A little story of a strong woman

Susanna Tamaro, “Il vento soffia dove vuole”, 
[The Wind Blows Where It Will], Solferino

Tears often welled up in my eyes while reading Susanna Tamaro’s novel. This is something that does not often happen when I read a book. Chiara, the novel’s protagonist’s, uses the device of writing letters to her family members (daughters and husband). Though this may not be new method, however, through the description of her relationship with each of them she tells us important fragments of her life. In each, she goes very deep into the thoughts and emotions that lie at the center of her heart, with the positive and negative dimensions that can connote them.

With Chiara, there is Alisha, the Indian daughter who was adopted after trying to be a mother. There is Ginevra, the daughter she had while waiting for the adoption; and finally her husband Giovanni, a pediatrician, who wanted her at all costs and who is the rock of the house, become the protagonists.

Life experiences are recounted, from the painful ones to happy ones. These occur at the time of the third child, Elijah, and told in reflection in the stories of others and whose baptism leads Clare to a quiet, but strong and sweet dimension of faith. Page after page unravel the days of a strong woman who has experienced the last 40 years of our history. Even if she was not a protagonist of History per se, she went through its difficulties while arriving at her own synthesis that in the small story of each day needs to be reviewed and consolidated.