Thus Bad Begins - Javier Marías

 

Marías came to do a talk at LSE shortly after Thus Bad Begins some seven years ago. I didn't feel the desperate urge to buy the book and get it signed at the end (instead opting for A Heart So White) and I'm happy to report that my hunch was correct. 

Perfectly flowing prose can only take you so far when the mysteries and secrets surrounding the characters are not particularly interesting (and the final revelations not excessively surprising). The fact that I read this book right after reading another underwhelming one with a much anticipated suicide at the centre (A Little Life) also didn't help. 

Or maybe I just prefer my own kind of Mediterranean fascists, as I often find Italian books discussing the prolonged influence of our regime on our current society much more interesting. 

The Biographer's Tale - Antonia S. Byatt

 

The grass is always greener on the other side, and the books left behind in the lobby of the next door building are always better than the ones left in our lobby. Luckily, every now and again I go and check what the neighbours' stock is like, and a couple of weeks ago there I found this book. 

Most of the time, Byatt would be quite low on my priority list, but I wanted to read a hard copy book for once and this looked like the most approachable out of the pile I had on my bedside table. 

And what a surprising pleasure this was. Having just gone to a - mediocre - Tate exhibition of the Rossettis I was prepared for a deep-dive into the life stories of 19th century figures that I didn't really like interlinked with contemporary life stories of fictional characters that I didn't find too interesting, much like in Possession. 

Instead, what I got was a deep-dive into the life stories of 19th century figures that I liked, interlinked with contemporary life stories of fictional characters that I found very interesting. And that made me happy. 

Public Library and Other Stories - Ali Smith

 

This book made me realize that, perhaps, I should reduce my consumption of Ali Smith books (something that was bound to happen sooner or later anyway, as I've read most of them by now). 

The wordplay and critical observations that would have blown me away a couple of years ago have now lost their spark. 

And this short story collection to me felt haphazardly put together, while the idea of alternating the stories with short personal recollections of (often nostalgically long gone) libraries was probably one of the least original that Smith ever came up with. 

Still, we agree that libraries should play a crucial role in our society, but - having worked in one for the last six years - I definitely believe we should really revolutionize how we think of the spaces and their purpose. 

La Vita Intima - Niccolò Ammaniti

Ammaniti wrote some good books. A couple of them might even be among the best ones out of the contemporary Italian canon, but this isn't one of them. 

Much of the book is a light and stress-free read that doesn't trouble (but also doesn't give much to think about to) the reader. The end leaps past the banal and edges dangerously close to the brutally uninspired. 

Maria Cristina, the book's main character, is essentially presented as an empty vessel, and over the course of the novel she doesn't really develop as much as the author would perhaps like us to believe. It might be that this is a man writing about what is essentially the archetype of a desperate housewife of the Italian ruling class. Or it might just be that the character is inherently dull and the book is full of trivialities (something that Ammaniti in most of his other books appears to avoid). 

 

The Penelopiad - Margaret Atwood

 

Here Atwood and I are two roads that diverge into the woods. That's because we see Penelope differently: while we agree that being smart and ordinary-looking should be way more than enough to earn universal respect and recognition, I believe that she was given that long before Atwood's novella. 

Or perhaps the way in which I always thought of Penelope is different from the way most people (or at least most men) thought of her through the centuries, which is a distinct possibility. 

Still, looking at this through the prospective of the twelve maids that are supposedly so dear to Atwood might have been a more interesting approach (at least for me). Instead, the maids here are reduced to a - sometimes incongruous - chorus, and I think ultimately even Atwood doesn't do them justice. 

And if I was to retell the Odyssey from a different perspective for the umpteenth time, I'd probably be looking at the events through Argos's eyes. Seriously. 

Italiana - Giuseppe Catozzella

 

I'm an Italian historian who long ago stopped reading academic books on Italian history. 

This isn't an academic book, but rather a (thinly) fictionalized account of the life of Italy's most prominent female brigand around the time of the country's unification. It's commendable in its intent, being pretty much the only novel touching on the topic of brigandage that I can think of (well, there are the Roman passages of The Count of Montecristo, but they probably don't count!). 

Yet, the retelling of a historical tale is both praiseworthy and the most significant weakness of the novel. Despite the unique angle given to the book by the lives of these outlaws, Catozzella is hardly the first person to look at the poverty of the Italian South in the late 19th century, and many others have done it better. 

Happy I read it, but as far as books on outlaws are concerned, The True History of the Kelly Gang is in another league. 

His Illegal Self - Peter Carey

 

This book was OK, which is a pretty sad statement for anything written by Peter Carey, but hey, you can't write something Booker-worthy every time. 

His Illegal Self  has a wild and pyrotechnic beginning, but once the actions shifts to Australia and the secrets of Che's "mom" are uncovered (a bit late to cause significant shockwaves) the book appears to settle, which is bizarre considering that I was expecting Carey to be - quite literally - at home there. 

And the ragtag Australian hippies are on the whole rather boring (or maybe it's just the nature of their anachronistically alternative lifestyle that doesn't attract me anymore?) and quite caricatural, which makes for many dull passages spent discussing the present and future of a former stray cat.  

The Testaments - Margaret Atwood

 

Perhaps I should go back and read The Handmaid's Tale, as I recall liking it, but not as much as its sequel. 

From what I can recall, the former is a book about persecution, and the latter is a book about an escape. Both have tortuous attempts at rebellion at their heart, but the first novel is an agonizing one in which every page adds another layer of cruelty, while the second one is an action-packed page turner. 

