Summertime - J.M. Coetzee

  

I was in need of a wonderful Coetzee book after the disappointment of the two "Jesus" books, and I got exactly what I needed thanks to the (limited) offer of the Southwark e-library. 

I don't think there is anything wrong with a bit of self-celebration, in particular for an author as famously reclusive as Coetzee, and the idea of telling a fictionalized story of his own life through the eyes of people he interacted with is just great. 

What's a bit more (well, more than a bit) on the bizarre/morbid side of things is that in the novel John Coetzee is supposed to have died, and that's the reason why the story of his life is being put together with the help of other people and extracts from his writings. But hey, possibly a bit creepy to be writing while thinking about yourself as dead, but it seems to have worked for him!

Fury - Salman Rushdie

  

Another one of those books that I don't remember well (just a few weeks after having read it) and that have left me more with a vague feeling than with any specific recollections. This can't be a good sign, either for the book or for my growing forgetfulness...

Out of the few images that I can recall are the terrifying picture of a father looking at his wife and child sleeping with a knife in his hand, the creation of a doll called Little Brain (that I kept on mis-reading as Little Britain, probably another not-so-good sign), and a series of more and more problematic intercontinental phone calls. 

I actually don't even remember whether the main character ends up returning home or not, which again can't be a good thing. And I've by now decided that it's a problem with the book, and not with my memory.

The Porcupine - Julian Barnes

  

More enjoyable than Flaubert's Parrot, less enjoyable than most other books by Julian Barnes; for me, at the very least. 

This is another book with which there's nothing wrong: it's well-written, it's interesting (if not excessively original) and it's an easy (though perhaps verging too closely towards the effortless) read. 

But there are plenty of other books dealing with the Soviet bloc and its systems, often written by authors who were on the other side of the Iron Courtain for long parts of the Cold War, a I generally like them better (except for Kundera's novels, but I've already professed my dislike for him).

The Singularities - John Banville

  

I've only read a couple of Banville's books, and I think that to make the most of this novel one ought to be much more familiar with the author's body of work (with apologies to Alex Clark of The Guardian who claims that neophytes will enjoy the book just as much). 

I did catch the allusions to Shroud, and those pages made my interest peak, but besides that I struggled with a book where beautiful prose is omnipresent but action is ultimately lacking (particularly surprising considering the criminal past of the first character to enter the novel). 

And I was also left wondering if having a novel ending without answering (m)any of its open-handed questions is a deliberate choice or a sign of an author not at his absolute best (though, to be fair, Banville has set the bar quite high for himself!).

Three Floors Up - Eshkol Nevo

  

Three Floors Up was the first book by Eshkol Nevo that I read. Without my mum's insistence, I wouldn't have given him a second chance because I didn't particularly enjoy this novel. 

At a superficial read, I considered it the equivalent of a sub-par Yehoshua book. At a deeper read, with its links to Freudian psychoanalysis, I found it pretentious and excessively symbolic and allegorical. 

Of the three floors, the only one I'd honestly try to peek into would be the first, with the over-protective father determined to find out the truth about what happened to his sister despite the risk of ruining everyone's lives; the second floor left me uninterested, and the third one actually kind of annoyed me with the judge appearing as a self-styled deus ex machina of the Israeli street protests.

Almarina - Valeria Parrella

  

Yet another book that I picked out of the long list of recent Premio Strega finalists. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it: it's quite well-written, it's current, it touches upon obviously important themes. And it's not engaging. 

I perhaps thought so little of this book because its main character is struggling with her unfulfilled hopes in a way that I find quite trivial, or because her decision to help Almarina get on her feet feels like the superficial action of the most stereotypical do-gooder (in her defense, Parrella does talk about it with more than a hint of criticism). 

At the end of the day, though, this book also highights a huge limitation that I have as a reader: I have to like a novel's main characters if I am to like the novel itself.

Flaubert's Parrot - Julian Barnes

  

Had this been a book about a figure that I find more interesting, my opinion of it would most likely be different. My lack of fascination for Maupassant is ultimately mirrored by my lack of fascination for Flaubert, and this no doubt affected my judgement. 

