Latronico’s conceit is clever and will delight anyone familiar with his source material, but his execution is ingenious ... His novel’s agility in English owes much to its talented translator, Sophie Hughes ... His novel is greater than the sum of its cunning substitution of signifiers.
Latronico is biting and withering, a funny critic of certain habits of mind and social conventions, which works especially well for the Berlin expat set ... What’s notable about Latronico’s experiment is that by borrowing Perec’s mode of caricature — exporting it into the present — he shows something universal about generations and their anxieties.
Trenchant ... The strength of Perfection is that it never succumbs to the temptation of ridiculing its protagonists ... Remains an insider’s critique: a young, left-wing European’s view of what was probably the high-water mark of European cultural integration.
While Latronico is clear-eyed on the fundamental hollowness of the modern millennial metropolitan existence, there’s a sense in which these people, who we see enough of in real life, have already passed their sell-by date.
Short, sly, scathing ... A devastating critique of aspirational consumerism and personal branding ... Latronico’s piercing irony is translated with great care and dexterity by Sophie Hughes ... Latronico has written one of the most brilliantly controlled works of social realism I’ve read in a while. His observations are entertaining and so damning that Perfection made me want to whoop and vomit at the same time.
Artful ... Where is reality, Latronico asks in this sharp, deliciously pessimistic novel ... Alienation from the self is at the hollow, restless heart of Anna and Tom’s lives: constantly yearning, empty of meaning. Latronico’s thought-provoking book is anything but.
Latronico, like Perec before him, in part succeeds through sheer will of style, surety of voice, precision of description. Great credit must go to Sophie Hughes for her sparky translation from the Italian original; she has an excellent ear for rhythm and makes judicious use of colloquialisms.
