Many of us spend our online lives striving for perfection, or at least the illusion of it. For over a decade now social media has allowed us to curate the way we are perceived online. We can present a perfect meal, outfit, book stack and even declare our political ideals. However, in the world of literature few dare to thoroughly integrate technology into the novel, leaving glimpses of the modern world as inserted text messages or the rapidly growing cliche of the scrolling blue-lit zombie.
Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico manages do the unthinkable: transport that bittersweet addiction from the screen to the page. Latronico’s prose is detached from the European couple at the centre of Perfection in a way that evokes the dead-eyed curiosity we reserve for the strangers whose social media profiles we enviously refresh.
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It is hard to say whether Anna and Tom, who have moved to Berlin as freelance web designers, are in fact the main characters of the novel, as we are introduced to them through their perfectly curated flat. In fact, it isn’t until a third of the way through the novel that we get to know anything about the couple’s intimate life which is deeply underwhelming in comparison to the image they present.
Latronico’s first novel to be translated into English by Sophie Hughes, Perfection goes beyond the easy comparison of a curated online image and the reality beyond the screen. Through the couple whose world as they know it would surely end without a stable wi-fi connection, we see a deeper problem with a curated lifestyle.
Over the decades of Anna and Tom’s relationship, the internet morphs the landscape, changing Lisbon and Berlin from cities with distinct cultural identities to the interchangeable global style that feels like home for the remote workers of the world. This is a compulsive read that demonstrates the new global aesthetic that has shaped our lives.
Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, translated by Sophie Hughes, is out 13 February (Fitzcarraldo Editions, £12.99). You can buy it from the Big Issue shop on bookshop.org, which helps to support Big Issue and independent bookshops.
