‘Perfection’ by Vincenzo Latronico (2022) – 134 pages Translated from the Italian by Sophie Hughes
I had heard or read very little about Berlin since the Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989 and the city was reunited. ‘Perfection’ showed me that a lot has been going on in Berlin since then.
Berlin has become a hot spot for techies, young professionals who can work from their apartments and set up web sites for restaurants and other businesses that want a strong internet presence.
“They were graphic designers and front-end developers and artists…”
The time of ‘Perfection’ is 2015 which was probably the height of this phenomenon as business internet sites are somewhat old hat by now.
Anna and Tom are two such young creative professionals, “a term even they found vague and jarring”. They have emigrated to Berlin from southern Europe as have many others with whom they bond. The first chapter of ‘Perfection’ describes their apartment in loving detail. Everything in the apartment is stylish and perfect from the sand-colored Berber rug to the hardwood floor boards to the luxuriant plants.
It would seem that Anna and Tom have achieved something close to perfection in their lives.
“They spent all their time in plant-filled apartments and cafes with excellent WiFi. In the long run it was inevitable they would convince themselves that nothing else existed.”
However Chapter II of ‘Perfection’ begins with:
“Reality didn’t always live up to the pictures.”
As Anna and Tom (The two names are always spoken together and never differentiated in the novel.) work on their two monitors in their lovely office, they sense a vague dissatisfaction.
“over the course of the day, more out-of-place objects and signs of slovenliness would enter their field of vision, breaking their concentration.”
And Berlin changes. In the beginning, Berlin is “their main pastime. … In many ways it defined them much more than their profession did.” As more and more young techies arrive, Berlin goes through gentrification with resulting higher rents and higher prices throughout. Of course Anna and Tom can sublet their apartment for an exorbitant rental fee.
As Anna and Tom become more dissatisfied, they decide to sublet their apartment for six months and head to another young techie hot spot in Europe – Lisbon, Portugal where they appreciate the warmer weather.
But perhaps it is not their chosen city and occupation that are causing Anna and Tom to be dissatisfied. Perhaps Anna and Tom are just getting older.
The lengthy description of Anna and Tom’s luxurious apartment at the beginning of ‘Perfection’ would probably appeal more to New Yorker readers than to me, but after that ‘Perfection’ held my complete interest.
Besides, I did want to know what was happening in Berlin these days.
Grade: A
Tony's Book World 
Posted by Cathy746books on April 17, 2025 at 7:42 PM
I enjoyed this one, I thought it was sharp and funny
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Posted by Anokatony on April 17, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Hi Cathy,
The 6-page New Yorker description of their apartment kind of put me off at first, but after that everything was fine. I suppose that was for humor.
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Posted by This Reading Life on April 18, 2025 at 3:27 AM
I’ve now learnt that Latronico modelling the beginning of the book on Perec’s Things…. which begins with a lengthy description of an interior too (apparently. I won’t know for sure until the copy I put on order arrives at my bookshop). I posted my review of this yesterday as well.
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Posted by Anokatony on April 18, 2025 at 4:37 AM
Hi This Reading Life,
I just read your review which covered ‘Perfection’ quite nicely and with some more depth than mine. I think we both noticed that a lot of the dissatisfaction of Anna and Tom was due just to them getting older, no longer starry-eyed young people.
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Posted by Lisa Hill on April 18, 2025 at 4:17 AM
You know, I’ve been enjoying the different reviews I read almost as much as the book!
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Posted by Anokatony on April 18, 2025 at 4:38 AM
Sometime the reviews of a book make more sense than the book itself!
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Posted by Lisa Hill on April 18, 2025 at 6:49 AM
True!
But it’s also interesting to see how readers of different generations and geographical locations respond to this book.
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Posted by Kat on April 18, 2025 at 5:42 PM
I keep coming across novels set in Berlin. Thanks for letting me know about this one. Maybe more German literature is being translated?
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Posted by Anokatony on April 18, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Hi Kat,
Except Vincenzo Latronico is from Italy and ‘Perfection’ is translated from the Italian. One of the points he makes is how cosmopolitan the city of Berlin is now. Some of the old apartment buildings from old East Berlin rent for less than those in old West Berlin.
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Posted by Kat on April 18, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Oops! Still, I swear, there are a lot of books either set in Berlin lately. One of them, Good Girl, made the Women’s Prize longlist. I can’t recommend it. Will have to go back to Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories!
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Posted by Anokatony on April 18, 2025 at 9:59 PM
Or Thomas Mann or Ingeborg Bachmann or Christa Wolf or Gunter Grass or Jenny Erpenbach or Daniel Kehlmann.
