Mr Mani – Abraham B. Yehoshua

Probably my favourite Israeli book. It is an epic Jewish family history, but one with a twist. Most family histories are either told in straight chronological order or as a prolonged flash-back, this book looks at the stories of five generations of Mr Mani by taking a step backwards every time and talking about the life of the father of the previous Mr Mani. The book is also Yehoshua’s most innovative work from a stylistic point of view: the five chapters are five dialogues, but the words of one of the two interlocutors are always omitted by the author.

The book is a priceless portrayal of the development of Israeli society and of Hebraism in general. It talks about persecution and the path to a Jewish nation, but also about the Arab-Israeli conflict. And somewhat I’ve managed to forget what is the big secret revealed towards the end of the book, and this upsets me so very badly...

Il Barone Rampante – Italo Calvino

Easily my favourite book from Calvino’s Ancestors trilogy, and not just because a group of artists from my hometown decided to give Cosimo the burial he deserved, and placed a tombstone on a tree in the woods (they did the same for many other fictional characters whose burial places are not known – Anna Karenina, Obi Wan Kenobi, Roy Batty…).

The story is clearly implausible, but not completely absurd: after all every kid at some point wanted to just leave his/her family and go live on a tree (except that every kid would then decide to come back down within 15 minutes and not end up spending the rest of his/her life up there). The book is sweeter than the other ones of the trilogy, probably because Cosimo is actually a character to whom the reader can relate, unlike Medardo and Agilulfo.

Being confined by his desire to only live on trees without ever again touching the ground, Cosimo actually manages to win the hearts of Napoleon and the Tsar, of Rousseau and the people of his village, and, ultimately, also of the readers. 

La Luna e i Falò – Cesare Pavese

Another book about the hills of southern Piedmont during the Fascist period (who would have seen that coming?!?), but one that doesn’t feel about “my” hills in the same ways as Fenoglio’s books do. And Anguilla (the main character) pales in comparison to Fenoglio’s Johnny, Milton, or Agostino.

Pavese is probably more famous both in Italy and world-wide, but his intellectual detachment from the tumultuous political climate of inter-war Italy is something that has always bothered me (true, he was arrested and condemned to internal exile because of his involvement with the people of Giustizia e Libertà, but he wasn’t really politically active and, according to his high-school teacher and mentor Mario Monti, that involvement was one of the things that led to his suicide).

In addition, at least for me, Anguilla excessively idealizes his native village (but that may be because, like him, I left mine, but, unlike him, I don’t really have a burning desire to go back there anytime soon).