Death in Her Hands - Ottessa Moshfegh

This is another book by Moshfegh that I've recently read. And this one I've actually liked, at the very least for the most part. 

At times it read a bit like Olive Kitteridge minus the humour, at times like The Lovely Bones with a smaller touch of paranormal. In general, it was compelling if not gripping. 

The novel is a nice exploration of solitude and ageing, but also of some people's innate yearning for adventure and thrills. Yet, by the end of it, the unreliability of the narrator made the novel unravel a bit too much for my (complete) liking. 

Flesh and Blood - Michael Cunningham

I read this book because I couldn't get my hands on Cunningham's latest novel. 

Surprisingly, it didn't make me think of the other Cunningham novel that I had read, but rather of a relatively unsuccessful Eugenides or Franzen book. I do realize that very often Cunningham looks at his characters' family background in order to explore the lives and actions of the younger generations, but this attempt felt particularly botched. 

The most problematic character of all for me was Constantine, whose gradually revealed flaws seem to be sprinkled throughout the book without much planning. All in all, this to me looks like a book that would have loved to be a great American novel but falls considerably short. 

Squeeze Play - Paul Benjamin

A novel that I read only because I was curious to read something by Paul Auster when he was writing under his pen name. After all, I loved Smoke and in it William Hurt's character is Paul Benjamin. On top of that, with time I have grown to like Auster's obsession with baseball. 

I had pretty low expectations of this book, and I'm pleased to see those low expectations were met. A quick enough read. An easy enough read. 

Nothing much beyond that. As far as noirs are concerned, this feels a bit out sync with the canon because it was published in the 1980s, but it's probably of a quality similar to that of hundreds of other novels of the same genres that have been forgotten with time (and if this one is still published somewhere, it's only because Paul Benjamin was Paul Auster). 

La Quarta Versione di Giuda - Dario Ferrari

Despite being utterly fed up with detective stories, I gave this book a try because I liked La Ricreazione E' Finita so much. 

And I have to admit that Ferrari somehow managed to make me enjoy a book that is both about a murder (well, two by the end of it) and religion (there are few things I dislike as much as literary Catholic-bashing, despite being really, really, really far from being a fan of the Catholic Church). 

Perhaps it's his multiple mentions of Sciascia, or perhaps it's the fact that Ferrari's defence of the poor and oppressed doesn't feel tokenistic, but for once I am honestly glad I read an Italian crime novel (despite the fact that the citations from Borges left me rather unmoved). 

The Man in the Red Coat - Julian Barnes

Ok. This one is on me. The other week - short of ideas - I picked the first Julian Barnes book that was available in my Italian e-library. 

I read it was about the life of a doctor (Pozzi) whose portrait had been painted by Sargent and I mistakenly assumed this would be a work of fiction along the lines of Flaubert's Parrot. 

Instead it was a couple of hundred pages of pedantically detailed accounts of the lives of Pozzi, his family, and his circle of posh friends. Even the occasional humorous remarks by Barnes didn't hit the mark with me as I read this book while on auto-pilot, having lost all interest in it after a dozen pages. 

Reminder: maybe don't read reviews beforehand, but at least read a book's synopsis next time...

McGlue - Ottessa Moshfegh

The other day I thought of the student who many years ago gave me My Year of Rest and Relaxation and decided to read the other Moshfegh books I could get my hands on. Obviously, I couldn't find them in my London libraries, so I had to read them in translation (and in doing so I discovered that Moshfegh's translator is a lady I had met years ago at a literary festival). 

McGlue ended up being easily my least favourite novel. Despite being short (it can actually be labelled a novella) it took me a while to finish it, in part because of the rambling nature of the prose (I had as much interest in this fictional alcoholic ramblings as I have in the real ramblings of the local alcoholics on the Thames Path), in part because I really had no interest in discovering whether McGlue killed his friend or not (the exploration of their relationship came in way too late for me to actually care about the murdered). 