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Posted by Janakay | YouMightAsWellRead on April 18, 2025 at 6:28 PM
I already have a copy of this one, thanks to Fitzcarraldo editions (my last year’s splurge was a subscription; while I love Fitz’s blue covers I must admit that I sometimes miss other publishers’ more visually adventurous covers!). Aside from the Berlin setting (like you, I find that city a most interesting spot), I was attracted by a portrayal of trendy, contemporary life. On a somewhat different note, have you read anything by Alina Bronsky? She’s a Russian-born, German writer who’s written about the migration experience of eastern Europeans to contemporary Germany. Her early novel, Broken Glass Park was excellent & I also loved (IMO very funny, but then I’m drawn to black humor) The Hottest Dishes in the Tartar Cuisine. A more recent work, Barbara Isn’t Dying, gives a great portrayal of a working-class German guy who’s very slowly adapting to the “new Germany” of immigration & changing social mores.
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Posted by Anokatony on April 18, 2025 at 6:55 PM
Hi Janakay,
No I have not heard of Alina Bronsky. That name is new to me, and I will watch for her now.
I don’t know if there is any animosity between those who live in the old East Germany and the those who live in the old West Germany, but that would be an interesting subject.
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Posted by Janakay | YouMightAsWellRead on April 18, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Have you read Jenny Erpenbeck’s Go, Went, Gone? (seems like I read a review on your blog of her Kairos a little while back, but can’t remember if you’ve read any of her other novels) The protagonist is a classic professor, born & raised in East Berlin; now retired, he and his friends have lived through the transition of the city (and their own lives) to a western model. Although this isn’t Erpenbeck’s primary theme (which centers on German attitudes towards newcomers from the global south), it is a strong subtext to Go, Went and gives you some idea of the attitudes of former east Berliners. It’s also an interesting supplement to Bronsky’s Broken Glass Park, which centers on the experience of Russian & eastern European immigrants to the new Germany. I didn’t expect to like Go, Went very much and ended up liking it a great deal. I’ve always felt a bit guilty about not following up with more of Erpenbeck’s novels, but just couldn’t muster much enthusiasm for Kairos.
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Posted by Anokatony on April 18, 2025 at 9:50 PM
Yes, I have read both ‘Go, Went, Gone’ and ‘Kairos’. According to my reviews I preferred ‘Go, Went, Gone’. Germany apparently is not adapting too well to these African refugees, but apparently neither are the other European countries. Of course now we here in the US live in a backward country that is trying to kick out everyone except the ignorant native MAGA yahoos.
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Posted by Janakay | YouMightAsWellRead on April 18, 2025 at 10:13 PM
Why Tony, I might almost think you dislike our very own, home grown, Nazi movement, aka “MAGA”. I know you’ve moved from Wisconsin, but do you now have the great good fortune of living a red state? (interject irony in my adjectives, please. Of course I’m being sarcastic). Down here in Florida, state legislation is pending that replaces all official references to the “Gulf of Mexico” with “Gulf of America” (think this includes text books, but not sure). And, of course, there’s our very own active community of book banners & education wreckers, the latter of whom have demolished a very nice little liberal arts college (New College) in Sarasota, and refashioned it as a home to white, male, christian athletes (seems the place had too many women art history & gender studies majors). If you’ve stayed in blue territory, well, you’re just not getting the full flavor of things!! We moved here before Florida had become MAGA central; if my crystal ball had been working I might well have gone elsewhere.
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Posted by Anokatony on April 18, 2025 at 10:23 PM
I happen to live in one of the midwestern Blue states now, Minnesota near the Minneapolis metropolitan area. For a while Minnesota went overboard on the Tea Party back in the early 2010s, but somehow Minnesota righted itself.
Did you happen to catch my additional comment on Daniel Kehlmann that I replied a second time to your previous comment? He is a wonderful German writer, especially ‘Tyll’.
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Posted by Anokatony on April 18, 2025 at 10:05 PM
I forgot to mention my favorite recent German writer which is Daniel Kehlmann. His novel ‘Tyll’ is absolutely brilliant, and so are his novels ‘Fame’ and ‘F’.
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Posted by Janakay | YouMightAsWellRead on April 18, 2025 at 10:49 PM
Yes, I did. I am unfamiliar with both Kelmann & Christa Wolf, so put both on them on my list. I haven’t read Bachman & Grass, but at least I’ve heard of them. As for Mann, I loved Buddenbrooks & Magic Mountain, as well as some of the shorter things I’ve read.
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Posted by Anokatony on April 18, 2025 at 11:05 PM
I actually liked ‘Buddenbrooks’ better than ‘Magic Mountain’.
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Posted by Perfection – Vincenzo Latronico – Yarra Book Club on April 21, 2025 at 5:21 AM
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