About 100 pages long. Each section uses a particular tense (which probably worked better in Italian)
PRESENT - descriptions of an apartment's rooms. Tasteful: "lit by an accordian wall-light mounted between a botanic lithograph of an araucaria and a reproduction print of a British wartime poster". They're descriptions of photos advertising a Berlin rental. "The life promised by these images is clear and purposeful, uncomplicated."
IMPERFECT - Much the longest section. It starts with "Reality didn't always live up to the pictures". The professional couple, Anna and Tom, wake satisfied, but clutter and grime acculumate. They don't speak much German, they have ex-pat friends aged 23-30. They grew up before Social Media. They design web sites. They sometimes sub-let for a few weeks. When they do, they clean up first. Then "For a few glorious seconds they would see their apartment just as they wanted it, perfectly superimposable onto the pictures". They note that "an identical struggle for a different life motivated an entire sector of their generation". Their job "demanded creativity, mostly in the form of making tiny tweaks to existing frameworks". Their families were puzzled by their move. Little art galleries and indie art spaces have become "the pulse of their life". They want things to stay the same. "Their love grew deeper every day. They were lovers, partners, best friends." They worry that their sex isn't adventurous or frequent enough compared to their friends. They're aware that Social Media had become an everpresent part of their life, one they have trouble controlling. It's not a distraction, it's part of their work/life flow. They speak better German now. The area's becoming gentrified - partly their fault. "They spent all their time in plant-filled apartments and cafes with excellent wifi". They make donations, sign petitions. When Germany lets in a million immigrants, they help - moved by "images of the drowned boy" and the detachment of the man in the images. Gradually their departing friends aren't replaced by similar people. Clubs in abandoned warehouses close down. Little art galleries are replaced by upmarket exhibitions they don't understand.
REMOTE - "They tried travelling", their apartment easily hired out thanks to the photos they used to advertise it. They found a temp website-making job in Lisbon ("the new Berlin"). "It was all different, which was what they had wanted; and yet it was also somehow all the same." A Web summit for digital nomads was being held, for which they'd designed the promo material. They feel like outsiders - too old. So they tried Sicily - a house that looked ok online, but disappointed them when they moved there, near a motorway. They were unhappy for 4 months, then returned to Berlin.
FUTURE - an uncle of Anna leaves her a Mediterranean farmhouse. They revamp it ("simple, elegant decor - Mediterranean yet unmistakenly international") so that they can live in it and take paid guests. The first review in May 2019 says "It's all completely perfect. It's just like it is in the pictures".
Belonging. Same/different. Change. Character types rather than individuals. Real/Images
Other reviews
- Andrew Blackman (Latronico wrote Perfection as a tribute to Things: A Story of the Sixties by Georges Perec, and it closely mirrors the structure and approach of Perec’s 1965 novella: both stories begin with a long, extremely detailed description of the apartment, and both feature a youngish couple with generic names experiencing a similar plot arc. Perfection is a way of transposing Perec’s novel onto the early years of the 21st century.)
- Lizzy Siddal
- mostlyaboutstories (Anna and Tom are not living entirely authentically, which we are told but also notice ourselves, by the way they are living always in the shadow of images – others’ and their own. But neither, typically, are we.)
- Thomas McMullan (where the “things” in Perec’s book are distinctly and evocatively material – a silver fob watch, a jade ashtray – the objects that Latronico’s protagonists desire are just as often apparitions, mediated through images posted on Instagram.)
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