While it's obviously written with the usual inventiveness typical of Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot didn't leave a lasting impression on me. Though, I have to admit that, reading again its synopsis now, I found his invectives against literary critics (and academic literary critics above all) to be pretty much spot on. 

Possibly my least-favourite Barnes novel, but still most likely better than 94% of the things that get published.

Il Coraggio del Pettirosso - Maurizio Maggiani

  

A book that I had tried to read as a teenager but that I had originally failed to get into. I had another go this summer, and I really enjoyed about half of it, the other half was too allegorical for me. 

The half that I loved was the main character's story in the present time, in a melting pot of anarcho-misfits, with an illegal journey to retrace his Italian roots and a meeting with the poet Giuseppe Ungaretti, the (literal) deep dives in the port of Alexandria, and the erratic research into his past and his identity agains the backdrop of the Six-Day War. 

The half that I didn't like was the dreamlike section drawing parallels with medieval love and persecution, community and ideals. I'm just not built for stuff like that I'm afraid...

The Autograph Man - Zadie Smith

  

This is not White Teeth. This is not even NW. It's a pretty average and innocuous novel, but its distinct lack of ambition made me like it more than On Beauty, and way, way more than Swing Time. 

At times I went so far as to find it endearing as it actually shed a light on a very unique community (like Whitehead's John Henry Days), and I actually do find kind of touching the quests for former celebrities - major or minor - that you see here, or in Auster's The Book of Illusions and also in the movie Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool, which I was one of the seven people in the country to see in the cinema...

A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

  

I don't think this novels would still be in print if it wasn't for its turbulent publication process and the ultimate tragedy of its author's death. 

It's funny, to an extent. But funny by itself doesn't make a book. It makes a vignette. Or a series of vignettes. And at more tha 400 pages you get a lot of vignettes. 

Ignatius is also one of the most predictable misfits you'll ever get. Once the reader has read about him for a couple of pages, s/he knows how he is going to react to anything that the mean streets of New Orleans will throw at him. There's very little general surprise, and as a result, for me at least, there was very little interest.

Parrot and Olivier in America - Peter Carey

  

I thought that Peter Carey could make the life of 19th century French aristocrats interesting to me. I was wrong. In fact, he didn't even make it readable, as the book was an overlong slog. 

The best thing in the novel was the artwork on the cover page, but I doubt that it was down to Carey himself...

Or maybe the best thing in the novel was the fact that I only spent a couple of pounds on it in one of my last Fopp sprees?

Native Son - Richard Wright

  

I do understand, or at least I think I do understand, that so many aspects of this book and of the characterization of Bigger Thomas are problematic. 

Baldwin considered the main character as stereotypical, and that's sadly an undisputable fact. He also wrote about him being unsympathetic. Again, I agree, but could he have been otherwise?

He also wrote about Bigger Thomas as being unrealistic. And here I disagree. I know nothing about the lives of a black youth in Chicago at the time, but I did not doubt the verisimilitude of Bigger's living conditions with his family, his uneasiness being transported into the reality of a wealthy white family, his dubiousness of their intentions, a crime committed out of panic, and the selfish fight to save his own life, arguably the only thing he was ever in possession of. And if someone like me still finds an account like this realistic, there's probably still a lot of work to do.

Caffe' Amaro - Simonetta Agnello Hornby

  

Pathetic. Since Agnello Hornby is considered to be a major Italian author, I figured I had to read something by her at one point or another, but this book was, you guess it, pathetic. 

Set in an overtly romanticized Sicily, at a time when life was better because it was simpler (if you were rich, duh), this love triangle is predictable and vapid. It also reads as the author, and not her characters, is bitter because at the (real or supposed) exploitation of Southern Italy by the North (when her aristocratic family did the exploiting though, things were fine?). 

And, in spite of thanking Christoper Duggan for his historical advice, there are enough historical inaccuracies to rub the reader (or at the very least me!) the wrong way. This is not a 21st century Il Gattopardo. This is a waste of time.