And ultimately - sadly - it really didn't matter to me whether McGlue would spend his life in a cell or get executed. Partly, perhaps, because it doesn't matter to him (and that makes the novel a hard sell, at least for me). 

The Wind Knows My Name - Isabel Allende

What's cooler than being cool? Ice cold!

And what's cheaper than trying to write something supposedly moving by brining in children? Adding the Holocaust!

I have long stopped enjoying Isabel Allende novels (actually, I think I only ever really enjoyed Paula), yet I keep on reading them because the Southwark library is so desperately under-stocked. 

And I also read them because they are easy. Yet, this novel is not just the standard "easy" and "sentimental" Allende novel, it's also - as mentioned above - really rather cheap. I hope it's not actually the case, but to me it read as if she was exploiting the suffering of fictional (yet fully believable) children across centuries to sell a few copies and make a few readers feel like they've read something deep about the tragedies of contemporary society. 

Elizabeth Finch - Julian Barnes

In a desperate effort to read recent books, I borrow the latest novel by Julian Barnes. 

At first I thought it was a notion-filled hodgepodge of notes that Barnes had lying around and decided to put together in a book (similar to how I felt about Paul Auster's Baugmartner). 

By the end I actually found it a pathetic novel, somehow obsessed with the legacy of Julian the Apostate yet not even coming remotely close to the level of Gore Vidal's Julian (which - despite a literary review spanning centuries and including pretty much anyone who ever thought of Julian - is briefly hinted at and then completely overlooked). 

On the plus side, I finished it in a day (though it's a day-worth of reading that I won't get back). 

The Narrow Road to the Deep North - Richard Flanagan

A book that one of my favourite students got for me (and damn, I like that so much more than a bottle of wine!) as he came to visit me on his way to Antarctica. 

I suspect the construction of the Burma Railway is something that most Australians are at least reasonably familiar with, but for an Italian it remains something shrouded in a bit of mystery and something I really didn't know much about beyond what The Bridge on the River Kwai left me with (and to think that I'm a historian!). 

Perhaps unusually, I feel that the parts of it that will stay with me the longest will not be the ones set in Burma, but rather the final chapters covering the lives of the survivors and the lasting impact of the war. I can’t quite figure out why (perhaps because war and its atrocities are way more often covered in works of fiction than the long-term personal implications of conflict?), but it’s quite similar to how I felt about watching The Best Years of Our Lives (which I was mind-blown by).

Yet, despite liking the book and having finished it months ago, it is still resting on my bedside table - proof of the fact that perhaps I should consider getting a bigger bookshelf, as I can't quite figure out what book to remove to make space for this one. 

Castelli di Rabbia - Alessandro Baricco

 

Baricco is an author that I find fairly constantly good, rarely outstanding, and sometimes just overambitious. Castelli di Rabbia is one of those books that make me err towards overambitious (and possibly, dare I say it, overrated). 

An Italian attempt at magical realism involving - among other things - trains doesn't exactly attract me. If One Hundred Years of Solitude has lost its charm for me, it's not like a more contemporary attempt at creating a similar mystique will make me like a book. 

And while some of the anecdotes and subplots might be a pleasant enough read, the most they achieved was making me want to look into the actual history of some of those events (like the construction of the Crystal Palace in London) a bit more in depth, but very little more. 

Something to Tell You - Hanif Kureishi

 

Like most of Kureishi's books, this was a pleasant read, in particular as it felt like an indirect reflection on his pretty unique life and relationships. 

Yet, the autobiographical and self-referential tones are also one of the book's main weaknesses, as I read it shortly after reading his short-story collection Midnight All Day, which already contained a number of the stories and plotlines developed in this book. 

All in all, though, this was one of the best recent works by Kureishi that I read as it gave me a sense of peace for characters - and authors - finally being at peace with themselves and with their own idiosyncrasies. 

L'Eta' Fragile - Donatella Di Pierantonio

 

One of my customary attempts to read books shortlisted for Italy's most famous literary award. 

