Perfection

Perfection contains no dialogue, instead exclusively favouring rich and detailed description of inanimate objects. In an interview with the Guardian, Vincenzo Latronico says, ‘I have a terrible ear for dialogue and can never quote verbatim what somebody said, even at important moments of my life. But I memorise details of clothing immediately; description, more than dialogue, resonates with what seems salient to me in the world.’ How did you find the experience of reading the novel with no speech?

Latronico never refers to Anna and Tom individually; he always refers to them as a couple, with the reader unable to comprehend the couple’s separate personalities beyond their superficial experiences, habits and purchases. Latronico told Hungarian Literature Online that providing distance between the reader and the main protagonists was deliberate on his part. ‘We are used to reading literature through this mechanism of liking the characters, of supporting them, being on their side. But it’s not the only way to write. I think that I didn’t want you to like them, I wanted you to see them.’ Do you understand Latronico’s decision for portraying the characters in this way? Did you find that you saw Anna and Tom for who they were, and did you like them?

According to Latronico, Perfection was a tribute to Georges Perec’s 1965 novel, Things: A Story of the Sixties., described by the Sunday Times as ‘a witty attack on consumerism’. The two books adopt a similar structure and a highly descriptive way of writing. If you’re familiar with Perec’s novel, how do you think Latronico’s book compares? And what do you think are the main differences between consumerism in the Sixties and the 21st century?

It is never revealed in the book which country Anna and Tom originally came from, with Latronico only alluding that they are from a southern European country. Why do you think he left this information out of the novel?

Even though they had been living in Berlin for many years, Anna and Tom never fully integrate into German society. Their friends are mostly other expats, their knowledge of the German language is minimal, and they have stopped consuming media from their home country or Berlin, instead concentrating on American and other international news sites. Why do you think they are unable to fully engage with their life in Berlin?

The author describes the couple’s apartment and the objects that, according to them, are a ‘tangible manifestation of who they were. That apartment and those objects weren’t merely reflections of their personalities: they provided a foot-hold, in their eyes proof of a grounded lifestyle, which, from another perspective (that of, say, their parents’ generation) appeared loose’ (Page 18). What do you think Latronico meant by the apartment and objects providing proof of a ‘grounded lifestyle’, and why might it appear ‘loose’ from another, older perspective?

As the years pass by and gentrification takes hold in Berlin, Anna and Tom recognise in almost imperceptible ways that they had ‘contributed to the problem that was starting to affect them.’ The narrator states that gentrification is ‘a term used almost exclusively by the people who caused it’ (Page 64). Do you think that’s true, and how might Anna and Tom have contributed to this effect on the city?

There’s an underlying message woven throughout the book that millennials will never be happy or satisfied with their lives, always striving for an unattainable version of a ‘perfect’ reality. ‘It was all different, which was what they had wanted; and yet it was also somehow all the same. They had wanted that too, but still they weren’t satisfied. In Lisbon, Anna and Tom were bored’ (Page 93). Why do you think Anna and Tom were ultimately bored with their lives?

There is a period in which Anna and Tom become involved in the humanitarian crisis surrounding refugees, after they become aware of a photograph of a drowned boy on a beach. They volunteer at a centre set up for the refugees, but acknowledge that they ‘found it increasingly hard to feel useful,’ questioning whether their involvement had really been more about themselves. But as they posted photos on social media, ‘they would watch the likes and shares go up, and still feel sure they were doing the right thing’ (Page 73). To what extent did their participation seem genuine, or was largely performative volunteerism to gain recognition and validation online?

‘Those memories were sweet but they seemed to belong to another life entirely. For a long time, it was precisely those little details that made them feel at home – the different types of paving on the streets, the citrus motifs on the cornices covered in graffiti, the tropical plants behind the bay windows. Now that feeling had gone, even if the details that had produced it remained the same.’ (Page 83). Why do you think Anna and Tom’s feelings for Berlin and the details they used to love changed so much over the years?