Youth – J.M. Coetzee

50p. Local farm bookshelves. All that.

Now, I would buy pretty much anything written by Coetzee (and pretty much anything that sells for 50p for that matter) so I couldn’t resist the temptation to buy Youth, but, objectively, this is just a very well-written story of (what was then a) fairly average young man trying to find his way in big and scary London. Sure, Coetzee writes impeccably, and the sections of the story set in the IT company at the outskirts of London have got the traits of a bizarre coming-of-age story (his nerdy  colleague who can’t feed himself is probably the best part here), but that’s about it.

All in all, its literary weight is probably inferior to that of Orwell’s Keep the Aspidistra Flying (which I found just about bearable a few months ago), but since I love Coetzee and I don’t really love Orwell, I’ll try to not say this too loudly…

Vino e Pane – Ignazio Silone

One of the books that I got from my grandparents’ shelves (my granddad – despite oddly still remembering most of the first book of the Iliad by heart – is, well, rather “forgetful” these days, and a couple of years ago my grandma has made the rather commendable decision to only read newspapers).

Vino e Pane is a good book about Fascism and its impact on small secluded Italian hamlets. It’s also a book about Catholic piety and communist resistance (I favour one of the two, you can guess which one…) that is probably at its best when the two intertwine, like in the figure of the old Don Benedetto.

While the success that the book has enjoyed, in particular outside of Italy, is perfectly understandable, the quality of this work doesn’t match that of Silone's Fontamara or, for someone who has spent years reading books about Fascist Italy, of most of the works of Fenoglio, Vittorini, Malaparte, Levi, Revelli… So while I’m glad I’ve read it, Vino e Pane doesn’t really crack the top-10 of my favourite novels about the Italian resistance.  

A Heart so White – Javier Marías

For once a book that I bought at full price! Scary, I know – but Javier Marías was coming to give a lecture at the LSE and I really needed to give him something to sign (being the first in line for an autograph after the lecture, he actually even wrote a line about the book and its secrets on my copy – yay!).

Much like Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me, A Heart so White is clearly written by a literally genius. And as it was also clear during the lecture, this is a genius who knows he is a genius, and makes no attempt to even pretend to hide it (which is actually fair enough, although Paul Preston – the greatest historian of modern Spain – did put up a really good fight with Marías when he disagreed with him from the podium).

Dare I say, I actually loved A Heart so White, despite the smugness of both his author and of a number of his characters, and although I hope that Marías doesn’t treat women in the same way as his characters do. And the secrets of the book, the twist of Juan’s father’s past, and for once even the philosophical reflections in the final chapter are respectively intriguing and, for once, surprising and deep (and I am saying “for once” because I am usually not surprised by big surprises, and tend to find pseudo-philosophical conclusions to be borderline unreadable). 

The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

Yet another book from the local farm – having read and really enjoyed The Almost Moon I had absolutely no doubts about buying The Lovely Bones, in particular considering it was a not-so-exorbitant 50p…

This is overall a very enjoyable read, though predictably at times fairly heart-breaking for a young father. When its magic tones are kept (relatively) in check it is really rather endearing – after all it reads like the daydream of a teenager who wishes she could be invisible in order to see how others behave without her. And the description of heaven is, for want of a better term, really “cute”.

The problem, for me, is when the aforementioned magic tones unleash their full power – I saw no need for Susie to come back to earth thanks to Ruth’s “gift”. Or maybe I’m just too much of a manly man: cause I don’t care about Susie being re-united in one way or another with Ray (I actually would have preferred for that not to happen) and I am kind of bothered by this mellow and romantic  scene, but man do I love seeing Shoeless Joe Jackson and his teammates come out of the corn in Field of Dreams…