Una Questione Privata – Beppe Fenoglio

This is one of the “Books of a lifetime” for me. Something that every Italian kid should read between the ages of 16 and 25. And then probably read again. It is, clearly, about Italian Fascism and the Resistance war.

It probably has had such an impact on me because so many of its scenes are similar to my old recurring nightmares, in which I ran away from Fascists cutting through the hills and fields around my parents’ house. Oddly, in his youth my dad had similar dreams, except that he used to run away on the town’s rooftops. Probably my granddad dreamt of something along those lines too – the problem for him is that he would actually have to run away from actual Fascists once day broke and he had to take messages and weapons to the local partisan bands.

The book is remarkably deep and poetic, starting from his main character (whose battle-name is Milton, clearly). His love for Fulvia is so epic that it makes the book look like a novel from another era. And probably the best thing is that, like some of the finest pieces of Italian art (like Michelangelo’s Pietà Rondanini) is is unfinished. Or is it?

Probably the greatest praise of the book was the one offered by Calvino, who argued that Una Questione Privata was the book his generation would have dreamt to write.

Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

During my first year at university I only read a couple of books. Shame on me, but I had other priorities: trying to prove to the kids in my class that, despite my funny accent, I was as smart as them, washing dishes as I already mentioned, and playing basketball for my university team. Of Mice and Men was one of the few books I read that year, it was lent to me by my Singaporean roommate and I read it while travelling for an international friendly match in Barcelona.

How I suffered. Despite the brevity of the novel, I was quite shattered by the end of it. Over the final few pages I was so desperate for George to find a solution like he always seemed to do. And in the end he does find a solution, even in that dramatic situation. To me that’s one of the greatest displays of love in 20^th century literature. I just still wish he had found another solution, another way to run away and finally have “their little place”.

A dislikeable teammate of mine saw me finishing the novel on the flight back to London. He told me he hated Steinbeck because he had to read Grapes of Wrath in high school. I hadn’t read it at the time, but as soon as I did his comment became another reason to have fairly bad opinion of the guy.

Commissaire Maigret - Georges Simenon

The perfect summer reading. Particularly in Italy, where Maigret’s books all come in bright yellow editions. I would read them on train rides (one book being usually perfectly readable on a round-trip between my hometown and Turin – the “big city” where teens trying to be cool would go for a stroll on a Saturady), or on my parents’ terrace.

I always admired the dryness of Simenon’s writing, his apparent decision to always use the fewest possible words to construct his sentences. I loved Maigret’s wife, probably more than the detective himself.

Then I made the mistake of trying to read all of his books at once. And I discovered that, in the end, they were all too similar. And that really upset me. I haven’t read one in 3 years now, and I have the feeling that I still need some time to completely detox and to go back to loving Maigret the way he deserves to be loved.

The God of Small Things – Arundathi Roy

To me this book is pretty much an Indian version of Ian McEwan’s Atonement (or probably the other way around, considering the years of publication of the two works). Yet, for much that I loved McEwan’s book, this one left me rather unmoved.

In both books the poor suffer and the rich get on with their lives (there is very little atonement – if at all – in both cases, at least in my opinion). The difference is that here the children are the ones being manipulated and they are not manipulating adults. Maybe that’s what I didn’t like about the book. Or maybe it’s the excessively romanticized scenes of inter-cast love. Or maybe it’s the myth of Oxbridge across the world that just annoys the hell out of me. I wish the Indian communists were given more of an actual role, rather than being left just on the side (crucial, but still on the side). I had really high expectations from this book. They just weren’t met.

Theatre – William Somerset Maugham

This was the first book by Somerset Maugham that I read. I’m not exactly rushing to read another one. Many would say that I should have picked one of his more seminal books, but this was the only one I had handy, and there are plenty of cases in which I loved minor novel(la)s of great writers. This just wasn’t one of those.

Having seen Eve Against Eve I think I had enough of the whims of glorious (or glorified?) actresses before even starting to read this. The book is undeniably well-written, nobody can say otherwise, and I understand why many people might find it a good read. I like theatre a fair bit, although not having been raised in Britain I’m not as crazy about it as many of the people around me are, and this is probably the reason why I ultimately saw very little point in this book.