Mother Night - Kurt Vonnegut

  

I have to be honest: I generally wouldn't pick a Vonnegut novel if I had a vast choice. I find his wackiness growing stale over the course of novels with a minimal (or at times a highly convoluted) plot. 

But the plot in Mother Night is actually clear and linear, and the wackiness grows gradually, like in so many books that I love from Jonathan Coe to Zadie Smith, or like in the best Coen brothers movies. And I read this book more or less at the same time as I read The Porcupine by Jonathan Barnes, so I was probably positively inclined towards a book about the Cold War and the legacy of the Second World War. 

In short: I really liked Mother Night, but in spite of that I still won't rush to read my next Vonnegut book.

Ignorance - Milan Kundera

  

A book that I've read on a plane to Portugal. And a book that really should only be read on a plane. 

I feel like Kundera has made a living out of being the author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and even the value of that book seems to be diminishing with every other Kundera novel that I read. I do realize that I'm nobody to comment on the life of people in (self) exile and their problematic relations wit their native countries, but his characters feel remarkably flat and stereotyped. 

If I'm ever in need for a fictional bridge between Eastern Europe and France, even to this day, I'd go with Kieslowski...

The Passenger - Cormac McCarthy

  

McCarthy is 4895 years old (actually 89) and it doesn't show from this book. Either he's still extremely sharp, or he has a heck of a ghost-writer...

The Passenger is a beautiful story that makes the American South fascinating (unlike, well, Faulkner, as per my previous post). Bobby Western is the kind of troubled anti-hero that should be played by McConaughey, just like in Mud. And its pages on nuclear research are rather interesting for a non-scientist (in particular as I had casually read this and Giordano's Tasmania back-to-back). 

Oddly enough, at the time of reading I had also just finished advising a student on an essay about Thalidomide, so seeing Western's sister being pursued by "Thalidomide Kid" was bizarelly alienating.

Companion Piece - Ali Smith

  

Yet another distinctively Ali Smith-esque book, and yet another very pleasant read. 

But that got me wondering: has Ali Smith reached her plateau as "amazing author, but maybe not the best of her generation"? It feels like a pretty good plateau to be completely fair, but the fact that the style, the pace and the prose in her novels is always so easily identifiable after a while to me is suggestive of someone who experiments, but mostly within his/her comfort zone. 

Still, I'll pick up an Ali Smith novel pretty much any time I see one, in particular as she pretty much covers and analyzes contemporary events as they happen, but I'm not going to be looking forward to the next one in the same way I was when I had just started to discover her.

I Diavoli - Guido Maria Brera

  

My dad hit the jackpot by suggesting I read 54. He didn't manage to pull it off twice with this finance thriller. 

Brera gets London wrong, its topography and architecture are just wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. And that upsets me. 

I understand that the finance world is dominated by men, but the female characters in this book are rather pathetic. And it's not like the male ones are that much more developed, otherwise the author wouldn't have to keep on labelling them "the French", "the German", "the Indian" etc. because their nationality is the only thing that differentiates them.

And the number of ideas that he steals (from Bryan Singer to Christopher Nolan) is just infuriating.

Cronache del Mal d'Amore - Elena Ferrante

  

At some point I had to read something by the mysterious Elena Ferrante, and I opted for her oginial trilogy. 

These are three books coated in mystery, lies and journeys of self-discovery. Books that made me feel the brackishness of the water that some of the characters swim into and that initially left me wondering what would happen to the characters after the novels ended. 

Unfortunately, though, they are also books that gave me long-lasting feelings but whose plots weren't memorable. I just had to look them up on Wikipedia again, and this is surely not a good sign.

Gli Interessi in Comune - Vanni Santoni

  

I normally don't even smile at books whose covers promise to make you "laugh out loud". Gli Interessi in Comune didn't make such promises, but it was without a doubt the funniest book I've read in years. 

The title already encapsulates what the book is about; vignettes from a group of friends who share common interests: Magic: the Gathering (because they are nerds after all), loitering at the local bar and, most of all, an almost academic research into all possible drugs - legal or not. 

