Equilibrium;

by Tonino Guerra

"I had just gotten away from it all, by which I mean all those ordinary, boring things like skyscrapers, cigar-smoking industrialists, linoleum, plastics, television, westerns and marihuana. I had either seen or heard about them. Whether they are good or bad is beside the point..." A nameless graphic designer is haunted by the concentration camp in which he was once interned. Obsessed with his past, as well as Italy's present 'economic miracle' he retreats to a rural villa where he decorates the rooms with "arrows, signs, advertisements"; invents a new, purposefully incomprehensible typeface; and attempts to devise a marketing campaign for stones. Upon finally returning to Milan life becomes even more unbalanced. He loses his job and acquires a mistress whom he soon confuses both with his wife and the memory of the young, Czech woman he abandoned at the end of the war... Known primarily as a screenwriter for Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini and Andrei Tarkovsky among many others, Tonino Guerra also wrote poetry and fiction. Reissued to mark the centenary of Guerra's birth, and with a new introduction by acclaimed cultural critic Michael Bracewell, Equilibrium remains a relevant, powerful, and intensely visual account of a truly (post-)modern man.

136 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1967

Reviews

[Carlos Valladares · Rating 5 out of 5]

A disturbing, powerful treatise on time, history, love, trauma and its maddening loopings. If Alain Resnais wrote novels. Completely underrecognized and haunted genius, Tonino Guerra is.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps this is made up of 2 or 3 narratives, narrated by a graphic designer buying his lonely house, then the narrative of surviving the camps, the commandant with his cabbage, the shootings concerning the stolen watch, there's also the narrative of his relationship with his wife and mistress. Finishing the book it felt like the narrator was dealing with ptsd from his experiences, time and the identities of his wife and mistress merging, and his ability to objective himself, seeing himself, his doppelganger. Interestingly how these narratives began to overlap as he wanders Milan, or its outskirts, forming some kind of present tense narrative.

An interesting novella, of its time in a few places, and also pointed again to seeking out further translations by Eric Mosbacher.

[Angel Werth · Rating 2 out of 5]

A man suffering from PTSD from his time in a Nazi concentration camp goes insane. The book is full of the mundane aspects of his life, with little in the way of insight or moral.