Author's note
Who has not as a child created their own fantasy and dream worlds, inspired by the things we found around us? Don’t you remember that sometimes just a toy, a model airplane or car, was enough to unleash our imagination. Or it could be sometimes sufficient to remember a story or fairytale that excited us. Because when we were children we had this great power to build imaginary worlds with the strength of our mind, of our imagination. It was undeniable that every real thing around us lost consistency and gave way to our “adventures”. As it is just as undeniable that this “power” is lost as we grow older, as frequently happens during adolescence. However, in some of us, the memory of those carefree moments remains and we just have to observe the behaviour of the children around us to travel back in time to our childhood.
As for me, I remember that when I was young I was a great fan of Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book, so looking back at those carefree times, I can hardly believe that I had such extraordinary adventures with Mowgli and his friends, thanks only to my vivid imagination… something that I obviously wouldn’t be able to do today! But the first real fairytale that came into my life was the Musicians of Bremen by the Grimm Brothers, thanks to my grandfather who used to recount it to me while I sat on his knees. The adventures of those four animals who got up to all sorts of mischief enticed me so much that I never tired of listening to them. So much so that, over forty years later, I wanted to pay homage to my grandfather by going to Bremen to visit the monument dedicated to the famous Musicians: a donkey, a dog, a cat and a rooster standing on each other’s back, in the act of scaring away the brigands with their voices.
Like many children, I naturally read many other tales: but something that’s remained in my memory is this ability to “enter” into the fairytale world of my imagination and live firsthand a series of fantastic and unrepeatable adventures.
What happens after childhood ends? Have we really lost our capacity to create these fantasy settings?
Probably yes, governed as we are by the rationality of adult life. However I’ve very often found myself wondering about what would happen if we could once again enter a story with the power of our imagination. Or rather, what would happen to an adult, to a rational individual who has to face the thousand difficulties of everyday life, if he suddenly found himself projected inside a world where all of his certainties were unexpectedly overturned.
I’ve been thinking about this for years, surely for too many years, and never seriously (after all… I’m an adult!). Until I decided to use my skills to achieve this undertaking: that is, to put my dreams into practice. But over the years my imagination has matured and is no longer as innocent as when I was a child; it’s no longer imbued with the typical naivety of childhood, but brings with it all the problems of adult life. And in an adult’s eyes even the familiar fairytales can take on a different aspect, an often even disquieting aspect. What happens then when these two spheres meet? When everyday reality and fantasy meet? Or, even better, collide? This is what I’ve tried to describe in this novel, which is my first work of fiction.
So, follow me into the magical world of the Grimm Brothers. But be careful: the dreams of childhood could lose their innocence and become horrific nightmares in the minds of adults.