Aniel Day: no fairy tales at Christmas
Although the name clearly recalls the Lamb of God, in reality Ricardo Tronconi’s new novella is not about Christmas.
Available from 24 December in eBook and audiobook versions on the major online portals, Aniel Day gives you a small taste on this page (booktrailer included).
Throughout the novella we find the number three recurring. Three stories, three resolutions, three conclusions. Holy trinity? Not so much. All the characters, in their own way, have something to hide. Although united by a single desire to do good, they still end up hurting someone. Themselves, others, both.
There is no great cleansing from the sins of the world: this is Christmas, after all, not Easter. One perceives only a kind of ‘providence’ that, as we have already seen in other tales by the same author, ensures that everything goes exactly as it should. That is, by giving the protagonists not what they want, but what they need most.
In the choice of how to react to the events of life that Free Will resides the greatest gift the Christian religion has given its faithful. Where in fact the ‘good’ characters manage to overcome adversity and glimpse a light at the end of the tunnel, their adversaries remain on a road paved with envy and hatred. Without the will to change their destiny.
No Mr. Scrooge who realises his mistakes, no last-minute conversions. Everyone lives in a world of pain (the main theme of the novella and of the three narrative strands), immersed in constant difficulties that never seem to resolve. Icing on the cake, the whole theme of betrayal revolves around a certain Aniel Day, clearly more Golden Calf than Lamb of God.
Can we therefore believe in a saving religion or is everything deception and perdition? There is no answer. No fairy tales at Christmas. Just hard real life in a society immersed in loneliness.
However, there is a hint of hope. In the willingness to overcome the past, preserving the best memories and treasuring the most painful ones, there may be the rebirth (Christian or otherwise) we seek. A kind of forgiveness that we offer ourselves and the world, after suffering. Somewhat human, somewhat divine. Like Jesus.
Merry Christmas… and happy reading!
