. Now I understand, old man, the profound meaning of the freedom and joy you felt before you died, and I no longer envy you: I have made your art my own and, from this day forward, it will be nothing but joy to me.»

On the flap of Goliarda Sapienza’s book, it says: ‘A book that captivates and shocks everyone who reads it.’ The phrase bothers me. The book did not, not for a single second.

I did not feel unsettled, much less shocked. It accompanied me as few books ever have. It gave words to so much of what moves through me and to which I had not yet managed to give form. I laughed, cried, thought, felt and lived intensely, without leaving the room where I read it.

I reached the end and, despite its 527 pages, I did not want it to finish. I will miss it. It is one of the most powerful books I have ever read. One of the most important, too. Only someone utterly free could have written it.

The Art of Joy is a masterpiece. For every conceivable reason, literary and human. It silences intellectualism and lays life bare in its most profound and brilliant dimension, without artifice. What a shame that its author was treated so badly during her lifetime. The world is rarely fair, but time always ends up doing its work. It is pages like these that nourish my passion for literature.

Thank you, Goliarda. Wherever you may be.

Reading of the month

«She made her way to the lift as if she knew, and indeed she did, that loneliness was not a state but a condition, a place firmer and deeper, the only place where one’s feet truly found ground. It gave way, yet it was still ground.»

Some novels close on their narrative. Matilde, by H. G. Cancela, closes on an idea. Or perhaps on an ontological observation. Loneliness does not appear as an emotional accident, nor as a circumstantial consequence of life. It emerges as a territory. As a foundation.

At the end of the reading, one word kept returning: invulnerability.

Modern urban societies have built a network so efficient in sustaining existence that an individual can live fully functional without depending emotionally on anyone. One eats, works, travels, pays bills, fills time. Everything works. Nothing is lacking materially, provided there is money. One need not be rich or poor, only have enough to secure a measure of autonomy. Affection ceases to be a necessity and becomes a possibility. It is in this interval that the novel takes root.

The protagonist is not presented as the victim of some extraordinary event. Her condition is banal, recognisable, almost administrative. She has no active family network, no lasting romantic relationships, no deep friendships. Around her are colleagues, neighbours, occasional presences who coexist without real encounter. The most unsettling aspect lies not merely in the absence of bonds. It emerges in the double movement the book reveals with clinical precision. She seeks no one, and yet no one seeks her.

There is no overt hostility, no obvious exclusion. Only parallel trajectories, each absorbed in its own daily survival. The contemporary world allows, perhaps even encourages, this coexistence without connection, where truly looking at another is no longer a collective need. What might appear as an individual fragility proves instead a sign of the times.

None of this feels strange. On the contrary, it is disturbingly familiar.

Following the character, we begin to adopt the same justifications that structure her life. Avoid exhausting encounters. Distrust easy intimacy. Guard personal space. Prefer to be alone while sharing meaningless presence. At some point, the question ceases to be about her and becomes about us. Where does lucidity end and pathological distancing begin? At what point does self-protection turn into enclosure?

It is here that Matilde becomes profoundly unsettling. Not through extraordinary events, but through the emotional verisimilitude it achieves. The novel does not thrust the reader into delirium. It invites a slow approach, a gradual awareness, never quite revealing when the boundary has been crossed.

The prose mirrors this movement. The language is economical, almost mechanical, composed of short, repeated sentences, stripped to the essential: subject and complement. The author seems to serve the narrative rather than assert a personal style. This choice aligns with the universe of the novel, and, in a sense, is ethical. The writing refuses to embellish what is experienced as functional, repetitive, almost automatic. Anaphora creates a rhythm of routine and compulsion, as if each sentence obeyed the life it describes. Form does not comment on human distancing. It inhabits it.

The novel registers a fundamental loneliness. The protagonist reveals it in every action. Affection, which might be the only way to mitigate it, is absent or idealised. Existential enclosure takes hold. Functional independence blurs into freedom, and isolation slides into pathology and delirium. This seems to me the book’s diagnosis. Invulnerability thus becomes a model of life. The price is an existence that appears secure, organised, yet progressively dehumanised.

The final sentence lingers long after the book is closed. Loneliness as ground. As firm place. As foundation. I do not disagree: it is a condition. Yet the author shifts our awareness toward a silent question: if we no longer need one another to live, what remains human when we cease to seek each other?

It was the first book of H. G. Cancela I read. I suspect it will not be the last. Some fictions invent worlds. Others merely show ours with disconcerting clarity. Matilde belongs clearly to the second one.