"A boat in the woods", dedicated to all "deviate"

"So begins the first day of school. That is one of those things then you should remember all my life. I, however, is better than me forget it, because this blessed day the first step looking shoes. I say the shoes of my companions. Because they look to me. Watch and laugh. And then I put myself to do the same, only that I do not laugh. "

A talk is Gaspar, star of A boat in the woods, the novel on which Paola Mastrocola, teacher - Piedmont writer, won the Campiello Prize 2004.

Having, in fact, told the school from a teacher with the novel The flying chicken (2000), Paola Mastrocola is a challenge by itself: we can talk as a teenager, Gaspare Brooks giving a voice so young but both old boy from disorientation, from "boat in the woods," precisely. The writer has always had an eye for diversity, for so-called "deviate" to all those people who "deviate" from common life highlighted by their personality: an innate sympathy for men and women out of the ordinary, just a hair above the norm, to look beyond the borders.

Gaspare Brooks is one of them: a lover tredicenne morbid Orazio and Verlaine, Latinist convinced, that is to come to terms with peers empty, and branded rimbecilliti that scherniscono who is not in step with the latest trends dictated by fashion. This is exactly the "forest" in which vague desert the "boat" Gaspare the Mastrocola, through this metaphor, yes tells us the story of a teenager outside the town but also that of the banality of a society incapable of surprising in the face of Odi Orazio.

Paola Mastrocola gives life to what she defines a novel of "processing", narrating the inexorable flattening of talented Gaspare which this absurd society not forgive the white, good will and above all talent, all obstacles ready to hinder him from and companions. The pen's ironic and poignant Mastrocola, like a knife, turns and rigira the scourge, with the hope of being able to wake from torpor the Italian school, which rewards only the most cunning permitting, tragically, for intelligence sublime to approve all ' insulsa crowd around him. Reading this novel is charming smiles bitterly, petting with her eyes and mind the young Gaspar, clumsy and awkward, a little misunderstood genius of culture, to feel stifled by the continued inappropriate, since not being able to play videogames and never have the shoes of right brand!

Gaspare as a departure, however, still manages to have success, to find his own way, not without first having to give up its objectives, to the detriment of the sacrifices made by parents, thanks to the support of two important figures: the Zia Elsa, the only one to understand the tragedy and tenderness to live with his "slip", complying with the wishes el'amico Furio, another boat in the woods, with whom will give birth to a surreal project that will become his own perennial refuge.

A novel to savor page by page, slowly, because the feeling is always the same as that already knows who had the fortune to read other literary labors Paola Mastrocola the impression that has been invited to a party organized only for us readers, where no more than a book, eyes (especially those of imagination) and a good dose of irony.

Maddalena Vecchio