The Rumble of the Phoenix - Novel by Flavio Uccello
Review by Maria Teresa De Donato
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Rumbles of often rigged engines, triggered gears, hairpin bends
and straights, clandestine races and bets, cars that go at maximum speed
through the streets of Rome and on the Raccordo "without a precise
destination" (Uccello, 2022, p. 6)
But what sense would life have if we didn't chase our dreams and
passions?
In this novel, the author, Flavio Uccello, catapults us into the
world of engines, cars, racing, and betting. It is a particular world you must
love and cannot live without. The races become your life; they make you find
"[your] place in the world" (p. 71); the high speed makes your
adrenaline rise while you focus on the goal: beat your opponent.
Each car has particularities, strengths, and limits that you
must know, respect, and manage in the best possible way. With each vehicle, you
create a different bond. With some of them, this bond is unique; there is a
particular feeling, irreplaceable and not reproducible. You fall in love with
"that unmistakable smell, typical of historic cars, the smell of the
interior vinyl, the leather of the seats, combined with a slight stench of
petrol" (pp. 35, 36)
Although cars of all kinds participate in the races, some with
high-sounding and famous names, "the ones that attract attention and
sympathy" are often those "apparently innocent but with excellent
dynamic skills, docile at low speed but demanding to drive at the limit
"(p. 17)
The world of racing is highly competitive even if, as
acknowledged by the novel's protagonist, Miki Mazzoni, it is "fascinating
the mysterious complicity that [can] be created between strangers, united only
by a passion, a goal or a single moment of freedom." (p. 33)
Other fundamental aspects present are love and falling in love,
broken dreams, human solidarity, universal and immutable themes, and having to
deal - by choice or by circumstances beyond our control - with organized crime
and war between clans are all aspects that enrich this work by providing ideas
for deep reflection.
The language is fluent and captivating; the rhythms, often
intense but always full of profound humanity, capture the reader's attention,
prompting him to read the manuscript to the end without interruption.
Il Rombo della Fenice is a novel written by a young and talented author whose reading
I recommend to everyone.
