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A review by alongapath
The Eight Mountains by Paolo Cognetti
4.0
If you can't manage a trip to Italy, read this instead. Cognetti uses powerful description to paint a gorgeous landscape where he sets his wonderful story of a deep, long-lasting friendship.
Pietro is a city boy, born of parents who are each deeply connected to the mountains and the way of life that the mountains provide. But they are only able to escape their city jobs to visit the mountains during the summers. They buy a small cottage north of Turin where they spend time each year, indulging in the life of the mountain man and learning the lessons that only mountains can teach.
Bruno is a boy of these mountains. He has never travelled beyond his small village and knows this mountain and these trails by heart. He lacks formal schooling and any sort of structure in his life but is wise in his ways and ever curious.
These two boys become instant friends, meeting together every summer of their adolescence and adventuring along the flanks of the mountain, scaling abandoned dwellings and following the river up to its source. Bruno is the one with a wealth of knowledge and Pietro absorbs his teachings as a diligent student.
As these boys grow older, their lives diverge but their connection to each other never fades. Years can pass between their meetings yet they can step back into the warmth of that friendship at a moment's notice. Pietro is always the one to travel away and to return with stories while Bruno roots himself deeply into the life of a mountain man.
This is a beautiful read which brought back wonderful memories of the brief time I spent in the mountains of the Aosta valley. Cognetti describes those trails, vistas and endless rocks with such lyrical description, telling a heart-breaking tale with the perspective of someone who has lived it.
Pietro is a city boy, born of parents who are each deeply connected to the mountains and the way of life that the mountains provide. But they are only able to escape their city jobs to visit the mountains during the summers. They buy a small cottage north of Turin where they spend time each year, indulging in the life of the mountain man and learning the lessons that only mountains can teach.
Bruno is a boy of these mountains. He has never travelled beyond his small village and knows this mountain and these trails by heart. He lacks formal schooling and any sort of structure in his life but is wise in his ways and ever curious.
These two boys become instant friends, meeting together every summer of their adolescence and adventuring along the flanks of the mountain, scaling abandoned dwellings and following the river up to its source. Bruno is the one with a wealth of knowledge and Pietro absorbs his teachings as a diligent student.
As these boys grow older, their lives diverge but their connection to each other never fades. Years can pass between their meetings yet they can step back into the warmth of that friendship at a moment's notice. Pietro is always the one to travel away and to return with stories while Bruno roots himself deeply into the life of a mountain man.
This is a beautiful read which brought back wonderful memories of the brief time I spent in the mountains of the Aosta valley. Cognetti describes those trails, vistas and endless rocks with such lyrical description, telling a heart-breaking tale with the perspective of someone who has lived it.