Off Side – Manuel Vázquez Montalbán

I should have treated Carvalho like I’ve treated a number of other protagonists of crime/mystery series (Montalbano, Maigret, Guerrieri): talk about my favourite book of his, or talk about all of them as one.

I have already mentioned my love for Carvalho in my post on Tatuaje, but Off Side deserves an extra line, because the last pages of Bromuro’s life are some of the most touching ones I’ve ever read.

Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

I read the book after watching Kubrick’s film. I really enjoyed the movie, and I wasn’t really that disturbed by Humbert’s attraction for a 16-year old(ish) Lolita, but hell, in the book she’s twelve!

Many consider this an erotic novel, but it’s actually so much more than that and it upsets me to see it considered as such (supposed masterpieces of world literature like Lady Chatterley’s Lover, on the other hand, can be considered just erotic novels for me). The biggest quality of the book, I believe, is that Humbert (unlike Quilty) is actually likeable. Sure, every reader has to condemn his actions, but I am sure that most wanted him to sort out his issues and live happily ever after with a girl aged 18 or more.

And this may be a silly point, but I think that the fact that in the book Humbert is the only one addressing Dolores as “Lolita” gives the entire novel a slightly different spin.

La Coscienza di Zeno – Italo Svevo

I was expecting worse.

Granted, the book is long and tedious, but I was expecting worse. Sure, I’m no smoker (quite the opposite!), but the chapter on Zeno’s “last cigarettes” is kind of interesting. Other than that, the chapter on his father’s death and the one on Zeno’s wedding left me completely unmoved, but I was expecting worse. The part on his extra-marital affair is fairly useless and ultimately fairly banal, but I was expecting worse. Zeno’s commercial exploits are just quite pathetic, probably like the man himself after all, but I was expecting worse.

His final conclusion (that in a sick world realizing that life is crazy is actually a sign of sanity), on the other hand, couldn’t have been worse. Plenty of supposedly deep movies and books (hell, probably even nursery rhymes!) have passed this trite message without being hailed as absolute masterpieces.

Still, the fact that I was expecting worse (in case you hadn’t realized) maybe means that La Coscienza di Zeno might deserve to be considered one of the all-time greats. Except that probably it doesn’t...