Postcards - Annie Proulx

 

A very unique take on epistolary novels (or at least novels with an epistolary element): one whose chapters are introduced by postcards that cannot get a reply because the sender is running away from his past and his crimes without leaving an address. 

I wish the edition of the book that I have didn't include reviews praising it as the new "great American novel" because this really isn't a reflection on American values, poverty and family ties of the caliber of Grapes of Wrath, but it is a really good novel nonetheless. 

Loyal (the main character) is someone the reader gets to know and support - a bit! - throughout the novel despite not forgetting that he committed an atrocious murder right at the start. The rest of the family, however, are not people I could bring myself to find particularly interesting (except perhaps the mother?) as their lives and life stories were a bit too scattered due to the structure of the book. 

The Power and the Glory - Graham Greene

 

Very believable: this is a book by Graham Greene that I greatly ejoyed. 

Significantly less believable: this is a book by Graham Greene that made me appreciate the work of (some members of) the Catholic Church in oppressive times. 

I had read a bit about the Cristero War in Cacucci's books, but The Power and the Glory clearly brought it to life in a much more in-depth way. The book's protagonist is likeable because he's human and interesting because he's weak. The reader both grows fond him and forgives him his (many) lapses and ultimately respects (without always agreeing with) a number of his decisions. 

The semi-uplifting ending though feels a bit too allegorical (and, well, Catholic!) for me though...

Call for the Dead - John le Carré

 

Oh, le Carré...

This is the book that started it all - Smiley, Mundt, and essentially established the standard for spy stories. Yet, it's a book that I hadn't read until I had a very healthy number of le Carré novels under my belt. 

While perhaps not as intricate as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy or as iconic as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, this novel has the great privilege of introducing the readers to George Smiley, and with this they get to know a spy who doesn't look like James Bond, doesn't talk like James Bond, and doesn't use the same kind of gadgets that James Bond uses. And perhaps because of that becomes - in my humble opinion - the spy we would all want to become: calm, collected and curious. 

... che Dio Perdona a Tutti - Pif

 

A book I honestly would have never picked up if it hadn't been free on Olio, and one that I found very pleasantly surprising. 

Pif is a very popular Italian comedic journalist, so my expectations for this novel of his were a little less than zero. Strickingly, what left me rather unmoved were the anecdotes about football and Sicilian sweets - often full of stereotypes and predictable. And what I actually found genuinely interesting were the author's/narrator's takes on Catholicism. 

The Catholic church - and the Catholics'! - hypocrisy is often a very easy target for satire, but this is a deftly written book, and at the end of the day it's not satire. It's a reflection on our values, on what it means to be a good person (and/or a good Catholic), and the more saccharine passages of the book are still meaningful enough to be, at least, readable. 

The Debt to Pleasure - John Lanchester

 

Oh, the random books that one can find on an old bookshelf in a building that is about to be demolished...

This is not the Lanchester I'm used to. Even the book's cover has very little to do with those of his other works. 

One thing that really makes this novel stand out compared to his others, for me, is how ornate the prose is. And unfortunately I don't mean it in a positive way. Because of how rich the language is, and how intricate the sentences are, I often found myself drowning in a sea of words. I really liked the idea of such an unreliable narrator, but unfortunately I thought that most of all the narrator was unintelligible, and the plot twists intertwined with culinary discussions were sadly often lost on me. 

Il Custode - Niccolò Ammaniti

 

Ammaniti is one of the most succesful contemporary Italian authors. Perhaps that doesn't mean much though, considering the state of contemporary Italian literature. 

With Il Custode he goes back to what he does best (talking about children and their world clashing with the adult one) and what he used to do with his first books (writing pulp/gorey stories). In here he also throws in a contemporary rendition of a well-known mythological story (in this case, that of Medusa). 

The result unfortunately is a rather unhappy mixture, essentially saved by the fact that the book is rather short and the reader doesn't really have the time to get bored of this. Had he added a further hundred pages, I would have honestly struggled quite a bit to find the motivation to finish it. 

Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad

 

One of the side-effects of relying so much on random collections of second-hand books is that I often find myself reading 19th century/early 20th century classics, and this book is obviously one of those. 

Classic, yes. But also, what an absolute struggle to get to the end of the book...

I did enjoy the opening sections, with the sinking ship that doesn't sink and the ethical/moral discussions that follow. But after that reading about Jim's colonial adventures was an obviously uncomfortable read, in part because of the implications of this fairly unlikeable and relatively unskilled white man teaching people how to leave, in part because it was just quite boring and at times hard to follow (or hard to follow with interest, at the very least). 

American Tabloid - James Ellroy

 

It had been more than ten years since I last read anything by Ellroy. It was probably a good move, as after three of his books in relatively quick succession I had reached a point of saturation. Last week though I was very much ready to get on with another one of his books and I'm glad I did. 

According to Wikipedia, for conspiracy theorists looking at the assassination of JFK "Common culprits include the FBI, the CIA, the U.S. military, the Mafia, the military-industrial complex, Vice President Johnson, Castro, the KGB, or some combination thereof". Predictably, Ellroy opts for blaming all of them. 

