Letter from the Last Century

My grandparents, the eccentric but humble Brio Primo di Alghero and the quirky but beautiful Aurora di Alghero née Alba, whom I have only had the pleasure of encountering a few times in my life, have come to visit me in the States this week. Last night, as we sipped on some Chianti, my grandfather recounted to me how he met my nonna.

Apparently overhearing us, my grandmother burst into the room. Her arm was stretched into the air, and her hand clutched a small piece of paper. “This is what made me fall in love with your grandfather,” she said with a smile.

The short note cannot quite be classified, or, if it could be, it would be placed somewhere between a warped love letter and a political communiqué. My grandfather claimed that he did not even remember writing it and, with a laugh, reminded me that he and my nonna were both strong supporters of the infamous Italian political movement known as Autonomia Operaia, which I have since discovered was nationally prominent in the 1970s.

I reproduce here an accurate, clean translation of the letter — not because I think it is particularly important in itself, or even because of its supposed finesse. This letter, in all of its brevity, simply shows that our age (aetas or aevum) — which is not a mere era (aera, from aes) — can trace its starting point, at the absolute latest, all the way back to the days of Autonomia.

With 50 years of counterrevolution perhaps ending soon, I leave you this delicate letter, a romantic relic of 1970s Italy.

My Aurora,

Why does one write a letter — and who could possibly write a “letter” in our late age? The 19th century, with its beautiful plumed pens and its luscious ink, is all over now, cancelled. All letters henceforth must be written without addressee — except this one.

Because, of course, I couldn’t write this to anyone. The twisted, fanatical turns my mind takes: only you could understand something like that. But even here my narcissism betrays me: your mind is far more fantastic, far more fanatical, and terribly more passioned.

Even this praise, though, causes you anxiety! Yes, your mind is infinitely deep, a bottomless, black abyss. You have “passion” — but about what? This “what” (which is not a “which” or even a “who”) is the cause of your entire anxiety.

I must quote a mind similarly fanatical to ours, Emil Cioran: “I’ve never been able to write otherwise than in the midst of the depression brought about by my nights of insomnia. For seven years I could barely sleep. I need this depression….” —So we need our disorderliness. And that is also why I need to write this letter to you (if you had never cried, your eyes wouldn’t be so beautiful).

But aren’t we ourselves letters with no addressee? We are sent out — but just that, intransitively. Similarly, this letter itself cannot have a conclusion. It merely writes its own possibility, its own emptiness.

This emptiness I feel, that you feel, and that everyone in our age feels, whether their miserable faces want to admit it or not, is itself an opportunity.

An abyss, and especially this abyss, can’t be filled. But when a human encounters an abyss, they typically form a bridge over it. After all, we need to adapt somehow.

But our emptiness can’t be crossed over so easily, without further ado. There is no “other side”: it turns out that the grass isn’t green, anywhere at all. The task of our generation is to make a bridge that leads nowhere, a bridge that is itself the land we wanted to cross over into.

I write this letter as a bridge: one which might help at least one of us find our place in a transition with no conclusion.

Your Brio