My wife was surprised to hear me laugh by myself every 5 minutes as I was reading this book, and so was I. Yet, this is not just a funny book, it's surprisingly deep and it offers and insight into the "normal" lives of the characters outside of their psychedelic loops. And much like in Trainspotting, a lot of these druggies turn up alright in the end, though a fair few of them don't. And I still struggle to believe that someone could pull a book like this out of the Tuscan province.

A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan

  

Until a few weeks ago I had never even heard of Jennifer Egan (bad me, she's a Pulitzer winner after all!). Then I met a colleague who is writing a PhD thesis on DeLillo, Auster, Whitehead and... Jennifer Egan, so, given the other three names, I figured I might as well read something by her before talking about literature around the office again. 

It's a pleasant read and a nice series of interwoven short stories, full of (not so) veiled criticism aimed at the music industry and our general society and humorous moments. At the same time, though, I can't quite bring myself to consider "pop-rock" literature as something of particular literary significance, probably because I read (and watched) a fair bit of similar things growing up. 

Entertaining, yes. Thought-provoking, relatively. Pulitzer-worthy, maybe not...

Tasmania - Paolo Giordano

  

I was more than skeptical at the start. I had read Giordano's La Solitudine dei Numeri Primi and found it rather bland, so when I borrowed this (e)book my expectations were rather low, but hey I was proven wrong! 

Tasmania was such an unexpectantly pleasant read that it actually took me a while to fully admit to myself its many qualities: the prose is that of a very talented writer, and the scientific knowledge that of a great disseminator (how good a physicist Giordano actually is, I have no idea). And while the couple dynamics between the narrator and the love of his life at times leave a little to be desired, those between him and his main academic point of reference are absolutely fasciating (and it's great to see Giordano showing how - looking at the same dataset - academics can often come to diametrically opposite conclusion and decide to completely overlook some variables). 

And maybe, after all, we should all just consider moving to Tasmania. Just in case...

L'Uomo Verticale - Davide Longo

 

What a great dystopian novel. I'm increasingly persuaded that Davide Longo is one of the very few Italian writers able to both write well and actually interest me. L'Uomo Verticale shows us a country literally going to the dogs (unlike many other similar novels that seem to start in a setting already looking post-apocalyptic) and the quest for survival of a father and his improbable extended family. 

Or, if you are familiar with McCarthy and The Road: been there, done that. Half of the ideas of this book are more ore less openly borrowed (and/or they are a tribute from Longo to one of his favourite authors), including the relationship between a father and his child and the desperate attempts to get to the sea at all costs. 

A really good read though. Just not an original one after all.

Measuring the World - Daniel Kehlmann

 

Considering what I have just written about Juli Zhe, I had to double-check the nationality of Kehlmann, and decided that I'll consider him Austrian and not German for the sake of my coherence (though I wonder how he feels, considering his upbringing between the two countries?). 

This is a book that was suggested to me by a former basketball teammate of mine, and I read it with fairly low expectations. And my fairly low expectations were ultimately met. Yes, the book is well-written and the stories of Humboldt and Gauss are interesting and fascinating. However, I already knew a bit about them, and I guess that bit was enough. 

Still, I'll probably give it to one of my relatives who often talks about a young Gauss discovering the formula to calculate the sum of consecutive positive integer numbers. 

Crossroads - Jonathan Franzen

  

Hmm...

I feel like I would have liked this book had it not been for the fact that it's all around a religious community. A nice grassroots lay organization with a similar structure and ethos, yes. A religious community, no. 

I'm probably just an awful human being, but hey. 

I would have probably had more time for Russ had he not been a priest, and would have probably found him less boring and petty. Also, had he not worked at a church called First Reformed, I wouldn't have pictured him as a 1970s Ethan Hawke

Gli Ospiti - Marco Magini

  

Marco Magini studied at LSE at the same time as me, though I never met him. It clearly was my mum the one who found out about his existence, his publications, and the fact that he was doing a book presentation at the Italian Cultural Institute in London during one of her visits. 

