January 8, 2018
Written with the reflection and sensitivity of a memoir, Cognetti’s meditative debut explores the intertwined lives of two young men from opposite ends of the social spectrum. Pietro Guasti is 11 years old and contending with his chemist father’s demanding mountain-climbing regimen when he befriends Bruno Guglielmina, a cow herder his age living in the shadow of Italy’s Monte Rosa. Though the two become close confidants, Pietro, who has worldly ambitions, believes that the more parochial and rugged Bruno would have made a “more suitable” son for his father. When a tragic incident that shaped Pietro’s father comes to light, Pietro senses further that he and Bruno “were actually living inside my father’s dream.” Cognetti takes his novel’s title from a Nepalese legend about the different varieties of human experience, and the story illustrates how Pietro and Bruno, despite the dissimilar paths their lives take, can be understood as different sides of the same soul. His nuanced depiction of his two main characters and the camaraderie they share gives his spiritually uplifting tale gravity and texture.
