Sprezzatura: Seemingly Effortless Grace - Italian
On the way for simple perfection, and also some talk on Intermezzo, inevitably and with pleasure
This morning, dancing among the words and different cultures of the world, an Italian literary beauty caught my eye.
Sprezzatura, which means effortless, seeming grace and aestetic. You put much and much effort into embodying an artistic product or masterpiece, but it displays itself and carries your perspective, seeming so effortless that the spectator becomes more impressed.
Including much effort, hours of work, and stuggle for perfectness, but not overcomplicated.
Since we are within the lands of literature, at this point, Intermezzo, the literary phenomenon of the latest weeks, is worth mentioning.
I can, and everyone can obviously observe that Sally Rooney and her literary style divide the literary world into two poles. One adores her, and the other despices her style, claiming that it is simplistic and lacking the weight of literary expression. She is supposedly tempted by popularity, so she sacrifices literary richness.
I am not neutral on this issue as a supporter of her as an author. I read Intermezzo in three days and was so impressed. Rooney has put the bricks over and over in time and is using her authentic talent and style, giving way to her so far ultimate point in literature. Intermezzo is the best of her novels.
I think what makes her special is the complexity of her characters in just the right dose, the fact that the theme is woven throughout the whole novel in an appropriate dose, without agitation but with enough weight, and that she tells the experiences of the characters as vividly as if she were living that moment herself, without avoiding going into detail or practicing self-censorship.
What is also interesting is that after reading Rooney's books, you close the cover with hope for life. I think she is kind to his characters, who are already being crushed under the chaotic weight of the century. This allows her readers to embrace her novels as comfort-reading.
In Intermezzo, there are so many ethically contradictory things that we will judge to the end in real life. Naomi, for example, who has a pragmatic relationship with men for money when necessary and who has a similarly pragmatic relationship mixed with love with one of the main characters, Peter, who is ten years older than her. Or Margaret having an affair with Ivan, 14 years her junior, while she is still married. The polygamous lives of Peter, Sylvia, and Naomi.
Throughout the novel, we are not so cruel to these characters, whom we would normally never approve of, because we can “develop an empathetic attitude towards them, we can understand them.”
Possibly the most important aspect that literature brings to human life: It is a gateway to understanding situations that we would never understand otherwise. Absolutely a miracle that is so effective and so sacred that nothing else can do it.
I wish you a great week, living the wonders of literature, fiction giving you a matchless pleasure and hopefully making you a better person at the end.
— Gulsun
We are made of stories—that is, of words.
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I will aspire to Sprezzatura for today!