The pandemic isn’t on our side. But it will end and we will be able to return to talking about books peacefully.
The Lunatic Girl
All of us have virtues and vices, some more some less. We can also say that books have virtues and vices, because they are a direct extension of their writers. However, few books have “little virtues” and “adorable vices”, like Little Virtues and Adorable Vices by Carlotta Gualtieri, alias the Lunatic Girl. This book derives from the will of its author to bring her oral performances (originally born to be vocal messages on WhatsApp for a group of friends and then published as videos on Facebook) back to their written form. So, this work represents the essence of the author herself: Lunatic Girl’s “little virtues” are her desire to put herself in the game and her ability of seeing her flaws with irony and disenchantment, whereas her “adorable vices” are her obsessions with clothes, lipstick, shoes, small realities which are told in a refined style, causing a pleasing sense of “confusion” and surprise in her readers. So, as soon as the book came out, I wanted to reinterview the Lunatic Girl to know her thoughts about this new experience.
Finally, after a long time, your book has taken form and now it is in bookshops. First you recorded your thoughts on WhatsApp and, after that, you published them on Facebook; what was it like bringing them out on paper?
Somehow, each of these three experiences has given me something: the audios gave me the initial surprise and the magic of my voice; the videos returned an image of myself and a body which I could never have imagined showing to so many people; the writing has revealed my true self, my essence. After all, I wouldn’t have ever made the audios or the videos if I hadn’t devoted myself to writing at first. Everything else has happened pretty much by chance, but not the writing, which I have always cultivated: it has been always inside me and, therefore, it is very familiar to me. I mean, somehow the writing has offered back a more sincere and truthful image of myself.
Speaking of social media, I see that you have created an Instagram account. Which social media do you prefer between Facebook and Instagram?
Because I’m a “boomer”, as my children say, I am more familiar with Facebook, even if I realize that Instagram is faster, is more immediate and based more on images than on words. Instagram also has the great advantage of having the stories, which are followed by a lot of people, achieve widespread success and arrive where Facebook cannot arrive immediately. Unfortunately, I couldn’t benefit from the stories because I’m still not able to use Instagram properly. Infact, I can manage this social network thanks to the help of two young men who attend the IED (ed. Istituto Europeo di Design, European Institute of Design). They have taken care of my image and have organized my videos and paintings with an attention and an aesthetic taste which belong to me and with which I can identify. Nevertheless, I have been helped by very qualified and professional people in managing my social networks which remain unknown worlds for me: I don’t disdain them at all – as I have repeatedly said –, but they don’t belong to my being, to my identity, to my generation.
See also:
The “Lunatic girl”: a digital declaimer
Why this title, Little Virtues and Adorable Vices?
I really appreciate Natalia Ginzburg, as I have already written in some of my blogs. I’m not so attached to Family Sayings as to a little book called È stato così (tran. “It happened so”) which brutally begins with the phrase: “I shot him in his eyes”. When I read this book, I was still a teenager and I was very moved by it. I’m also fond of other Gizunburg’s novels, like Dear Micheal, but above all to The Little Virtues, a book which collects some of her tales which were originally published in several Italian magazines. So, to speak, I have adopted this expression, “little virtues”, thinking about which of my “little qualities” could be; so, when I had to choose a title for my book, I immediately thought about Ginzburg and I decided to honour her. However, I needed to find a counterpart for the “little virtues”, in order to diversify my book from Ginzburg’s, of course. So, I thought about everything I had written in the book, those witticisms, those obsessions with my hair, my skirts, my wardrobe which can be seen as vices, of course, but “adorable”. They aren’t transcendental vices or even the seven deadly sins, but they are “adorable vices”. Furthermore, “little virtues” go well with “adorable vices”: maybe, the “little virtues” are also “adorable vices” and the “adorable vices” are also “little virtues”.
I have read some enthusiastic comments to your Facebook posts where you mention some passages from your book: they are mostly written by people who are the same age as you, but also by younger women. Do you think that your writings embody the ideals and thoughts of a specific generation or of the female gender on the whole?
I’m pretty sure that my writings embody the ideals and the thoughts of the female gender. Men can be counted on the fingers of one hand among my public. My only great male fan is wonderful: he was the first to order four copies of my book on Internet! Sometimes the likes of some men (for example, my friends’ husbands and my daughter’s male friends) appear on my page, but I have no doubt on saying that my public is essentially composed by women. Even better, I believe that my writings reflect the female gender in general rather than a specific generation because I think the irony, which you can find in many of my works, talks to every generation. However, their subject is specifically addressed to a female public.