Of his two books, Gli Ospiti was the one that attracted me the most in principle, but ended up being a fairly average read. The plot is not exactly full of surprises, there are some fairly banal interactions between the main characters, and the whole thing feels (more than) a bit, well, orientalistic. 

Yet, he seems to have the intellectual integrity not to consider himself an actual writer, and in that case, as far as amateur authors are concerned, he is quite clearly among the talented ones who have valuable ideas to share. Also, he seems to admit that nobody really cared about ecology during the Gezi Park protests, which I find quite sad (that's not to say that I like Erdogan! I would have just liked the protesters to genuinely care about both their country and the environment...).

Machines Like Me - Ian McEwan

 

Old-school Ian McEwan beats 2019 Ian McEwan hands down. Next time he writes a sci-fi book, perhaps he could invent a time machine that reminds him of what a good storyteller he was (and most likely can still be). 

This love triangle between two humans and a machine felt as emotionally void as a Tamagotchi's request for affection, which I do realize might have been the whole point, but for me it makes for very uninspiring reading. 

Then again, I was never going to be sold on a book like this, as I can't recollect a single novel with human-like androids/machines/robots that I actually, honestly and thoroughly enjoyed (Never Let Me Go was the one that I appreciated the most, but even there saying that I really liked it would be a bit of a stretch).

Unterleuten - Juli Zhe

 

The joy of having a) a well-stocked e-library, and b) a former student helper with a cultural profile that very few undergraduates can match. I don't think I've ever read a German book besides the canonical 20th century classics, because I liked them, and Young Werther, because why not...

I was surprised by how easy I found it to get into the rhythm of the book, despite what is for me an unusual setting. Possibly, if I knew something more about German literature or the reality of the former DDR I could have found more to criticize, but instead, with my limited knowledge, I found this book to be the equivalent of a good Franzen novel in old Europe, with generational clashes, contemporary issues and historical animosities that are grippling and relatable. 

Olive Ketteridge - Elizabeth Strout

  

Before reading my first book by Elizabeth Strout, every time I looked at the cover page of one of her works I would immediately mentally dismiss it as "most likely well-written chick-lit". Yes, I'm a macho macho man, and like many of us I'm very often wrong. In this case, I terribly, hopelessly, so very deeply wrong...

Strout is not just good, she's great. The way in which her short stories combine to make a touching novel is superb. And the fact that she makes the reader grow fond of an idiosyncratic and in many ways unlikeable character like Olive is impressive. 

And whoever decided to cast Frances McDormand for the TV series is an absolute genius, as she was born to play that role.

Indignation - Philip Roth

 

 

While desperately lacking elsewhere, the Southwark electronic library seems to have quite a few books by Roth, and so it gave me a chance to read some of his minor novels, which - in case hadn't come across from previous reviews - I generally find much, much better than Portnoy's Complaint. 

Indignation as a Jewish campus novel had at times a similar feel to passages of Auster's 4321 (minus the overambitiousness, obviously...) and for that I found it rather enjoyable. 

The problem, however, is that I find its time setting (the 1950s) rather dull and boring. Had it been set against the backdrop of the 1970s and the Vietnam War (instead of the Korean one) I would have probably appreciated it more. And another thing I struggled with was the narrator's declaration (later partially retracted) to be reporting from beyond the grave. That's where I normally suspend my suspension of disbelief, regardless of whether it's a book or a movie, just ask William Holden and his opening monologue in Sunset Boulevard for confirmation.

Come Fossi Solo - Marco Magini

  

Again, as far as amateur authors go, Magini is good. Actually, this book, his first, is arguably much more impressive than Gli Ospiti. 

For once, I liked the characterization of the novel's one real-life character (Dražen Erdemović) better than that of the fictional characters (the judge and the former Dutch soldier with PTSD). The last of the three for me lacked depth and the judge simply reminded me of Spencer Tracy in Judgement at Nuremberg. 

