The book is rightly compared to Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose," Jorge Luis Borges' "The Library of Babel," and the works of Luigi Pirandello. Readers will long remember the unusual name of the hero — Malinverno, created with the same mastery as his favorite characters: Don Quixote, Cyrano de Bergerac, Treplev, Pinocchio, Kashtanka, and many others. The author focuses on the role of literature in a person's life. It's a unique reading experience that evokes many emotions, and the abundance of characters with Russian names speaks to the deep knowledge and special reverence the Italian writer holds for Russian classical literature. Plot: There are places where the words of novels and poems sound everywhere, and the names of residents evoke thoughts of heroes of world literature. The town of Timpamara became such a place after a paper mill was built there many years ago. In the 1960s, an unnamed grave was discovered in the town cemetery, whose secret is destined to be unveiled by the lame librarian and cemetery keeper Astolfo Malinverno. Like a medieval monk from Umberto Eco's novel, Malinverno is fascinated by stories and the mysteries of the Universe. A book lover with a vivid imagination, Astolfo mixes novel plots with the fates of his fellow villagers — living and dead — but he is most intrigued by the tombstone with no name or dates and a woman's photograph. Over time, he decides to uncover the secret of this face. Astolfo calls her Emma Ruo, like the heroine of Flaubert's "Madame Bovary." After several months, he finds a flower in front of Emma's tombstone. What does it mean? Flowers continue to appear until, weeks later, Astolfo sees a woman leaving another flower, and to his surprise, she is identical to the image of the mysterious Emma... "Life in Timpamara went as follows: when someone managed to kick its monotonous routine, everyone followed suit. Since then, the townspeople considered themselves free to abandon folklore and traditions and began giving their children the names of paper heroes..." "— Have you ever heard the voice of books? — my mother once asked me. — Not the words you read, but the voice, the sound of paper? I stared at her in amazement, I understood her literary hallucinations when book characters became neighbors and vice versa, but that paper would talk seemed too much to me. Apparently, she was losing her mind. — You just have to wait for the right day," she concluded." "When I finished an imperfect book, that is, one not ending with the death of the hero, I felt disappointment and dissatisfaction. This happened with the story of Pinocchio. The transformation of a log into a living person forever showed that endings where peace and harmony triumph are categorically not to my taste."