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Dust
by
Adrián Bravi
general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author
| Title: | Dust |
| Author: | Adrián Bravi |
| Genre: | Novel |
| Written: | 2007 (Eng. 2017) |
| Length: | 85 pages |
| Original in: | Italian |
| Availability: | Dust - US |
| Dust - UK | |
| Dust - Canada | |
| Poussière - France | |
| La pelusa - Italia |
- Italian title: La pelusa
- Translated and with a Preface by Patience Haggin
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Our Assessment:
B : solid obsessive-chronicle
See our review for fuller assessment.
| Source | Rating | Date | Reviewer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Il Giornale | . | 23/2/2007 | Alessandra Iadicicco |
From the Reviews:
- "La polvere -- o, più sottilmente La pelusa fine fine che, impalpabile, impercettibile, inestirpabile, riveste la buccia delle pesche, avvolge l’umana epidermide, rifodera i piani dei mobili e, oscenamente vistosa, fa mostra di sé nero su bianco nel titolo in copertina al libro di Adrián Bravi -- è principio, fine e invadente, onnipervasivo elemento di questo sconcertante romanzo." - Alessandra Iadicicco, Il Giornale
Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.
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The complete review's Review:
In Dust librarian Anselmo del Vescovo is obsessed with dust, and wages a never-ending (and, of course, futile) battle against it.
Dust (and dusting) dominates his domestic routine -- and, though he's only been married for two years, his wife Elena can certainly be said to be long-suffering, and it's not much of a surprise that she turns to solace and relief in vodka.
Anselmo works dutifully at the Catinari Public Library, while keeping his colleagues at arm's length.
He keeps to his routine of cataloging and other duties, and though his interest is piqued occasionally his attention tends to drift when he does immerse himself in a book; the omnipresence of dust certainly doesn't help.
He doesn't engage or communicate particularly well with his wife, and among his few attempts at reaching out are e-mails he sends to an old friend he hasn't seen in a while, Paolo -- as he continues to do, even though they all immediately bounce back unread, with the message that there's no such address.
But then Anselmo seems to live in an echo-chamber of his own making in practically every respect, barely cognizant of any opinions other than his dusty own.
Dust dominates his life, and thoughts -- evermore, it seems, even as he tries to keep it at bay.
He offers some hints of what's behind obsessive-compulsion, as when he writes to Paolo:
What else, if not dust, can show us that ever-present boundary between the visible and invisible, between existence and nothingness ? Anyway, and in conclusion, the more I clean up dust, the further away death seems.Anselmo loses himself in his obsession -- in that imagined cloud, and layers, of dust. He does meet a kindred spirit of sorts -- an Argentine living in Italy by the name of ... Adrián Bravi, who comes to borrow a copy of W.H.Hudson's Green Mansions, in Eugenio Montale's translations (yes, Montale did translate that book). Bravi complains similarly about the prevalence of dust, and of pelusa -- so also the title of the Italian original of the novel --, "a snarl of oily substances and mixed materials, an insidious mix entrusted to the air on its way throughout the world".
Bravi forgets -- or leaves -- his suitcase at the library, but does not come back to reclaim it, and Anselmo is unable to return it. The Argentine did, however, make quite the impression on him; he even tells his wife that he (not they, but he ...) should visit Argentina:
It seems the Argentines are a very clean people, and simply can't stand dust. They don't even take off their hats for fear of dust. And they're obsessed with classifying everything. It seems like rigor and cleanliness are fundamental priorities for them.Anselmo's own rigor and cleanliness are incompatible with the world around him -- though in his obsession he barely seems to notice or care. Already early on he recognized:
It seemed to him that his own life was a fiction so absurd he couldn't handle it.He certainly seems to lose his grip, and all touch with reality around him -- unresponsive, at the end, to the last efforts to save him from himself (and the dust ...).
Not all that much seems to happen in Dust, and yet even the relatively minor -- the odd books that are perused, a vacuum cleaner that is bought, a few encounters between the various characters -- adds up nicely (accumulating like dust ... ?). Anselmo's obsession is already well-advanced to begin with, leaving somewhat open the question of how he got there (and why his wife puts up with it as long as she does -- and, indeed, married him in the first place), but it is certainly convincingly presented.
Bravi impressively immerses the reader in the obsessive's world and madness -- all aswirl -- in this slim novel, with an effective allegorical coating to it too. Quite nicely done.
- M.A.Orthofer, 10 January 2018
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Dust:
- Dalkey Archive Press publicity page
- nottetempo publicity page
- Rivages publicity page
- Il Giornale (Italian)
- Senior Actu (French)
- See Index of Italian literature
- See Index of Latin and South American literature
- Other books from Dalkey Archive Press under review
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Adrián N. Bravi was born in Buenos Aires in 1963, and now lives in Italy.
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© 2018-2021 the complete review
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