Dražen, on the other hand, stole the show for me. Magini's ability to re-create his life and emotions is remarkable. Most of all, for me it served as a great stimulus to read up on what happened in the aftermath of Srebrenica, and the fact that he was the only one to serve time for the atrocities defies belief.

Here I Am - Jonathan Safran Foer

  

To be honest, had it not been for the fact that this was one of the last few novels by authors that I consider readable that were available at the Southwark e-library, I probably wouldn't have read it. But it was there, and very little else was, so I took it out. 

This is not a work of art, not even close. Yet, it's suitably Jewish, humorous, self-deprecating, deep and reflective of our complex web of social relations that it ends up being pleasant company for a few days. Now, if only I could have managed not to constantly think of the Coen brothers' A Serious Man as I read it...

The Cockroach - Ian McEwan

  

McEwan has it in for Brexit even more than I do by the looks of it. He might not be originally "from the continent", but he does appear to be perplexed and saddened by his country's botched seppuku attempt. And to think that it was written in 2019, which now to me looks like a wonderfully heady period of friendship and stability. 

This is a light read if there ever was one. It's even funny - at times - when it's not trying too hard. I agree with the bottom line (Brexit is nuts, and why would anyone want it), but for a therapeutic laugh I'd always pick a column by Marina Hyde on top of a novella.

Seasonal Quartet - Ali Smith

 

Funnily enough, the Southwark electronic library has a e-copy of the first two books of the series, but I had to go to the actual library (exotic!) to get the hard copies of the last two. 

With hindsight, that was somewhat fitting, as I fell in love with Autumn and Winter, thinking of ways to write to Ali Smith to tell her how impressed I was with her decision to tackle events "in real time", take such a clear stand on so many social issues, and express (yet again) her love for Italy and Italian culture. 

Said love started to subside by Spring, and ultimately Summer left me rather unsatisfied. Much like had happened with Jonathan Coe's Middle England I felt that Smith couldn't quite manage to finish with a "bang" so, to avoid finishing with a "thud", she decided to finish with something that is safe and whose vibe (though - in her defense - not its details) is largely predictable. 

Also, that should teach me about reading four books from the same author in quick succession. I had grown tired of her writing style by the end, and I really wish that hadn't happened.

John Henry Days - Colson Whitehead

  

I find it funny that the Franzen quote on the cover of this book is actually an extract from a review in which he states that "John Henry Days is funny and wise and sumptuously written, but it's only rarely a page turner" (thanks Wikipedia!). I do realize it happens all the time, but still. 

But I actually liked John Henry Days in full and with few reservations: it might not be Whitehead's best book, but it deals with the American folk stories that I liked since seeing Disney's Johnny Appleseed as a child, offers some deep reflections on American society, but also the world of mass media and the ultimate, profound, loneliness of some people. 

Oddly enough, I did consider it a page turner at the end of the day.

La Solitudine dei Numeri Primi - Paolo Giordano

  

It all depends on how one approaches the book, I guess. 

Do you read it as the first work of an aspring young writer? In that case, it's full of promise, does an extremely good job of portraying aspects of the deep sorrows of the teenage years, and it is the kind of effortless read that deserves to be rewarded. 

Do you read it as one of the best books published in Italy? In that case you can't help but feel sorry for the state of Italian literature, wondering how on earth something so raw, with such a poor conclusion, and that focuses on feelings that the author (at 26) might not have experienced/understood can be received with such widespread acclaim.

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning - Alan Sillitoe

  

I read this novel as I had obviously enjoyed Sillitoe's Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, liking its raw prose and its subject matter. 

The problem here is, clearly, that I still liked Sillitoe's raw prose, but the subject matter felt far less stimulating. The athletic exploits of a troubled teenager are much more interesting to me than the love troubles of a working-class young man whose life revolves aroud evenings at the pub. The fact that my already poor relationship with pub culture is now at an all-time low most likely didn't help. 

Still, I was glad to find a reference to bastards grinding you down that predated Margaret Atwood by almost three decades.

Talking It Over - Julian Barnes

  

I don't have much to add to what I wrote about Love, etc. as, after all, they are ultimately one and the same. 

