First you have to explain the plot of The movement of the body through space (Anagram), the new novel by Lionel Shriver (Gastonia, USA; 1957) because in each turn of the story a thread of questions is born. Serenata and Rem are two educated, handsome and successful professionals who are going through a bad time. Serenata has played sports all her life but she is disconsolate because sooner or later an operation and two prostheses on her knees await her.. And Rem is an enthusiastic and idealistic civil engineer, but he has taken early retirement because his last boss in the public administration (a twenty-something daughter of Nigerian -rich-, educated at Columbia, specialized in gender and basically inept) made his life miserable. One day, Rem got angry at work, slapped the table and became untouchable: sexist, racist, homophobic, etc.
So Rem looks for something to fill the 30 years ahead of him and starts running, which annoys his wife, a former athlete in low hours. At first, Rem runs alone; then he joins the team of a coach who prepares ultratriathlons with the discipline, morality and coquetry of a Nazi dominatrix. And so begin the drama and comedy of Rem and Serenade, which gives us the opportunity to talk about the fear of old age and death, the taboo of physical pain, the obsession with being part of a group, the desperation with which one lives sexual desire today, from woke culture…
“The spiritual elevation of suffering is the longest-running scam perpetrated against the human race,” says Shriver. And sport, at least in its extreme forms, is all about that scam. Whoever practices it feels purified through suffering, elevated above others. It’s the best he superfitness offers, feeling better than others and, at the same time, part of a community of chosen ones. I saw an Iron Man for documentation and I was amazed. The rhetoric was like that of the Nazis. That speech of the type ‘they told you that you can’t but it’s because they are people without ambition, because their mentality is that of a superman…’».
Shriver, the brutal and hilarious author of Private property y We need to talk about Kevin, He knows what he’s talking about. She knows what it’s like to run and bike until she breaks her knees. “There is nothing wrong with dedicating a life to extreme fitness, but no one should be fooled into thinking that they are going to achieve anything significant. Suffering is suffering, it is adding pain to the world and it is not going to make you a better person. To believe it is narcissism and self-indulgence.”