What comes out of this is a pretty gripping novel that just about anyone would be able to identify as an Ellroy one even without looking at the book's cover. The dialogue is (too?) sharp and (too?) irreverent, the plot intricate but somehow intelligible, and the real-life characters add enough verosimilitude that one is left wondering about the plausibility of some of these potential conspiracies. 

And the fact that, as often happens, there's enough Hollywood Golden Era glam in these pages is a marvellous thing for me and Rock Hudson's fake hookup with a female dancer to cover his homosexuality is an excellent plot device!

Bye Bye Benny - Francesco Filippi

 

I read this (e)book because I liked its exhuberant cover and the fact that it called the petty (and terrifingly reckless) dictator that defined the Italian 20th century "Benny". 

This book is obviously little more than a cute story for children (or at most young adults), still, in a continent that is experiencing some rather significant democratic backsliding and with a drought of readable books around, it still serves a purpose. 

It won't (and it really shouldn't) shake the world, but it might help a few people who read this think that perhaps we ought to defend democratic values and that strongmen (and women!) might not always be the best answer to socio-political stagnation. Actually, they are never the best answer to socio-political stagnation. 

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - Mark Twain

 

Another one of those books left on the doorstep of a Rotherhithe apartment block. 

Of the three Mark Twain novels I read, this was by far the least interesting. Not as funny as Tom Sawyer, not as thoguht-provoking at Huckleberry Finn. 

And while Mark Twain also has problematic elements (race, colonialism, politics - you name it!) this one almost had me scream "stop patronizing the rest of the world and other eras, you self-indulgent, self-absorbed and self-centred American bore". 

Paradise Sky - Joe R. Lansdale

 

The first Lansdale book I read, and it was actually one of those great 30p buys from the Barbican Library overstock titles. 

Partly Cormac McCarthy, partly Little Big Man, partly self-aggrandising tall tale, this was a truly compelling read. 

It does, however, also raise a significant question: is it better for a great white writer to tell the story of a black cowboy, or should we wait for a black writer to do that, however long it might take (considering that there isn't a queue of black authors waiting to write about Nat Love, as far as I know)? I tend to prefer the first option, but I'd be very happy to be proven wrong. 

Sátántangó - László Krasznahorkai

 

Maybe my desire to read some Hungarian books became excessive. And maybe the Nobel committee goes out of its way to award prizes to authors that are simply too highbrow for even reasonably seasoned readers. 

But seriously, what was this?!? I understand that experimenting with literary forms can be a sign of genius, but I ultimately begin my writing advice sessions by jokingly telling my students that "sentence, paragraph and essay" should not be treated as synonyms (seriously, some of them love 800-word paragraphs on the Schlieffen Plan), and this is exactly what Krasznahorkai does. 

I honestly didn't understand anything of this book (and as a result, didn't understand its supposed greatness). It all blurred into one, interminable, sentence and I felt that I had to finish this only because the Nobel committee said so. 

Destinazione Errata - Domenico Starnone

 

A book by a reasonably popular Italian contemporary author that I was completely unfamiliar with. 

It's very well-written, and the self-destructive web of deceipts and half-truths that the main character weaves around himself as he tries to tell a colleague that he doesn't love her before trying to persuade himself that he does actually love her is, at the very least, fascinating. 

Still, all the characters in the novel are supposed to be highly educated and emotionally intelligent. How is it even remotely possible that a love declaration coming via text from a married man is not questioned at least a little bit more by the recipient?!?

The Time of the Hero - Mario Vargas Llosa

 

Another book that I got from Olio. Oh, how nice it would have been to get more than my "allocated" 10 books from that guy...

The Time of the Hero started off poorly for me. Very poorly. Life in army barracks and "boys will be boys" acts of violence and bullying are really not my idea of an interesting (let alone a pleasant) read. 

Still, after a few chapters, and when the drama truly unfolds (despite the fact that the book's cover already announced from the start what the drama would be...) the characters actually become well-rounded and one and I started to become invested in their lives. While not fully expecting complete justice, I would have still liked at least something more than "the army will take care of itself". 

Still, it remains a book about something that I find at best uninteresting, and at worst borderline repulsive. 

Sharon and My Mother-in-Law - Suad Amiry

 

This was a book that I stumbled upon by chance. And, I have to admit, I was attracted first of all by the title (and I might or might not have thought it was a reference to Sharon Stone) before reading what the book was about. 

Obviously, the titular Sharon was Ariel Sharon after all, and I thought this was a good book in "general" literary terms and an excellent one considering the topic and the viewpoint. It offers a very insightful overview of the Palestinian situation and life in Ramallah (and the borderline hopelessness of the idea of a two-state solution, even before the latest bouts of this never-ending conflict). 

And yet, as one reads this book one also has to remember that someone like Suad Amiry is (and she does recognize it herself) a privileged Palestinian - highly educated, living in Ramallah, with international links, financial stability, and an ability to find ways to get her voice heard. Millions of people are in even more precarious positions.