The work of Alessandro Baricco “Without Blood” is a mix of simplicity and surrealistic, mystical feelings which come up as a result of this simplicity. I started thinking at once what the purpose of writing such a short piece of novel which is even difficult to call a novel is. However, this is Baricco’s style — his love for brevity and easiness marks all his works which carry a lot of hidden meaning.
“Without Blood”, in fact, is unforgettable depiction of the brutalities of the war: The desire for revenge of the young girl foe shed blood of dear ones and destroyed happiness, who was not found by the murderers of her father. Surprisingly, but despite the times described in the novel are far in the past, the feeling I got while reading that the actions are very close to me the surroundings seemed to be so familiar.
An interesting feature of the novel is definitely its surrealistic elements: No dates or names are given to the historical moments, making the story look allegoric and not even plausible enough. On the other hand, it enables the reader to associate the novel with any moment of his own life that evokes in him those feelings which haunt Nina. One passage describes hotel “California”, how letters appear on the name disk: One by one as if showing the creation of the city, its development, and then nothing, darkness — its destruction, maybe by war, maybe due to the decline in morality, and maybe the end of someone’s life — these are just my thoughts. The red color seems to me so symbolic — color of blood, color of passion.
The strongest emotions recalled the last page. Despite Nina’s hatred and longing for revenge, when she met Tito (the last of the four assassins) after fifty-two years in already modern city, and understood that it was him who deprived her the familial happiness, and marked all her life with sorrows and fears of past experience, she acted as the most human person. This act as if reveals the whole nature of human beings — our vulnerability, desire for safety and care, but the most important — our humanity. “Without Blood” is remarkable in its eloquent simplicity which tells much more about who we are and who we better be to remain real humans with dignity and pride of being so than many other words told us and by us each day.