Like all bad guys, Giuseppe Alessi is a character book by valentina farinaccio, originally from Milan. AT Currently unavailable (Mondadori) he and protagonist Vittoria meet on platform 3 in Turin, “kiss on the lips, then walk away looking at Google Maps”.

In Italian literature, evil lives in Milan. Also in Marco Missiroli’s novel, Loyalty (the series is on Netflix), the protagonist of Rimini finds only the morally depraved Carlo and Margherita in the city, who involve her in their narcissistic pair game – no one cares about her, certainly not Carlo, who should also be his teacher, not Margherita , who is involved in many other deals with the devil to take over the famous house in Concordia.

Nobody ever talks about Milan, my favorite city, in this way, i.e. how bad you have to live there. This eternal struggle, from the house to the restaurant, in the city where helping another is almost a minus. Yes, I have a strange way of talking about the things I love, and indeed, the main problem is that, like most everyone, I love (also) the wrong things.

Main character Currently unavailable take this truth to the extreme: love everything spoiled, packaged, full of preservatives and saturated fats; eating greasy pizza, cleaning the toilets in rented houses (it’s not only that she does this for work, she is furious about the lime stain on the shower tray, invisible to everyone, but not to her). One must become cruel even in the world Currently unavailable: you want to be on the side of the main character until a certain moment, until she becomes like an ordinary girl who eats when she is sad, when she is afraid, and to relax she orders three pizzas and eats them alone, on the couch, and her stomach rises . But when she is unable to contain these habits within the private sector and allows them to influence her success – none other than the followers who first rain down from the sky for accidentally crossing with a famous person, but then she earns in the field posting those same fat foods he devours privately – when Vittoria lets her weakness gnaw at the boundaries of her public revenge, she’s less sympathetic to us..

We love those who create a strong, determined image of themselves, free from blemishes and contradictions.. In other words, we lovefather archetype with a beard, all as one, the flip side of which is cruelty, ruthlessness, the ability to make heartless choices. Like this we think wounds are part of love, in a twisted “for your own good” logic.

In the book loving capital (Bompiani), Jennifer Guerra returns love to the center of feminist and political discourse, noting how, by excluding it from our serious and public discourses, we unwittingly encourage an extreme and unsustainable capitalism based on ancient patriarchy. A way of being in a world that doesn’t think about pity because it despises love, the world we’re used to.

I also love Milan because I’m used to it. I was born here, raised here, between brevity of answers and stinginess of spirit. Once I booked a restaurant for two, but there were three of us, the third was kicked out mercilessly. What’s worse is that there are only two of us left, and there isn’t much to this little scene – but what table for two isn’t good enough to eat three? But what kind of civilized people will leave the third diner?

Main character Currently unavailable he asks us, as readers, for an equally unfair choice. Love what we are used to, or learn to love weaknesses, not the way we should love our extra pounds, but open up to the possibilities of the golden mean: no Instagram success, no absolute disaster. No ruthless pursuers of our goals, no train wreckers. Self-love that has more equanimity and relaxation than body positivity. Vittoria’s character was a concrete and urgent reminder to me: give yourself a break.