Perfection

by Vincenzo Latronico, translated by Sophie Hughes (2022)

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Perfection finally put the ennui that comes with being "cool" into words. Since I moved to L.A., I've found myself falling into a number of performative traps; driving miles to crowded coffee shops to read a literary fiction paperback, buying magazines in languages that aren't English, documenting Griffith Park picnics with a camcorder, going to see my favorite French films in 16mm in tiny cinemas, and the list goes on. The couple in Perfection are formless in personality, yet they pride themselves on being "cultured" digital nomads with the chicest apartment in Berlin. They're surface-level cool, but they don't feel like they're anything else.

Some may criticize the author's lack of empathy generated toward the characters (who are always referred to as a pair, never as individuals), but I saw that as being the whole point. When every twenty-something in East L.A. is reading the same German poets, wearing the same hemp clogs, listening to the same ethereal ambient albums, waking up at 5 A.M. for the same monthly flea market, and vying for the same vaguely creative career in social media, who's to say which among them are genuine? or which among them are playing a part?

Ever since I was a kid, I've had this insidious desire to seem "cool" to other people; my peers, total strangers, professors, artists. It's like the Margaret Atwood quote "you are a woman with a man inside watching a woman," but instead there is a demure and pristine version of me inside of my imperfect mind, judging every uncool or overly passionate action I take. Who decides what is cool? and why are my standards so high exclusively for myself?

The coolest people I know are passionate, strange, chatty, and generally off the beaten path. Perfection is a reminder that the pursuit of coolness, social awareness, and digital timelessness is not substantial if it is not genuine. That perhaps the more surefire way to be cool is to be singular and enthusiastic about your singularity, rather than donning the uniform and absorbing the interests of the unknowable "cool."

This novel also speaks a great deal to political involvement of expats, making efforts for justice in a country where they have significantly less power to do so, and the strange ennui that comes with supporting those in need without an end in sight. While I took the sociocultural approach to this novel since that is the world I find myself drawn to picking apart and analyzing, I do not mean to belittle Latronico's message from the vast call-to-action piece that it is. It's a truly stunning work that explores detachment, digital nomads as contributing to gentrification, living freely in a country that others flock to to escape oppressive systems, and the over-influenced malaise that is afflicting a vast majority of millennials and Gen-Z right now.

Check out my Goodreads to see what I've read and what I'm reading now. You can also find me on Fable, so be sure to check in with me there. As always, let me know what you think in the comments, whether you've read Perfection or not. I am excited to dive further into some of the other 2025 International Booker Prize Shortlist, and I look forward to keeping you updated in the process. I encourage you to read a work of translated fiction, from any country and any time period. Happy reading!

★★★★1/2

Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, translated by Sophie Hughes (2022)

-Cheyenne