Wilden.herbals meets / Interview with Libreria Gogogl&Company

Gogol&Company is an independent bookstore where one can spend time reading, thinking, giving free rein to creativity without being disturbed. The selection of books is carefully curated by their booksellers, as is the relationship with each publisher.
Gogol organizes literary and musical events, courses in writing, literature, publishing training and cultural proposals that can reflect them. They also offer a dedicated co-working space for those who want to work on their projects in freedom.

How did the library project come about?

The bookstore project was born from the desire to build a cultural social garrison, of a new way, when we opened 15 years ago, of doing bookstores, trying to propose the code of permanence: being able to make people stop here. It was a time in history when there wasn’t much of this offering; there wasn’t co-working, there wasn’t yet this need for a physical space to stay in, so when a space was proposed where you could stop by, where you could stay and read a book, where you and I could chat over a cup of tea without the hassle of the tax receipt: that stuff there worked quite well. Within the stay we were allowed to do our work, particularly for me, that of telling the stories I had read.

What is your favorite aspect of managing a library?

My job in the bookstore is not about being smarter as much as it is about being able to experiment and then tell the next person about it. My school career has been tremendous, I am far from extremely well prepared, so this has led me to be curious, to always seek and discover new things.

Some time ago, a university research on hybrid spaces identified us as an area, a space where there were analog influencers: that’s because I drink Wilden and I tell it as a project and a product that I really liked and so I recommend it; like I recommend people to use plant milk instead of animal milk or to eat less meat and more fruits and vegetables. This also works perfectly with the literature we read. So that’s the aspect that I like the most, to have a space where we can compare, advise on topics and things that I particularly liked and that were good for me.

What does it mean to you to be “Healthy and Wild?”

The theme of “Healthy and Wild” belongs to me and to us very much. The end point of our experience of place today, from devouring sausage sandwiches and craft beer has instead come to be an extremely more conscious experience. We have almost all become vegetarians or vegans, many of us have stopped drinking alcohol: it is the part of the balance between the physical body and the subtle body, between what was a physical and spiritual well-being now overbearingly distinguishes us: that is, our quest goes toward a new goal, that of being healthy. We started drinking a lot of herbal teas, and in approaching this world we discovered Wilden, which has also become an important word for us when we present our proposal both gastronomic and literary.

While Selvaggi is another part that has always marked our way of conducting ourselves in life. This has always been identified as a punk bookstore, perhaps because our cultural background was very close to those kinds of values. Selvaggio is reminiscent of an area in which I am very interested – I remember reading “Morin’s Instance,” a philosopher who called for reconnecting with a devastated earth, for rediscovering the balance between the earth that welcomes us and allows us to live, and our body, our biological machine. Wild represents rootedness with the earth, rediscovering what are the paths where we best express ourselves, which are of course those related to the environment around us. These ideas have led us to have common value points with Wilden-that’s why we have been very comfortable with your narrative, both of the ideals and the products. Wilden belongs to us as a value manifesto and that therefore, is easy for us to tell.

Is there a book you would associate with Wilden?

Jean Rolin – Joséphine
There is one word that I like to attach to your brand, or at any rate the Wilden experience has suggested to me, which is: elegance. This is an extremely delicate book, a love story that ends badly. It’s the story between two junkie kids; he remembers her when she disappears, always with moments that are not dramatic at all, as much as very delicate and elegant, which is always what Wilden suggested to me, and which is an area that I’m very interested in in the conception of space-place: the search for beauty has always been one of the fundamental parts for me-a beauty that was not just of epidermal satisfaction, as much as it was really of intellectual content, of narrative depth, and Wilden is beautiful, like this book.