Since your book came out, it has been promoted in a lot of events. How did you feel talking about something you care a lot about in front of so many people? Did you expect this reception from your public?
Yes, a little, because I had already read my stories on a great deal of occasions before publishing my book and I realized that they had been favourably received. It wasn’t the first time that I talked about those stories, although they were still unpublished. The only difference between the present and the past is that before I just read some of those stories from start to finish, whereas now I always discuss them with a moderator. I have been lucky so far because I have always discussed them with people who are on my same wavelength and it was very, very pleasant. When you promote a book, of course, there is more to consider: while the book doesn’t exist, it is as if the book isn’t as a “commodity”, so to speak, and you feel lighter in reading something only because you want to give one of your stories to other people. When you show a book, you also have to promote it, at least for the publisher. There could be something which makes you a little less genuine, but this wasn’t my case.
When you talk about your book, you usually define it as an “object”. Do you think that it could be considered an artistic work and not only a “mere” book to be read?
Yes, I do. There is a peculiarity in this book: it is also a “book to touch and smell”, as Giacomo Pilati told me (ed. Giacomo Pilati is a writer and journalist who comes from Trapani and interviewed the Lunatic Girl in Trapani on the 17th of September 2021). First of all, the chosen paper is precious, especially the cover: it is as if I truly gave my reader one of my paintings because the image on the cover gives you the sensation of porosity, of “material”. Furthermore, each story is introduced and presented by the paintings: at the beginning, each painting is shown in its integrity and then, inside the text, it appears as if it was vivisected. It is clear that this is not only a book to be read, but also to be looked at; so – it doesn’t matter if my paintings are appreciated or not – my book can be also defined as a book of art.
So, while being read, can these paintings be admired regardless of the passages which accompany them? Or are they indissolubly bonded to the latter?
From my point of view, some paintings are indissolubly bonded to the passages which accompany them for their colours and materials, for how they inspired me, whereas others are not so bonded to their texts. Anyway, it is sure that I have linked up all of my stories with a painting which, in my opinion, was suitable for each one of them. For example, the story called “The Lipstick” is accompanied by a painting which shows a pasty, dense, intense red that reminds me of a lipstick. Or, for “Envy” I have chosen a painting which I like very much: it shows a predominance of violet, a colour that I associate with envy. Or even, in “The White Jeans” I have chosen a painting, “Marettimo”, which reminds me of the sea, or in the first story, “Walking”, the painting is diveded in two strips which almost seem like a route, a path, a road.
A year and a half has passed and it has been difficult for everyone: the pandemic has transformed our routine and our way of life. How much has this historical event changed you in your own life and how much has it influenced the writing of your book?
In my own life, the pandemic has changed everything: as a teacher, I have had to completely reorganized my working days and I had to reinvent myself, also regarding my way of teaching. It was very, very hard… Covid also had an influenced on the publishing of my book, which came out very late. Work on the book was inevitably interrupted by the pandemic and it restarted more than once until my publisher said to me: “Now or never”. Of course, the pandemic has messed everything up and it has made one see things from another point of view…
Now tell me: who is Carlotta Gualteri now? Has The Lunatic Girl remained always the same person?
Yes, more or less. It is true that my methods have changed: for example, since last spring I haven’t made any videos… I don’t know, I’m not so sure about continuing these videos or introducing myself only as a writer. It is possible that, once the promotion of the book ends, I’ll come back with some videos on my Facebook page, but you can’t take it for granted. Right now I’m really focused on writing… that is my cup of tea, I can’t do anything about it. However, I certainly don’t regret the experience of Facebook: my videos will remain, they are fun; sometimes I rewatch them and laugh at myself, even better I congratulate myself because I have had the courage to show myself to the world.
Do you want to add something else?
Yes, I do. I want to say that I’m very happy to start this new experience, I mean the promotion of my book. Everything started from Sicily with Marsala and Marettimo and now I’m promoting my book in Tuscany. Nevertheless, Trapani has had and will always have a fundamental role. This city was the starting point, the place where everything was born: the publisher comes from Trapani, I read my texts for the first time in Teresa’s bookshop (ed. Teresa Stefanetti, owner of “La Libreria del Corso” in Trapani). So, this book belongs to me, of course, but it also belongs to Trapani. We will see if in the meanwhile I can promote my book not only in Sicily and Tuscany, but also in other regions of Italy… the pandemic isn’t on our side. But it will end and we will be able to return to talking about books peacefully.
Callimaco94 