Memoirs of Hadrian – Marguerite Yourcenar

Yourcenar’s academic research in her early 20s led to the writing of one of the greatest books I’ve ever read. Mine led to a Ph.D. thesis that brilliantly passed, but that even I wouldn’t want to re-read. Something went wrong somewhere.

I have never been a fan of Roman history, with my hatred for Latin and all that, but reading of this time between paganism and Christianity when man stood alone and at the centre of everything was a breathtaking experience for me. Of all the books I’ve ever read about the antiquity, I always laughed at how staged and implausible the prose and the dialogues looked, but it’s not the case here – where there is no dialogue and the prose is lyric but flawless.

And reading through Yourcenar’s notes in the appendix made me jealous of her passion for her research, something that I am not quite sure I’ve ever had.

Il Deserto dei Tartari – Dino Buzzati

On a bizarre camper holiday, my then-10 year old cousin (a really avid reader, at least back then) ran out of books and borrowed this from his rather surprised mom. He found it really, really sad. I don’t think my comments can be any more insightful, although I seriously don’t think I would have been able to read this classic of Italian literature when I was 10, I was sufficiently emotionally drained when I read it as a 25-year old.

The book is about a soldier’s wait for a long-promised attack to his fortress by the Tartars. Except that the attack never comes. And he waits. And the reader waits with him. I am often surprised by how great writers can draw up masterpieces from simple stories in which little happens, but Il Deserto dei Tartari takes this to an entirely new level – 80% of the book is just about the desolating wait of the main character, Drogo, and yet it keeps the reader’s interest very much alive.

And forget about Drogo’s final deep thoughts, I wanted him to fight the Tartars – winning or losing didn’t matter much, I wanted him to fight, and I am a relatively committed pacifist...

Rabbit, Run – John Updike

A book that my mother was sure she had bought for my dad. Too bad it read “To Gio from your mom – Christmas 2003” on its inside cover. I’m quite sure she also bought one for my dad back in the day, and probably she gave it to him because Rabbit is a basketball player, the same reason why she gave it to me (that, and because it’s a great read). Still, the copy that was on my bookshelf for the past dozen years was definitely mine.

Like so many of my favourite books, Rabbit, Run is about ... No, it’s not about Italian Fascism – it’s about American suburban life and about the titular Rabbit (who actually has a name – Harry Angstrom – but let’s face it his nickname is a lot cooler). Like Americal Pastoral, this book is about the sad life of a former high-school sports star – except that in this case Rabbit is much more responsible for his own downfall than Seymour is. His decisions are misguided, his life is miserable and it’s his fault, he makes people suffer, only he can believe (and I’m not even sure he does) the absolute innocence that he professes at the funeral, and yet I really really wanted him to sort himself out. I don’t think it was just because he had once been a good basketball player.

And I just love the fact that he doesn’t just metaphorically try to run away from his problems, he literally runs...

Todo Modo – Leonardo Sciascia

Leonardo Sciascia is a great author who, I am afraid, will soon run the risk of being forgotten (hopefully this is just because there is nothing further away from us than the recent past, but I’m afraid it is because we no longer care about novels on the social and political changes of the country in the mid-20^th century – or is it even more worryingly that we don’t care about novels full stop?). If people are too lazy to read his books, they should at least watch the movie inspired by this book, directed by Francesco Rosi (who stood to cinema like Sciascia stood to literature), with probably the most famous Italian actor (Marcello Mastroianni, that Marcello), and with my personal favourite (Gian Maria Volonté).

This book criticized the Vatican at a time in which it was actually bold to do so, before the Catholic Church started running the risk of closing down and the Western world became increasingly secularized, a period in which popes were dying in rather mysterious circumstances and the sketchy Cardinal Marcinkus  was disposing of money (and probably people) with impressively suspicious nonchalance. The tension throughout the book is palpable, and it is alienating in a way that very few books of a hundred pages are.

I’d like to think that my generation fell in love with Dan Brown only because they weren’t exposed to Sciascia.

American Pastoral – Philip Roth

Another book that I’ve read as a modern-day hermit with no internet and TV (and a really old phone) in Bolivia this Christmas. I have already mentioned my weird love for American suburbia, and for Jewish North American writers. To this, we should add that Seymour Levov was the ultimate jock in high-school, something which I would have loved to be myself (and probably could have been) if only Italian high-schools had any focus on sports.

There is an annoying number of books about the downfall of the American dream, about the secret lives of perfect American families, and about the sadness of those who have always been portrayed as the epitome of happiness (all things that very often come to light, incidentally, during depressing high-school reunions). At the end of the day, this book is just about that – but it’s so much better than all the countless similar novels.