What will be after the Purple Door?
Paola Barbato in a book for young readers who "know" fear
It happens to everyone at some point in life. There is a moment, in the existence of each of us, in which we are forgotten . It is that moment in which we disappear, simultaneously, from the thoughts of anyone who knows us and in the memory of the world we no longer exist . It is a moment that does not have a fixed duration: it can last a blink of an eye, a handful of seconds, minutes, even hours. And in that period of time in which we are still real, yet absent from the collective memory, something happens. Someone sees us, just while we are there and while we are not there. He observes us and recognizes us. If the moment of our oblivion lasts long enough, then it could happen: the Purple Door could appear before us . And it vanishes into thin air.
This is what happens to Alice Sartori, the newcomer to the third D and protagonist of Paola Barbato's new dark novel, “ La Porta Viola ” (Il Battello a vapore, 2023, pp. 192, also e-book). An adventure book for very young people of the Third Millennium which is also, as often happens in Barbato's books, an interesting reflection on the fears that grip all kids in that phase of life in which they stop being children at all the effects and we face the first choices to be made alone and independently. In that moment you experience the excitement of independence and at the same time you retain an extreme fragility in your emotions, a bewilderment that Barbato knows how to describe well in the book.
The Purple Door is, in fact, a metaphor for the thresholds that each of us can choose to overcome or not during our lives . Thresholds that scare us, but fear itself helps us decide, helps us grow and face the unknown.
In front of the Purple Door, Alice will have to manage her fears, treasure them, use her fears to find the courage needed to move forward, at her own pace and with her own awareness. Being the other side of fear, nourished and fueled by it, courage is also the springboard that gives forward momentum. Fear is welcome then, if it leads to courage and therefore to the race towards an unknown future, yet yet to be discovered.
