Freedom – Jonathan Franzen

One of those books that have been with me for quite some time – to be precise since June 2011, when a student living in my dorm left it behind.

Much like with The Corrections, Franzen does life in Minnesota (in particular the life of frantic women in Minnesota) oh so very well. The problem for me, however, is that I somewhat feel like he doesn’t do life in NY for a cool musician or life in DC for an environmentalist nearly as well.

The chapters authored by Patty are wonderful, the others slightly less so. But going back to Minnesota, the clash between most of the locals and the Berglunds reminded me of the Brexit debates that we are seeing pretty much all over England right now (except in London, because, you know, people kind of like us continentals over here!).

Maybe I wouldn’t have enjoyed reading about Patty so much had she not been a basketball player, but the hypothermia trick is pure genius and is something that I should definitely try out if I ever screw up quite badly with my adored wife. 

The Zone of Interest – Martin Amis

One of those extremely rare books that I borrowed from a library (actually two libraries, since I read half of it in its Italian translation in Bra – yes, my hometown has a funny name! – and half of it in its original version in London). I had somehow managed to avoid reading anything by both Kingsley and Martin Amis, but my mom told me I absolutely had to read The Zone of Interest, and for once I did as I was told straight away.

The Zone of Interest is hugely moving, despite the fact that a number of its characters occasionally read a bit too much like allegories of the German population of the time. Needless to say, of the three main narrators, the Jewish Szmul is the one who often provides the most interesting insight into the (fictionalized) life of the camp. Somehow, though, I have the feeling that the epilogue is a bit unnecessary (much like I felt no need for the final chapters of Group Portrait with Lady or the last book of The Tin Drum) and I feel like the novel would have had a more long-lasting impact on me without its final pages.

The book also made me think about artists telling the stories of people that are not their own. In particular I thought about the comments made by Spike Lee on Tarantino’s Django Unchained. To me, as long as you have class and tact (like Martin Amis in this case), you can tell anyone’s story – sadly two things that were lacking from Spike Lee’s Miracle at Sant’Anna.  

In the Country of Last Things – Paul Auster

I don’t even know how I got this book. A fairly typical Auster novel. And the issue with fairly typical Auster novels is that, well, they are a bit too typical. And when they’re not works of art (to me Sunset Park still tops the list, together with the slightly more atypical Mr Vertigo) they’re just more of the same. And when you have read a lot of them, well, you get the idea.

The entire book/letter reads like an extended introspective anecdote from one of Auster’s bigger novels, and while there is nothing wrong with that in itself, it just doesn’t excite me anymore.

Ah, and I think that McCarthy does American dystopia so much better (although the preparations for the final uncertain trip remind me of the tension of the final scene of The Birds). 

The Closed Circle – Jonathan Coe

And for once a book that my aunt gave me in 2001 and that it took me 15 years to read.

And for once a book by Jonathan Coe that I liked, but not so much.

Probably the events described by Coe were just too recent to be observed with his normally hilarious humour, but I found The Closed Circle to be a bit too sad and bleak. Also, too much of the action takes place in London (it’s just more interesting when Coe talks about the Midlands). And lastly, even though the book has a number of Coe’s customarily dramatic plot-twists, these are just a bid bland (if not stale) if compared to the ones of The Rotters’ Club and What a Carve Up!

The Closed Circle is ultimately an interesting portrayal of Britain’s recent history and the problems of Blair’s (and the former director of my school’s!) Third Way, but it’s just not Coe at his best (or maybe the 70s were a lot more fun than the 90s, or maybe 18-year olds are a lot more fun than 40-year olds, or all of the above!)

Julian – Gore Vidal

It’s not like I haven’t read a book in three weeks (I wouldn’t dare!), I just didn’t update the blog because we had an action-packed few days in Italy collecting second-hand baby stuff and taking my wife’s growing belly on tour for one last time.

Julian is a book that my mom gave me some 15 years ago and that, like all good sons, I kindly ignored for as long as I could (that is until I realized that having loved Memoirs of Hadrian so much I would have at least “liked” Julian). And, much to everyone’s surprise, I did like it.

Despite the fact that the reader can perceive Gore Vidal’s massive ego even through pages that are meant to have been written almost 2000 years ago, the book has a number of things going for it: the triple narrator makes it more dynamic than Memoirs of Hadrian, the frequent digs at early Christianity are just so much more fun than the ones at contemporary Christianity (seriously, too easy and boring!), and the historical descriptions and not-so-obvious-yet-obvious facts (like that one at that point could become Roman emperor without ever having been to Rome) make it a very interesting read.

Yet, I like a time when man was at the centre of things, between the disappearance of the gods and the appearance of God, better than a time after the appearance of God during which the gods tried to regain their lost territory. So, ultimately, Julian is no match for Hadrian, at least for me. 

Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murakami

The first book from my office’s book club that I actually bother writing about. And why is that? Because over the years I’ve heard a few people too many talking about Murakami as if he was a writing god.

With every passing chapter of Norwegian Wood I kept on thinking about Irwin (from Alan Bennet’s The History Boys) handing essays back to his students: “Dull. Dull. Abysmally dull. A triumph… the dullest of the lot… I didn’t say it was wrong. I said it was dull. Its sheer competence was staggering. Interest nil. Oddity nil. Singularity nowhere.”

Seriously, despite a very impressive suicides/pages ratio, the book’s most noticeable characteristic is the author’s ability to express feelings, impressions, and thoughts with the vacuity (not to mention limited vocabulary, since at least in my translation everyone is “special” and has complex “issues”) of a teenager.

I’m also not quite sure why pretty much every cultural reference (with the exceptions of a few books, and one song) is actually linked to the Western world. Has Japan not produced a single musician or actor of note, does Murakami hate Japanese culture, or was he desperately trying to appeal to Western audiences? I can rule out the first option, not sure about the other two.

And for all the respect that the main character shows for the complex “issues” of the women he sleeps with, can I point out that the way in which he uses his roommate’s autistic traits as a conversation starter is just not funny?

But maybe Murakami is a genius (and if the book is even remotely autobiographical I’m impressed by the ease with which he used to get laid as a teenager!) and I’m hating on the book only because I’ve always liked The Rolling Stones so much better than the Beatles…