A Book with Giancarlo Siani
Review of “Un Ragazzo Normale” by Lorenzo Marone
Last summer we students read a book, given by our Italian teacher, about the person whose name the school is dedicated to the neapolitan “Giancarlo Siani” . We’ve decided to write a review to express our opinions, thoughts, feelings about one of the most important journalists in Italy who was killed at the age of 26 for his anti-camorra articles. Recently, we met the author of the novel, Lorenzo Marone and discussed together about the power of writing and the fact that Siani was a “normal man”.
The symbolic green Mehari, the journalist’s car, on the back of the book cover seems to hint at a story in which Giancarlo Siani is the most important character of the narration. However he is not: it’s Mimì who is the protagonist, a 12 year-old little boy who shows at least twice as much of his age: he likes comics, classics, scientific terms and finding new words on the dictionary to amaze his listeners. As an adult, he relives his adolescence visiting the places that marked it, comparing the past and the present.
Giancarlo, with his agenda under his arm and pen in his hands, looks free and carefree. Actually, he fights against something big and unusual for a man of his age. This, in Mimì’s eyes, makes him a superhero, like the ones that he loved so much. He’s the young man that listens to music, Vasco Rossi in particular, he’s the man that believes in culture and in the power that it has to change things.
The author specifies: the book isn’t about Giancarlo, but it was written with him. It’s Giancarlo and his example that Mimì learns to grow up with; it’s with Giancarlo that the little protagonist understands that words can move and light up people’s lives and that the most important thing is to keep fighting.
Reading this book means seeing a martyr of “camorra” absorbed in his everyday life made of work, urge but also moments of joy. This allows the reader to identify himself with the young neapolitan journalist and convince himself that he does not need special powers to change the world, but only courage and willpower.
He becomes an example and a good friend for Mimì, that learns, to see the world from different perspective. Heroes aren’t the ones that, with their super powers, always manage to save the world, they’re the people that try to improve it solving the problems that they face, day by day. Sometimes they are impeded, like Giancarlo, who on the 23 of September was murdered with 10 bullets not far from his house.
Written by Paolo Abate and Martina Borrelli