Vincenzo Latronico - Perfection (Fitzcarraldo, 2025) **½

Anna and Tom are expats living in Berlin in 2010. They are both freelancers, earning their keep by designing websites and other digital tools. They go to art galleries, they go to parties, they frequent other expats living in the city. Nothing is fixed, and everything is volatile: spaces, friendships, love. Despite all their comfort and being 'cool young people', there is not much focus or aspiration in their life. They drift on the waves of the expat and cultural events in the city. 

Anna and Tom also do not have proper characters. They are almost always described by Latronico in the plural: they do this and they do that. Only exceptionally do Anna and Tom do or think something differently, yet that is very rare. 

Latronico's novel is more a criticism on modern society, about the 'hollowness' of life, its lack of purpose and meaning. Latronico’s book is modelled closely on Georges Perec’s 1965 novel, "Things: A Story of the Sixties" , which I have not read. I am a big fan of Perec, yet Latronico does not even come close in general terms.