If anything, Talking It Over made me appreciate Love, etc. even more, as the sequel was so well-written that one could read just that as a stand-alone novel without missing out on any of the dynamics between the three main characters and one gets a really good idea of what had happened 10 years before anyway. 

Then again, I'm obviously very happy to have read Talking It Over too, for the obvious reasons, like the fact that Julian Barnes is an incredible writer whose wit always (or at the very least most of the times!) shines through his work.

The Bookshop - Penelope Fitzgerald

  

Well, this book was presented to me as a novel of female empowerment. For me, however, it was mostly about the hopelessness of the idea of setting up and running a bookshop (something that I was already largely aware of, thanks to Dylan Moran and Black Books) and the pettiness of people in a small village (something I had plenty of first-hand knowledge).

On the whole, though, I chiefly found it quite banal, and to the reviewer who, according to Wikipedia, talked about this book as coming out of "the Beryl Bainbridge school of anguished women's fiction" I'd tell that this novel has nothing to do with the best (or even the slightly above average) works of Bainbridge.

Girl, Woman, Other - Bernardine Evaristo

  

I'm definitely glad I've read this book. I most definitely enjoyed it. I also definitely didn't love it. 

I feel that there were many sections in which the theme of intersectionality was pushed in too academic a way. From that point of view, a number of other authors (academic and not strictly speaking so) would have been more appealing to me. 

On the other hand, when the characters are presented and interact in what feels - to me - like a more free-flowing way, then the book turns into the equivalent of a good (if not as humourous) Zadie Smith novel, and I'm definitely more captivated. 

Or at least I think so (a line that at the end of the day should precede every single post on this blog).

Due Vite - Emanuele Trevi

  

Yet another case in which I disagreed deeply with the jury of Italy's biggest literary award. 

I guess nothing but good should be said of dead people, so I won't speculate on the lives and merits of Trevi's departed friends. However, it felt as if this book was more about Trevi himself than a tribute to his lost friends. It's about the deep dissatisfactions of intellectual life and the small circles in which these people move, but at the end of the day it left me with very little besides the echo of the cries of an author who wants the world to validate his importance and that of his friends.

Il Fuoco Amico dei Ricordi - Alessandro Piperno

  

For once an Italian book (actually two, as Persecuzione and Inseparabili are also stand-alone novels) that I truly and unapologetically loved. And also, incredibly, one that I didn't find provincial in comparison to works of similar scope and goals by a number of great American writers. 

The troubles of the Pontecorvos are painfully plausible, the sort of thing that can destroy a family, but also the sort of thing that a group like theirs has the tools to potentially overcome. Except that they don't, and as the situation gets out of control in the first book and a number of issues remain unsolved in the second one, Piperno paints a family picture that reminds the reader of a Mike Leigh movie ("Secrets and lies! We're all in pain! Why can't we share our pain?"). 

A Jewish family saga was always going to be a hit with me, and to think that it took me years between illegally downloading a dodgy PDF of these books, and actually reading it (legally) with my Italian library subscription.

Nelle Mie Vene - Flavio Soriga

  

For once a "cool" (or "relatively cool" at least) Italian author who speaks to me. And actually writes to me, as I once sent him a message to tell him what I though about one of his books, and he replied rather courteously. 

Nelle Mie Vene is a story that feels unfinished, most likely like the story of Soriga and his native Sardinia remains unfinished. Of this book I appreciated its raw poetic prose and the fact that it felt less autobiographical than I was expecting. 

A good read. Not one that will leave a lasting mark on global literature, but a pleasant - and most likely fair - love letter from an author to his land.

Maicolgecson - Paola Soriga

  

This is a cute book about growing up, first loves, and omnipresent families and social obligations. It's a novel about Italy and the 1980s and 1990s. 

So are countless others, and I couldn't help but wonder whether this one was published by Mondadori for the potential of easy sales among casual nostalgic readers, or whether it was because Paola Soriga is Flavio's younger sister. Regardless, this is a book that I'd lazily read at the seaside, but nothing more.

