Book Club 272 - Reading group, online on Zoom. Featuring Sciltian Gastaldi, author of "Tondelli: scrittore totale" (Pendragon). To participate, send an e-mail: pagina272@libero.it

Book Club 272 - Reading group, online on Zoom. Featuring Sciltian Gastaldi, author of "Tondelli: scrittore totale" (Pendragon). To participate, send an e-mail: pagina272@libero.it

Pier Vittorio Tondelli
"Camere separate"
Bompiani

The novel recounts three moments in the life of a writer in his early thirties, Leo, grappling with the enormous grief of losing his partner, Thomas, a young German musician. Their relationship is told through long reflections and continuous flashbacks. Leo is a successful writer, living between Milan, Paris, London, and Florence; Thomas, on the other hand, lives in West Berlin. The two lovers meet often around Europe, spending holidays together, but living in separate rooms, separated by two thousand kilometers. This allows them to see each other whenever they want, but also to retreat into their solitude. Until Thomas begins a relationship with a girl. This strange three-way relationship triggers genuine jealousy in Leo, but is soon interrupted by Thomas's terminal illness, who, in his early twenties, dies in a Munich hospital.

Pier Vittorio Tondelli was born in Correggio in 1955 and died in 1991. He made his debut in 1980 with Altri libertini, the book that recounted the euphoria and desperation of an entire generation. This was followed, in 1982, by Pao Pao, a novel about his military experience, and the play Dinner Party (published posthumously in 1994). In 1995 he published the novel Rimini for Bompiani and in 1986 that little book of hours, Biglietti agli amici. His last novel was Camere separate (1989). Since the mid-1980s he has worked on the “Progetto Under 25”, dedicated to the writing of the new generations, editing three anthologies, Giovani Blues (1986), Belli & perversi (1987) and Papergang (1990). During these same years, he co-created the magazine Panta, published by Bompiani, which he directed with Elisabetta Rasy and Alain Elkann. On the first anniversary of his death, the magazine dedicated a special issue to him. In 1990, he collected much of his journalistic and nonfiction work in Un weekend postmoderno, a sort of "personal" critical novel, dedicated to the "chronicles of the 1980s." This project culminated in another volume, L'abbandono (published posthumously in 1993). Bompiani published Tondelli's complete works in two volumes in the Classics series, edited by Fulvio Panzeri. The first collects Novels, theater, and short stories; the second Chronicles, essays, conversations. Also edited by Fulvio Panzeri is Viaggiatore solitario. Interviste e conversazione (1980-1991), published in 2021.