Nicola, Milan (Semiotext

by Lodovico Pignatti Morano

A tale of ambivalent friendship and obsession with a fashionable drifter named Nicola in the fashionable city named Milan. It was the lies he told that reminded me of that past of mine that I hadn't encountered in a while. He was telling me the kinds of lies where the teller implies that things that have only happened to him once are long-running habits. Things about too much whiskey, Céline and De Sade, eating alone in expensive Japanese restaurants, knowing nobody (this last fact he would continue to repeat in later meetings, it seeming more barbarously unreal each time).
—from Nicola, Milan Vaguely employed as a brand strategist in a B-version of the Italian Glamour export economy, the twenty-five-year-old unnamed narrator of Nicola, Milan is an international loner, watch checker, tip leaver, shit-talker, drifting from bar to airport lounge, taxi to hotel foyer, drunk and caffeinated at the same time, trying to explain to you the finer points of how to pitch an idea of Italy to Americans. But when he meets the slightly older, richer, and worldlier Nicola, he becomes fascinated with him, seeing Nicola as a transcendental exemplar of the international-creative class culture he both envies and loathes. As the narrator stalks Nicola through the streets of Milan and its outskirts, what began as a casual friendship develops into an obsessive attachment, a crisis of identity connecting two hustlers, and a struggle against the quiet oblivion usually hidden by the web of tics and affectations that constitute a personality. Combining a Houellebecq-like sense of the psychic malaise beneath the surface of contemporary cultural life with the dispassionate voice of a police report, Nicola, Milan tells a story of perverse, asexual frenzy emptying out into the void.

Genres: Fiction, Italian Literature, Italy, Literature

128 pages, Paperback

First published April 4, 2014

Reviews

[Jeff Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

“It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible..." -Oscar Wilde

This short and stylish novel focuses on the glittering surfaces of clothes, luxury goods, apartments, and personalities - especially those of decadent playboy Nicola. The narrative evokes "Death in Venice," but crucially this object of obsession is older and more experienced than the narrator, who dissects Nicola's reflection and finds shimmering depths - or are they mirages? He talks about the secret literature that nobody writes any more, books that keep their confidences and whirl around a center that's forever unspoken and unseen. "Nicola, Milan" is one of those rare books. It's comprised of hints, evasions, and expressions that aren't entirely understood even by their owners.

Passing itself off as a decadent bauble, this is actually a profound meditation on the dissolution of personality. And it's easily one of the finest novels of the year.

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Nicola, Milan" could take place in Milan and other parts of the world, but it really takes place in one's head, that is lurking from one shadow to another. A novel that hints that obsession is the key that opens up to another world, yet, this is a very closed milieu that is both erotic, slightly unnerving, and in ways reminds me of a cocktail that is classic Roxy Music meets "Last Year at Marinbad." A great fast read.

[Sude Akduman · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is not a book it’s an experience.

[g.lkoa · Rating 1 out of 5]

several years later, I still cannot accurately fathom how could I bother my arse to even buy this book.