The Queen’s gambit

Walter Tevis

I had a chance, a few months ago, to meet a friend.

I want to say he’s a friend, as Saramago or J.C. Izzo or Gogol. You would give a hand to have a chance to speak to one of them.

As everyone else, I like to improve that small soft part well covered by a skull-bone layer, the brain. If I don’t study something new or try to make my mind working, I know I will end up feeding the pigeons as it was the best and most important part of my day.

Which story?

The queen’s gambit, a graphic idea by Daniele Frau

You end up reading the story of a girl, orphan, with no money, abandoned, but highly skilled.

Nothing new, right? The same old story of a girl coming from the bottom of society and climbing over it.

Wrong

This story is something different, which transcend from what you expect, enters a child’s mind, then a teenager, then a woman, and explores letters and numbers of a square that enchants several people over hundreds of year.

It’s a story of misfortune, drugs, solitude, and possibilities. When you are asking yourself :

Why she’s doing it to herself, wasting all that potential?

You are finishing posing the same question to yourself

Reflect for a second: what have you that makes you so unique and why you’re messing with it, losing your chance?

Yes, because you’re special, but in your way.

Not everyone has to be the fastest runner, the best writer, or go to the moon.

But if you discover your exceptional talent, even if this means be a careful person, a smiley and kind soul, nourish it. Try to find the best ground for your soul to grow and spread some special “something.”

That is the advice that this book gave to me

It gives me a sense of immense, infinite talent in a tiny, almost invisible piece of time.

And the secret it’s to enjoy every single moment.

Next, I will speak about another book: A dirty Job, by Christopher Moore.

Stay tuned, the matryoshka is open!

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