The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov

The unfortunately high expectations that I had from this book probably ruined it for me. I though my mind was going to be blown away by Bulgakov’s masterpiece, instead I was left extremely disappointed. I remember a school re-enactment of the first chapter of the novel, with the mysterious Iraqi kid playing a great Woland, but as it turns out that was, for me, by far the most interesting chapter in the entire novel. My father loved the book, but maybe it was a generational thing.

As I mentioned before, I already have issues with magical realism, but works of fantasy are just too much for me. After a couple of hundred pages the book just got boring for me. The intentions of the devilish characters are generally quite foreseeable from the start, so just get on with it. And I was hoping for at least something more satanic (and not just plain decadent) for the ball.

After a while even Behemoth, the most entertaining of Woland’s gang, becomes boring and repetitive. And the sections on the Master’s book seem just like a long, bleak return to Sunday school.

Bar Sport – Stefano Benni

I’m really not the biggest fan of humour books. Even less when they’re loosely connected short stories. In most cases they are not particularly funny entertainment (at best) or not worth the paper they are printed on (at worst).

This one is a little different. Far from being a work of art it is, however, a work of genius. Or at least the work of someone who knows his people and their habitat remarkably well.

In Italy a Bar Sport is not really a sports bar in the Anglophone sense. It is just a token name that unimaginative owners give to many of the unimaginative bars that characterize the country. Places where the clientele (and often the pastries) hasn’t changed for years and where anecdotes are passed on year after year until they become the stuff of legends. And this is what this book is about at the end: the legendary tales of a bar’s patrons and passer-bys, and at times it’s just what an Italian needs to read.

The Clown – Heinrich Böll

The horror. I remember my jaw dropping, and my heart sinking, as I was reading this book as a (very pretentious and yet somehow dramatically uncool) teenager but I now can’t remember a thing about the book.

Going through the Wikipedia synopsis, I have the feeling that maybe I loved the book for the way in which Hans’s life is essentially destroyed by the Catholic Church, one way or another. Or maybe it made me feel happy to read about his sentimental fiascos at a time in which I pretty much couldn’t get close to a girl unless I paid her (figuratively speaking, by the way).

Unfortunately, since I can’t remember much, “all those moments will be lost in time like tears in the rain” (luckily, it’s not time to die, hopefully at least).

Beloved – Toni Morrison

A book that was left behind by a neighbour. Had it not been for this fortuitous find, I would have probably read Song of Solomon or Jazz before reading Beloved.

For once, I don’t quite know what to say about this book, as I have the feeling that, being a white European, all my comments would be out of place. But let’s try anyway (after all, if Spike Lee allowed himself to presumptuously direct an awful movie about the Italian Resistance, I can write a few lousy lines on a book about slavery, after my little disclaimer).

Beloved is undoubtedly very touching, but, as has been happening for years with me, I have my problems with magical realism. To put it simply, I just want realism, in particular when what is being described is a reality that I’m not familiar with. I’m probably too set in my ways and analytical, but I want to know who Beloved actually is (I want Sethe to believe she is her daughter, but I want an omniscient narrator telling me where she’s actually coming from), more details about the schoolteacher, and a clearer description of Paul D’s long walk.

I am really glad I’ve read this book, I just don’t think I’ve made the most it. 

The Tongue Set Free – Elias Canetti

Why do accomplished Eastern European writers often seem to have led the most incredible lives? Are their personal stories so extraordinary, or at they simply extraordinarily good at creating magic out of a fairly normal existence?

This book deserves to be read by everyone, but its size probably intimidates countless potential readers (also, the fact that I’ve never seen a book by Canetti in a British library is probably an obstacle to its dissemination).

The book is a wonderful description of a family (and a village, and a country) split between tradition and modernity, looking for a way to succeed in the 20^th century. Yet, for all the travels of Canetti’s family, my favourite pages remain the ones set in Bulgaria, where the narrator learns to read and where he plays a terrifyingly dangerous game with a hatchet.  

The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen

A book that a student in the university hall where I used to work left behind (unread) when he left. Random stranger: thank you very much.

I hate myself when I love best-sellers, but again I couldn’t resist the pull of epic family stories, sub-urban American life and, ironically, its dullness. Much like Alfred, I am despotic and obsessive compulsive, and I am quite worried about what might happen to me (will happen to me?) once/if my mind starts to go.

And, with my grandparents in a similar situation to that of Enid and Alfred, I kind of wish their stories will have similar endings soon. Maybe that means I’m an evil and ungrateful grandson, but I’d love to actually think of myself as very loving and caring in this situation.

Despite the fact that I ultimately don’t really care about these characters, their frantic lives are between intriguingly absurd (in my favourite parts) and hilarious (although this can get to be a bit much at times). Also, never has falling off a cruise ship been so funny. 

The Hours – Michael Cunningham

A book that was given to me by a girl who had a huge crush on me when I was 16, and with whom I was not particularly kind. She gave me this novel to impress me and, at that age when nobody around me actually read, she did.

It made me want to read something by Virginia Woolf (a desire that quickly vanished after reading To the Lighthouse). I have the feeling that most readers end up remembering mostly either the portrayal of Virginia Woolf, or that of Richard Brown, but to me Laura Brown is by far the most interesting character in this novel (probably also because of my undying love for Julianne Moore, who played her in the movie – a love that started in the early 2000s before the entire world was in love with her, by the way). Although it’s a reality that is really rather far from me, I somehow love depictions of American sub-urban life in the post-WWII period – in my mental imagery the era always has the most beautiful colours.

The book is written with such a soft touch that probably only gay writers can master without falling into plain sappy romanticism (although Cunningham himself doesn’t like being referred to as a gay writer). It’s a shame that, now, so many readers seem to have forgotten about Cunningham’s talent. 

Ask the Dust – John Fante

I don’t think this is a book that can, nowadays, leave a lasting impression on its readers. That said, it did move me when I read it, probably because the main character is a struggling Italian American, and I think it would be great if people in my (former?) country remembered that, once upon a time, we were a nation of migrants.

The main character’s love is destructive and hopeless, the Depression (with a capital D) too big a hurdle for him, and the fact that he essentially lives on oranges is one of the saddest and at the same time more powerful depictions of poverty in American literature, for me at least.

I wish at some point there was something to smile about in this novel. I have the feeling that the greatest books, or movies, always have funny (or at least ironic) passages, no matter how desperately grim the plot is – and to me that makes them great works. Ask the Dust, unfortunately, doesn’t have any such moment.