Marianna Matteoni:Under the bougainvillea” The Square
From Riccione, graduated in clinical psychology, psychologist, born in 1973, author of some volumes on psychoanalysis (the latest in 2023, for the publisher Panozzo, “Il Desire What does it mean?”, a work of reading and commentary on a text by Lacan). This is the identikit of Marianna Matteoni, author, this time, of a romance novel of over 500 pages set between Rome, Milan, Romagna, New York, Dallas. Dedicated, as you write at the end of the text, to Barbara Cartland (1901-2000), British writer author of over 700 romance novels, and to Liala (1897-1995), one of the best-known authors of romance novels of the 20th century. But I would add that an important reference would also have been made to the English writer EL James, author of the “Fifty Shades” trilogy (of grey, black, red) released in 2011 for the numerous erotic pages contained in the book.
A pleasant read, a well-written text, which manages to describe the protagonists of the story well. Naturally beautiful, rich, elegant, with fairytale homes (in Romagna it is Villa San Martino where there is a splendid bougainvillea), with important families, with the world as the background backdrop.
The story develops between September and December 2001. Let’s see the protagonists. He, Andrea Fairley, just over thirty years old, American father and Italian mother, university professor first in the United States and then at La Sapienza in Rome, teaches Romance philology, famous for some books written on medieval troubadours.
She, Valeria De Rossi, twenty-two years old, enrolled in her third year of medicine, a dreamer and, in many ways, naive (even on a love level).
The two of them are joined by Giacomo De Rossi, Valeria’s twin brother, who on 11 September 2001 was in one of the two Twin Towers destroyed by al-Qaeda terrorists, managing to save himself but remaining deeply traumatised, and Francesca Altavilla, the best friend of Valeria, roommate, literature student, who will fall in love with Giacomo.
The story develops in the story of Andrea and Valeria’s love/erotic events. “At thirty-four, Andrea Fairley was the kind of man who didn’t go unnoticed. Tall and slender, the short black hats highlighted the regular features of the face, in which the eyes, also dark like onyx, the straight nose and the fleshy mouth stood out”. Valeria: “slender and supple figure, long legs and high proportionate breasts, an oval face with a well-shaped mouth and blue eyes. But what struck and made people turn in the street was the large mass of raven, shiny, hip-length hair when Valeria let it down.”
The first time: “With veiled eyes, Valeria circled his neck as he sought her lips. The warm tongue sliding into her mouth sent shivers down her spine. When his sex penetrated her there was a moment of pain. It wasn’t the terrible feeling he had often imagined.”
The story naturally reaches a point of crisis, that is when the relationship between Valeria and Andrea must become a love story and not just a sex story. Andrea is used to not having any type of emotional relationship with a woman, contact is limited to sexual life only. At a certain point Valeria asks for more. Andrea must decide: “What exaltation to wake up her beautiful body, to instruct her in the games of carnal love, to feel her tremble with desire and pleasure beneath her.” “He suddenly understood that up until that moment he had considered Valeria the same as his past partners. Oh, he had been kind to her, always, in and out of bed, realizing how inexperienced and scared she was when he first met her. It wasn’t in his nature to force a woman anyway. He wanted to conquer her, not subjugate her, and preferred that she give herself spontaneously.”
“Love makes you weak, it makes you do stupid things and Andrea hated feeling defenseless, exposed. Usually he was the one who left and the women clung to him to hold him back. The trouble was, he missed her. In a way he couldn’t even define. Suddenly he was afraid. Fear of losing her. To never see her again. Or that she didn’t want him anymore. Good God, he loved her!”
Of course the story has a happy ending as all these romance novels must have.
Paolo Zaghini