In The Testaments Atwood doesn't seem to dwell as much on human cruelty - that was already explored more than enough in The Handmaid's Tale and often a quick hint to something allows even forgetful readers like myself to remember the sensation of oppression left by the first book. 

All in all, The Testaments is most likely the more enjoyable read, but The Handmaid's Tale is the better book. 

Omero, Iliade - Alessandro Baricco

 

The most significant thing about this book was finding an old copy of it in my parents' library, with a message from my mom to my grandfather - one of those wise uneducated people who studied until he was 12 before starting to work in the fields but still had time to learn the first book of the Iliad by heart. 

This book is a truly commendable effort, making Homer accessible to a wider public, retelling the story in prose, and focusing on the human dynamics (so much so that the gods are completely left out as an editorial decision). 

Compared to Christa Wolf, obviously, it pales in terms of literary significance, but in terms of bringing Greek mythology "to the Italian masses" I really think this book is second to none and, because of that, it should be applauded. 

La Verita' Su Tutto - Vanni Santoni

 

I find Santoni to be one of the few beacons of light in the desolate landscape of Italian contemporary literature. He knows how to write, and he does actually have something to write about, while most other celebrated authors appear only able to do one or the other. 

That said, while this book covers a number of topics that other readers might find fascinating, I find most things related to spirituality rather uninteresting (perhaps because I have no spirit in the first place?!?). This unfortunately meant that my reactions to the book were lukewarm. 

In addition, I didn't quite understand the premise (with a journalist interviewing the main character, a device that then gets dropped and picked up apparently at random in a couple of odd places in the book) and was rather surprised to see so many pages dedicated to the initial stages of the main character's "career" and then see her meteoric rise to stardom covered (and explained) oh ever so briefly.  

The Noise of Time - Julian Barnes

 

Of all the "pet topics" that authors have, I find Barnes's interest in the idiosyncrasies of the Soviet system to be particularly compelling. 

Yet, unlike the reviewers of The Observer I didn't find The Noise of Time to be a masterpiece, but merely a good book. While the first few pages, with Shostakovich waiting for his arrest by spending the night next to the lift by his flat, blew me away, the rest of the book felt relatively flat. 

Perhaps Soviet Russia was just not the best setting for Barnes to showcase his brilliant humour?

Blonde Roots - Bernardine Evaristo

 

In all honesty, I wouldn't have read this book had it not been for the fact that the Southwark libraries app grants access to many of Evaristo's books since she won the Booker Prize. 

On the plus side, it made me realize that the "good" but not "one in a generation" kind of authors very rarely invent something from scratch and that, in this case, Colson Whitehead must have borrowed quite a bit from Blonde Roots for his The Underground Railroad (or maybe it's an incredible coincidence that both main characters take an actual underground railroad to try to escape slavery?). 

On the down side, I never really found myself gripped by this book. 

One interesting thing though: despite the frequent reminders that the slaves are white and the slave-owners black, I struggled to picture them as such and my mental image of Doris often switched between that of a white and a black woman. Talk about the power of ingrained perceptions and experience...

Snow - John Banville

 

Running out of readable ebooks on the Southwark libraries app (add some new decent titles, please!) I decided to give Banville's attempt to write a detective story a go. 

And I spent most of my time thinking (and sometimes saying aloud) "John Banville, come on, since when have you become a banal author reverting to all the most obvious plot twists used in airport paperbacks?!?". 

Seriously, rarely a writer has disappointed me as much as Banville did with this book. It had them all: the detective with the troubled love life, the manipulated and mentally unstable black sheep of the family, the abusive Catholic priests (I'm really, really far from being even just remotely a fan of the Catholic Church, but this is one of the three easiest and most annoying tropes around), etc. 

And not a single actual surprising moment through the book. Never. 

Le Perfezioni - Vincenzo Latronico

 

This was one of my frequent attempts to engage with Italian literature by going through the shortlists of the country's biggest literary prizes. 

As usual, I despair for the present and future of (just?) Italian literature. I can  picture authors stopping to re-read a sentence and spending 10 self-congratulatory minutes to remind themselves of how wonderful their prose is, and how imaginative their plot twists are, when in reality they are "meh" at the very, very best. 

But this is a book that I absolutely loved to detest. The main characters are obnoxious, the kind of Italians abroad that I hate with passion, those who leave the country but can't think of learning a new language besides basic rudiments, who are completely unable to break the umbilical chord that links them to the motherland, who anyway will always be able to count upon family wealth as and when needed and who only really have meaningful interactions - no matter where they are - with people born within 500 km of their native village. 

If Latronico's book is an ironic critique of this kind of people, I might read something else by him, but I actually doubt he had any intention of criticizing his characters or their way to see the world. 

Agent Running in the Field - John le Carré

 

A book that I read in part in digital form, and in part as a hard copy at our local library while my younger daughter was busy reading (well, actually just leafing through, she's three!) dozens of Bluey, Spot and - much to my chagrin - Peppa Pig books. 

Le Carré is one of those authors who make me wonder whether one can be both a great writer and have near universal reach. Very few can, and I believe le Carré belongs in that list. 

Sure, the ending of the book feels rushed and underexplored, but we're talking about an author who, at the tender age of 88, was probably feeling the pressure of time more than others (and he might have a point, as he died soon after the publication of this book). 

Apparently Agent Running in the Field has been described by many as le Carré's Brexit novel, which is obviously reductive, but I did love his decision to air out his anger and frustration with that whole bonkers project: while the likes of Ali Smith and Ian McEwan are preaching to the choir when they criticize Brexit, I suspect le Carré's readership covers a much broader socio-political spectrum and so his move was a lot bolder and riskier (though again, at 88 he probably didn't have too much to lose).