You and me (novel)

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You and I (Original title: Io e te ) is a novel by the Italian writer Niccolò Ammaniti , which was published by Einaudi in 2010 . The novel tells the story of the young Lorenzo, who meets his previously unknown sister Olivia.

action

The action takes place in Rome in 2000. The protagonist is Lorenzo Cuni, who was fourteen at the time and who has had difficulties since he was a child. to get along with his peers. His mother, worried about this behavior, forces him to see a psychologist . He is diagnosed with a narcissistic personality disorder. According to the psychologist, he stands up to others and is not ready to interfere in the crowd; the only people worthy of his affection are his father, mother and grandma.

Then Lorenzo learns to immerse himself in the crowd in order to appear normal. One day he overhears a group of teenagers planning a week-long ski holiday in Cortina d'Ampezzo and, strangely enough, remains disappointed that he was not invited. When he got home, he lied to his mother by saying that he was invited too. Thereupon she locks herself in the toilet to spare Lorenzo the sight of how she weeps for joy over the news. In the days that followed, the mother is so elated by the prospect that her son has finally made some friends that Lorenzo doesn't dare tell her the truth. On the day of departure, Lorenzo has his mother accompany him in the car to a few crossroads before the meeting place. He gets out of the car, reaches the agreed departure point and watches his classmates as they drive off. Then Lorenzo begins to stroll around the streets of Rome when he receives a call from his mother shortly afterwards. She asks the mother of the classmate who organized the trip to answer the phone. Panicked, Lorenzo invents an excuse and learns that none of his parents are at home. By keeping a close eye on the doorman, he is able to sneak into the basement of the house.

Once there, he finds canned goods and drinks. He can also find books, comics and his PlayStation with the game "Soul Reaver". Through various and detailed excuses, he manages to keep the mother in check. After a few hours he surprisingly receives a call from his half-sister Olivia, daughter of his father from a previous marriage and Lorenzo practically unknown. Olivia asks if anyone is home right now. Shortly afterwards, she goes to the basement to look for a box in which she hid money a long time ago, but which is no longer there. Olivia begins to feel bad, triggered by heroin drug withdrawal symptoms. Lorenzo therefore decides, albeit reluctantly, that she can stay with him in the basement for the night. The girl later asks whether he has any sleeping pills. Since he doesn't find any, Lorenzo decides to get some from the bag of the dying grandmother in the hospital.

Back in the basement, he finds Olivia almost dead and wraps her in a blanket. The girl, who was able to find sleeping pills among the boxes lying around in the basement, slept for a few days and finally recovered. At first, the relationship between the two is strained; Lorenzo doesn't accept his half-sister's imposition and Olivia doesn't want him to interfere in her affairs. And yet they are slowly getting closer, driven together by the whole situation; the two become something of an accomplice. Thanks to Olivia, Lorenzo is able to find out a lot about himself, and Olivia is rediscovering what it means to have a relationship with another person. They eat together, hug and confide in each other.

Lorenzo's stay comes to an end. The two say goodbye and promise each other to keep in touch. In addition, Olivia promises to finally detoxify. These two promises are not kept, and ten years later Lorenzo is in Cividale del Friuli in a room in front of a table on which the body of the half-sister rests. On January 9, 2010 Olivia died of an overdose in a bar in the Friulian community.

characters

Lorenzo Cuni

14 years old, introverted, the main character and the narrator of the story. He holed up in the basement of his house while he let his parents believe that he went on a skiing holiday with a few friends for a week.

Olivia Cuni

Lorenzo's half-sister, addicted to drugs, also holed up in the basement to put an end to her addiction to heroin.

Franchino

The doorman of Lorenzo's house. He is nicknamed "Vervet Monkey" by Lorenzo.

Lorenzo's mother

An anxious middle-aged woman concerned about her son's introverted character.

Grandma Laura

Lorenzo's grandmother, who has a good and very affectionate relationship with her grandson. She is dying in hospital because of colon cancer.

reception

The novel was generally well received in Germany.

The Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung considered it a "novel that poetically and wisely reminds us that growing up is even harder than being an adult."

The radio station Deutschlandradio Kultur commented on Ammaniti as follows: “[He] is a master of sociological observation, of milieu study, almost with pleasure he lets the fragile bourgeois cocoons fall apart. (...) The book is shocking and reads far too quickly. We are excited about the next Ammaniti with perhaps a little more narrative space, which will hopefully find the well-deserved readership in Germany one day. "

The Märkische Allgemeine judges him: "Ammaniti never gets sentimental, he remains coherent and continues puberty stories such as Hermann Hesse's Unterm Rad and Robert Mulis [Musils] The Confusions of the pupil Törless confidently and up to date."

filming

The novel was made into a film by the Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci in 2012 , albeit with a few differences. In Germany the film is known as Ich und Du . It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012 and received numerous nominations in Italy in 2013.

The main roles are played by Olmo Antorini (as Lorenzo Jacopo) and Tea Falco (as Olivia).

expenditure

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c you and me. In: www.piper.de. Retrieved January 10, 2017 .