Waste your life in a tiny corner of the city

Modern cities are changing rapidly, and for the people who live in them, especially young people, "how to live next" seems to be a proposition that can never be shaken off. Standing still, staring at the real world that doesn't stop for a moment: anxiety, sleepiness, loneliness, restlessness... We often feel as if we don't belong here, and we want to leave, but we always fail.

Italian writer Gianfranco Caligaric's novel "Summer of Waste" tells the story of a "loser". The protagonist, Leo, lives in Rome and turns 30 years old, with nothing left and a friend's vacant apartment, which he buys at a low price. Among the people he met were academics, directors, athletes, and artists, but Leo always had a vague aversion to the success of others, because he knew that all he had was the city's discarded things, "leftovers" after "leftovers".

It was also in the summer that he fell in love with a capricious girl who drove through Rome at night and witnessed the first noise of the city at dawn, but she said, "Don't think I'm going to fall in love with you, you know?" He reunites with an old friend, and in the slowly falling night, on the ancient steps of the square, they decide to write a film script together, a story about the last survivors of the extermination of the people.

Then, everything left him. Only Rome, gloomy, cold and eternal, allows the "losers" who have nothing to really fit in here, nor can they leave forever.

The city is undoubtedly the other protagonist of "Wasted Summer". From Piazza di Spaña to Piazza Navona, gaze at Castel Sant'Angelo by the Tiber... Leo shuttles alone through the city, but also shuttles through the empty interpersonal relationships and hollow daily life. However, in Caligarich's writing, every corner of Rome belongs to life, to passion. At sunset when the evening breeze blows, at the bottom of the fountain pool that overflows the night, in the depths of endless conversations and fantasies before dawn – the city embraces and soothes everyone in it, no matter how the world changes.

In The Lyric Poets of the Age of Advanced Capitalism, the philosopher Walter Benjamin offers a comprehensive sketch of the "urban wanderers": "They both wander through the city and are the product and crystallization of the city of the advanced capitalist era of the nineteenth century." In their aimless wandering, they disappear into the city, become elements in it, and sweep away the corners and corners of the city with their eyes and hearts. ”

When we return to the present, the passive reality of life and the chaotic turmoil of the mind have made the concept of "urban roaming" popular again. Walking seems to be both a way to escape from the everyday, but also a process to return the wandering mind to the body, to the most authentic cityscape. As we wander freely in the city, how do we feel when we remembers the question of "how should I live?"

In this way, you also become a part of the city and nourish her day after day. Until one sunny day, when you smell the wind from the sea and look up at the sky, you find that there is nothing left to wait for.

The seasons change again, the cold air descends on the city, and the citywalk frenzy fades. We're still here, not going anywhere, just waiting for another year to be thrown away. Fortunately, literature is our place of residence in the four seasons, and it will accompany us through the cold winter, back to the romantic and cruel city under Fellini's lens, and continue to search for answers for tomorrow in the endless summer.

At 15:00 p.m. on Sunday, December 10th, Professor Chen Ying of Sichuan University of Foreign Chinese and Professor Zhang Li of Beijing Normal University, the translator of "Summer of False Throwing", will visit PageOne Bookstore Beijing Square to talk with readers about the city in literature and the real world, as well as those confused and sad young people in the city.

——Guest Introduction——

Chen Ying

Chen Ying, a well-known translator, holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Macerata, Italy, and has taught in Italy and is currently a professor at Sichuan University of Foreign Chinese, focusing on linguistics, modern and contemporary literature, and translation. He has translated works in Italian such as Magris's "The Miniature World", Ferrante's "Neapolitan Tetralogy", Starnone's "Shoelaces", Barricco's "A Man Disappears into the World", Grossi's "The Fist", Scapa's "Venice is a Fish", Piperno's "Persecution", etc., and he often writes literary reviews for newspapers. In 2020, he was awarded the "One Way Street Translator of the Year", in 2021 he was awarded the "Star of Italy" by the President of the Italian Republic, and in 2021, he was awarded the Italian Translation Award for Diplomacy and International Cooperation.

Zhang Li

He is a professor at Beijing Normal University, a critic, a doctoral supervisor, and one of the "Top 10 Most Popular Teachers for Graduate Students" at Beijing Normal University. Deputy Director of the Prose Committee of the Chinese Writers Association, Distinguished Researcher of the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature, and the initiator of the "Good Books of Women's Literature List". She is the author of "The Occurrence of Modern Chinese Women's Writing (1898-1925)", "Novel Landscape", "The Flame Bearer", "I Saw Countless Her", etc. Editor-in-chief of "Beijing in Prose", "2021 Selected Chinese Women's Literature", "Looking at the Clouds: 20 Chinese Short Stories in 2021", "The Man with the Lamp: 20 Chinese Essays in 2021", "We Are Boiling at Different Temperatures", "Thinking in Life: A Prose Reader for Teenagers", etc. She won the 8th Lu Xun Literary Award for Literary Theory Criticism, the Outstanding Achievement Award for Chinese Women's Literature, and the Best Chinese Prose Award.

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