20 stories, about 800 words/story. It's Flash! The stories depict a rather bleak world of sex without love. Men's desire for sex with unwilling partners leads to tension and conflict. Men's private views of women (e.g. a perfect composite fantasy woman) are spoilt by a real woman turning up. "Primo Giorno" and "Pausa" end with the sudden arrival of a women and consolation sex. Other stories (e.g. "Sonno, Doccia a Altro") have a woman's arrival, sex and the woman's departure dealt with in 6 lines or so. In "Io e mia moglie" the narrator considers humiliating episodes from his childhood with his mother while in bed with his wife.
Without sex, life's still humdrum. "Soltanto un gioco" compares life to a card game - " 52 cards. The weeks in a year. Four suits. The seasons. Two colours. Red and black. Life and Death. The sum of the value of the cards. 365. The days of the year. The joker. The day extra in a leap year". Loners have moments of well-being, of suddenly feeling that they're masters of the universe or that they are the universe. When a surfer strives to lose himself in the moment, it's the best he can hope for.
The page-numbers in the index are up the creek.
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