East of Acre Lane - Alex Wheatle

  

Oh what pleasure it is to read Alex Wheatle! Much like with Brixton Rock, I loved the novel already from its title (only difference being that I had liked East of Eden much better than Brighton Rock). 

And again, this is clearly a novel about a good kid in the middle of a (hopelessly?) tricky situation. And Brixton is loud, dangerous, interesting, buzzing and musical. It's also sad to hear Wheatle talk in recent interviews about what the place has (in part) become, though it's people like me that have contributed to its transformation. 

I can think of movies that capture contemporary South London in the way in which Wheatle's books capture that of the 1980s (Attack the Block being the most obvious example), I just hope that with time we'll also find authors - and not just filmmakers - capable of doing the same for 21st century Brixton.

Una Relazione - Stefano Sardo & Valetina Gaia

  

Is baring your life - and the dynamics of a very significant relationship - in a book a brave move or the result of a scarcity of ideas? A sign of self-love or self-loathe? Someting therapeutic or something self-celebrating? Possibly all of the above. 

This is a book that I've read because its authors come from my hometown and I bumped into them a couple of times when I was a teenager and they were in their 30s. Without this very loose personal connection, I most likely wouldn't have picked it up. 

Obviously co-authoring a book is a titanic effort for any writer, but here the limitations are at times clear, with the two authors taking on alternate chapters with different and uneven tones, styles, and not even agreeing on whether to narrate the story in the first or second person, making it hard for the reader to really feel involved in this project.

Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl

  

One of the closest things to a history book that I've read over the last couple of years. Yes, I'm truly an excellent historian...

This book was given to me as a thank-you gift by a student I worked with as he was writing his dissertation (I wouldn't say supervised because I'm not allowed to do that, but man did I read some drafts!). Apparently, it was one of his go-to gifts to friends, and I can understand why. 

Given the subject-matter, this is obviously a very compelling read, though it's clearly written by someone with a sizeabale ego. Then again, if one survives the Holocaust I think s/he is entitled to have whatever kind of ego. 

I've also read plenty of reviews criticizing the author's idea that his attitude contributed to his survival. Yes, I highly doubt that attitude had much to do with survival in a concentration camp and think that many other factors - including pure chance! - had a more significant impact. Then again, if one survives the Holocaust I think s/he is entitled to believe whatever they want as a way to explain coming out of it alive.

Solar - Ian McEwan

  

I much prefer McEwan doing "science" (or thereabouts) like in this book than him doing sci-fi like in Machines Like Me, but that's not saying much. 

Solar wasn't a bad read, but I have the feeling it's already aged quite a bit over the span of a dozen years. The main driving force behind it shouldn't be the personal life of its main character (which is not as interesting as that of a number of his other characters), but rather its scientific approach, which in 2022/3 already feels quite dated. 

And the finale, with the chickens coming home to roost isn't really the most surprising.

Bel-Ami - Guy de Maupassant

  

Nope. Maybe I'm just inoculated against the decadence of late-19th century Paris, but I just didn't enjoy this novel (probably the fact that in my edition the front cover was actually the latest movie rendition of the story, and I found Robert Pattinson unconvincing in the role even in picture). 

The one positive, I guess, is that there are some very well-developed female characters, and they also have a fair bit of agency. Yet, the story of the scoundrel who climbs the social ladder by virtue of tricks and charm is as old as time, and I suspect that was already the case in the 1880s, so there is little to remark (or at least to positively remark) in terms of plot development.

The Untouchable - John Banville

  

Not original. Not just in that the story of Anthony Blunt (or whatever kind of pseudonym he is hidden behind) is relatively well-known, but in that even Alan Bennett had written a fictional portrait of him well before Banville did. 

And yet, for once, I'm thinking: who the hell cares? The story remains fascinating and one of the few things that occasionally make me feel a bit of nostalgia for Cambridge, and Banville is one of the greatest living authors. 

So yeah, I thought this book was great, and thinking that The God of Small Things won the Booker that year makes me cringe a bit.