I probably won’t be the only one to say this of Vincenzo Latronico’s Perfection: it made me feel seen, and not in a good way. The novel takes aim at aspects of modern life, from social media to remote working and interior design trends, that aren’t obvious subjects for serious literary attention. Latronico, a philosopher who writes in Italian (this is his first novel to appear in English), suggests that our online profiles and material possessions have taken the place of integrity and community in society. He makes you question whether there can still be such a thing as an authentic personality.
The narrative follows a couple whose existence is, to all appearances, very pleasant. Expats in Berlin, Anna and Tom work cushy freelance jobs as ‘creative professionals’ and have filled their lives with nice things: a spacious apartment, complete with monstera plants and issues of the New Yorker; nights out at Berghain; home-cooked dinners, featuring ingredients such as pomegranate and sumac. They document all this on Instagram, where, alongside the ‘tangible reality around them’, they conduct a ‘double life’: ‘the images’, Latronico tells us, are ‘also all around them’.
It’s in this second realm that the trouble starts. Captivated by the never-ending stream of ‘beauty’ they consume online, the pair become dissatisfied by reality. Having moved to Berlin because their lives in their unnamed southern European homeland (probably Italy) ‘seemed to run on a fixed set of tracks’, ennui follows Anna and Tom wherever they go. ‘Perfection’, for them, is when things appear ‘just like in the pictures’; that is, when reality lives up to the representation of it that they and their friends send out on social media.
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