Well, it’s a French book but I’m using the Italian title
(that’s the language I read it in, and there is no English translation yet as
far as I know). My mother found this on the book exchange shelves of Turin
airport, which are very well designed and very rarely used (then again, on them
we found this, The Body of Jonah Boyd,
and some other interesting books over time).
I honestly thought I had outgrown Pennac, and that the magic
of the Fairy Gunmother and The Scapegoat could not be sustained
(hence why I haven’t read a number of its following books), but this one deserves
quite a lot of credit. Malaussene’s life in the 21st
century still makes sense (well, as much sense as the life of a former
professional scapegoat might make!) because Pennac’s prose still works.
Crucially, the book tackles a number of issues that relate
closely to my experience with students and millennials, and Malaussene's thoughts on gap
years and summers spent “saving” small developing countries before coming back
to our protected European homes echo mine to a remarkable degree.
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