Book review: Perfection, Vincenzo Latronico

Perfection has just 115 pages, but it’s a thought-provoking read. And it’s exactly why I love being in a book club, as otherwise it’s unlikely I’d have picked up a translated novel without any dialogue about a Millennial couple living in Berlin.

Expertly translated into English from Vincenzo Latronico’s original Italian by Sophie Hughes, Perfection is a sociological novel about the emptiness of modern life. Its only two characters of note are the main protagonists Anna and Tom, a Millennial couple who have moved from their unnamed home country in Southern Europe to Berlin to ‘live the dream’.

Perfection opens with an initial description of their home, which sounds perfect. Sunlight streams in, the furniture is achingly cool. Even the plants sound amazing. It’s only later that we realise this description is how the apartment is photographed for sub-letting when the couple go on holiday. Day-to-day life looks rather different.

As does the way the characters are described, compared to other novels. One of the aspects I found most intriguing about Perfection is how Anna and Tom are almost always referred to together. Like they don’t have separate identities. I guess it’s part of the author’s ambition to create characters that the reader won’t get to know or like. We are cast more as observers of the couple’s life together.

As Perfection develops, we learn more about Anna and Tom. They are creatives working as graphic designers in the same space that they live in. But that’s ok because it suits them to be flexible. To enable them to enjoy in the exciting world Berlin offers them. Although when it comes down to it, the reality doesn’t always match the expectation. Sex parties feel like something they should participate in, but is it really what they want to do?

As they get older and Berlin starts to change, they look for other ways to spend their time. But volunteering to help during a migrant crisis underlines how disconnected they are from the city. They’ve lived a classic ex-pat life where you spend time with other ex-pats, and you don’t learn the local language. Their digital nomad skills are also of little practical value in a crisis.

And so they start to look elsewhere. Where will they find the perfect life now? They try working in Greece, Sicily and Lisbon. None of them delivers on their promise, but you wouldn’t know it from Anna and Tom’s social media. The photos of them working on a laptop with a beach in the background get the most likes.

As the last line of Perfection says, “It’s all completely perfect, the story will say. It’s just like it is in the pictures.”

Along with many of the books I read, I borrowed Perfection from my local library. But it’s also available from bookshops, including the charity Oxfam, which is Europe’s biggest retailer of second-hand books. For more book reviews, visit the Books section of my blog.