There are chats in which the ardor for what the interviewee dedicates himself to emerges in such a powerful and intense way that it overwhelms you. Those interviews in which you would spend hours being contaminated by the wonderful stories that they expertly tell you. With passion and mastery. The one with Guendalina Middei (@ilprofessorx) is undoubtedly one of these. Degree in literature with a historical-geographical focus, a master’s degree in cultural journalism, sincere, brilliant and clear writing, above all a great, great love for classical literature, Russian literature in particular (the titles of the novels of which she pronounces in an exemplary manner).
“I still remember what I felt when I read my first classic. I was fifteen years old, and those words, written more than a century earlier, by a Russian author with an almost unpronounceable name, expressed with incredible precision what I couldn’t even formulate to myself. It was as if that book had always known me.” That book became, to remain so, his literary beacon: Crime and Punishment.
This experience is told by Guendalina in her book “Falling in love with Anna Karenina on Saturday evening”, in an impetuous and delicate way, a writing that also accompanies her second book: “How to survive Monday morning with Lolita”.
Guendalina, it seems, you didn’t just fall in love with Anna Karenina
“I literally fell in love with all the classics and in particular the Russian classics, because I found within them an intensity, a power, an emotionality in the way in which the scenes and characters are described that touched my heart. I love Dostoevsky fiercely. Crime and Punishment above all, but also The Brothers Karamazov and The Idiot. It’s as if his characters were continually searching for themselves; he is one of the very few writers manage to make you get inside the skin of the protagonists, so close to the heart of the character, that you can feel his beats.”
In your book “Falling in Love with Anna Karenina on Saturday Nights”, you give ten lessons on the art of reading the classics
“Often the classics, perhaps also due to the way in which they are explained and told at school, are a little disliked, perceived as boring and demanding. I instead wanted to tell how reading them can be an experience. An experience that revolutionized my life. I tried to recommend those that I considered to be the simplest, not so much for the writing, but for the emotions that come into play, fundamental for living in today’s world. To understand what love is, to understand how to deal with jealousy or how to overcome a moment of difficulty.
In the first chapter you explain Tolstoy’s immense ability to describe war, that wealth of detail and truth in every sentence. Perhaps because he had really experienced the war
“Tolstoy has a disarming ability to describe the authenticity of war. Suffering, but also profoundly true: he makes you feel in a powerful way what the people who face it feel. They are readings of disconcerting relevance.”
Your bond with the classics really goes beyond pure literary passion, you consider them indispensable friends
“books are first and foremost friends, I can talk to them, question them, sometimes I argue about them. The love for books helped me a lot as an introverted teenager with some difficulty in relating. They allowed me to discover myself and find myself. They suggested words to reach my dimension. The classics, be they Leopardi’s The Infinite, Herman Hesse’s Demian, or Dostoevsky’s books, talk about this: of characters who go in search of themselves, who ask themselves what their place in the world is. By reading them, you empathize, managing to find those pieces that you feel are missing at that moment. A sort of education in discovery. Thanks to them, that shy teenager now gives conferences around Italy and will soon be at the theater with my show.”
Show that bears the name of your book “Falling in love with Anna Karenina on Saturday evening”, on stage in Turin, in Seriate, and above all, the long-awaited event at the Teatro Manzoni in Milan on Monday 17 November
“The show bears the title of the book, but in reality I will also talk about different authors, so as not to bring a replica on stage. It will be a journey through art and literature, starting from Dante and some of the most beautiful verses of the Divine Comedy, passing through the literary culture of the Renaissance to that of the nineteenth century. The common thread that binds these authors is the teaching they left us. That teaching to feel more intensely, to love more passionately, that ability to find lost feelings again.”
It’s fascinating to listen to you. You convey such joy and fervor that it makes you want to start the day “with coffee and Dostoevsky”, and “bread and War and Peace”.
“The books that are worth reading and rereading are those that become your friends. This is what a good book inspires. A good writer helps you to become intimate with the character. When you read Pride and Prejudice, you cannot help but enter into symbiosis with the conflicting feelings that Elisabeth Bennet feels towards Mr. Darcy. Then I always say: if a book doesn’t grab you, close it without mercy! If you don’t it inflames, if you don’t like it, leave it. Maybe you’ll rediscover it later. In the title of the book I deliberately used the term falling in love: just as you can’t fall in love with everyone, the same goes for books. You can find yourself in front of the greatest classic ever, but if it doesn’t win you over, it’s not the right book for you, or it’s simply not the right time.”
Given the impetus with which you are now infecting us thanks to your books… will there be any new releases?
“Next year a new book of mine will be released, different from the previous two: without spoiling too much, it will be dedicated to the lives of some very special authors, stories that I wanted to tell precisely because they are characters who challenged the rules of society, or because they were women, or because they were born in a condition of extreme poverty and then managed to reach the stars. There will be seven authors, including Hemingway.”
Now, all we have to do is read, or reread with an enriched vision, those classics that are too often set aside: from Leo Tolstoy to surprise us, to Miss Jane Austin to learn some lessons in love, or from Mr. Dostoevsky, to find the courage to lay ourselves bare, rediscovering them with the love of detail and the wonder of small things. And as Dostoevsky would say, or rather, as he wrote it in Crime and Punishment: “Small things have their importance: and it is always because of the small things that we lose ourselves.”
