“Sceglinato and mathematics”

During our school career, each of us has surely had to deal with the Professor, the protagonist of our nightmares for an entire school year, the one who, in turn, made us experience all the pains of Hell.

For this reason, the young Cecconato in “La bella di matematica” recounts the experience of Paolo Ceglinato, a student attending the Liceo Classico and his “fight” with his mathematics teacher Alda Adda.

Perhaps it's because of the relationship she developed with the student, or perhaps it's because the subject is usually disliked by students at the classical high school, but in any case, "La Adda" is described horribly, even in terms of her appearance: just over a meter tall, with a particularly small head "topped" with wavy, frizzy hair, an enormous nose, and remembered above all for her accent, a mix of Neapolitan, Treviso, and Roman. 

But what drives poor "Sceglinato" the most insane, as his teacher calls him, is his inexplicable ignorance of his subject: Too bad it rains insufficiencies from a teacher who knows it well, who can never be caught out (alas), and, despite the less than satisfactory grades, still manages to make her students love the subject. But when it comes to a teacher like Adda, who is ignorant and who prepares for tests already thinking about how happy she'll be writing a 3 in capital letters on them, even if she herself isn't capable of solving the assigned problems, poor grades at the end of the semester are simply not acceptable to Ceglinato. But Adda has "the upper hand," and sabotage and subterfuge yield no results and aren't enough to escape her clutches.

However, it turns out that the woman's attitude changes when she's seen outside the school walls. In fact, on the street or at the ice cream parlor, Adda appears a tormented creature, subjected to the will and taunts of a dark and mysterious man. Perhaps the teacher's cruelty is a way to hide her weaknesses and vent all her anger against someone she can dominate.

Using lively language that reveals the author's young age, yet is clear and judgmental, Cecconato takes the reader through his experiences at school in a small Venetian town where, as the story states, "little or nothing is normal.".

“The bad math”

The novel is set in a fictional town, yet very similar to Treviso, and the events unfold in a classical high school. The main protagonist is Alda Adda, a terrible, wicked, bitter, and in some ways even vindictive teacher. The plot unfolds through the many adventures of the class and the actual "battles" between the students and the teacher. After heated arguments, bad notes, and bad grades, it is discovered that the reason for Professor Adda's cruelty stems from her difficult relationship with her husband. At the novel's conclusion, she decides to abandon her husband for good and indulges in unprecedented behavior, finally revealing the good side within her.
Who in their school life hasn't had a wicked, vindictive, and, what's more, unprepared teacher? Unfortunately, many students of every generation do. The young narrator, drawing freely from the negative characteristics of the professors he encountered during his student years, has created a stereotype that encompasses almost every type of teacher behavior. The result is a successful portrait of schools past and present, with their strengths and weaknesses. Although the novel is enjoyable and the language flows, at times the plot seems predictable or inconsistent, perhaps because the thoughts contained within are easily relatable and seem similar to those experienced by us students. Only we, in fact, can identify with the author's narrative and fully understand the dynamics of a classroom.
 Alessandro Cecconato invents this terrifying and fearsome figure of the teacher, lacking in discipline and teaching, frustrated and therefore capable only of terrorizing her students and challenging them by assigning grades based on likes and dislikes. However, the author offers a sort of justification for the teacher's behavior by making the reader understand that teachers are people with private lives that can sometimes influence school behavior, even when they shouldn't. Despite this, the ending seems a little too rushed and almost unfinished.

"Because once you understand what a tragedy is, you must also take into account a rule that is specific to it: the better the beginning, the more terrible the end. Well, the reader should know that mine was an idyllic beginning."

Paolo is a student at a classical high school, and as his major suggests, mathematics isn't his first love, nor is it the passion of his classmates. His relationship with his new math teacher, Alda Adda, appears complicated from the start: the "math beauty," as the students immediately nickname her, is the classic incompetent and ignorant teacher who refuses to admit her shortcomings and insists on being right even when she knows she's wrong. She vents her frustration over her less-than-happy marriage on the students. The novel unfolds in a series of episodes narrated in the first person by the protagonist, describing Paolo and his class's difficult relationship with the eccentric and moody teacher Adda and their constant struggle to pass.

The strength of La bella di matematica isn't the plot itself, which isn't new, especially for us "old" students, but the style and language used to develop it. What could be more natural for a young person who decides to try their hand at writing a novel than to write about their own daily experiences? Alessandro Cecconato succeeds in making the characters incredibly realistic through fresh, immediate language, easy to read, and tinged with a good dose of subtle irony. Reading this short novel, one feels surrounded by one's classmates, catapulted into situations that every student, unfortunately, finds themselves in sooner or later. Some passages in the book are so believable that they trigger a sense of déjà vu in the reader.

A novel highly recommended for students, who can find their own daily experiences in it, for teachers... and for those who are no longer students, but who can smile thanks to the adventures and misadventures of the protagonist while thinking back on their own past experiences.