And one of my customary underwhelmed reactions. Obviously, we need to talk about women and the challenges they face, and how often they can mirror the trauma experienced by previous generations, but I really did struggle with the eternal bleakness of this book. 

This is a novel in which (some) women show resilience and independence, and (some) women protect other women, whereas the few men who appear are at best menacing and behind the times and, at worst, openly dangerous. Luckily there is also one stereotypical knight in shining armour who will allow one of the characters to have a moment of peace before, rather predictably, disappearing from the scene and from her life (while still maintaining a Darth Vader-esque presence in the air). Needless to say, I found that the characterization of men (and women too!) in this book left a lot to be desired. 

Fiore di Roccia - Ilaria Tuti

 

One of the recent Italian books that my mom said I could "maybe" look at. 

On the one hand, this is surely a commendable effort, in particular because of its depiction of some key contributors (the women who carried supplies up to the front) to the Italian war effort during World War I. From that point of view, it reminded me of the similarly commendable Italiana by Catozzella. 

Beyond that, though, I struggled with the heroic tones of the novel (I suspect to a large extent used to mimic the rhetoric of the time) and the sentimentality of it (despite the fact that some reviewer praised the author for supposedly not giving in to sentimentality?) is something that really has no appeal for me. 

The Pilgrimage - Paulo Coelho

OK, I've only read this book because I intend to walk the Camino de Santiago this summer, and I felt like I needed to read the book that made it ever so popular among many (already outdated) new age Italian readers in the 1990s. 

I was expecting it to be bad, but damn, not this bad!

In my mind, it would offer at least some sort of inspiration (and valuable information) for someone wanting to walk the Camino, but I found more useful information in random blog posts by improbable pilgrims. 

And the search for spirituality really grows old and uninspiring from the book's jacket onwards. 

If anything, this book could have put me off from my summer walking plans, but hey, tickets are booked already...

Anna - Niccolò Ammaniti

 

Every now and again, Ammaniti writes a good book. Most of the times though, as my high-school teachers would say, his remains a story of "unfulfilled potential". A promising start with some fairly pleasant pulp novels, flirting with very-good literature with Ti Prendo e Ti Porto Via, actual (inter)national recognition with Io Non Ho Paura and the subsequent movie (a blessing and a curse) and then so many "meh" books. 

Anna is, at the very best, another "meh" book. The dystopian race to the sea and the search for what's "on the other side" is old and stale. This is not The Road, but not even the Italian L'Uomo Verticale. This is actually just a cheap shot, trying to sell a few more copies by looking at children and their resourcefulness (and savagery) when adults are not around (and since we're at it, this book isn't Lord of the Flies either, needless to say...). 

The only redeeming feature of the book is that, at the very least, it was written before the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning that at least the mysterious virus that kills all adults but spares children can be credited with some originality. 

The Little Friend - Donna Tartt

 

It took me about a month to read this book. In part because of its fairly imposing size, but mostly because the book is full of snakes. Literally to the brim. And if my phobic self had realized that before the start, I wouldn't have even started this novel...

Yet, I enjoyed it more than The Goldfinch. It's a bit of a 21st century Stand By Me with a hint of To Kill a Mockingbird, detailing the stories that children tell themselves to explain events around them, the risks that they obliviously run and their first experiences of love or something resembling that. 

Needless to say, though, it's not exactly the kind of novel that makes me want to visit rural Mississippi anytime soon, and not just (though mostly) because of the snakes. 

Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto

 

This is a book that I remember buying with my dad as a Christmas gift for my mom when I was a little kid. Back then, Banana Yoshimoto was becoming a literary sensation in Italy, then I forgot about her existence until a friend mentioned her a couple of weeks ago. 

Kitchen has largely stood the test of time, in particular as a result of the frank way in which it talks about loss, and the presence of the transgender Eriko Tanabe and the people who gravitate around her world. 

In many instances I was even willing to "forgive" the book's sentimental passages, but I really didn't feel the need for the ending with its melodramatic night taxi ride to deliver a portion of katsudon. 

Anxious People - Frederik Backman

 

This is the second Scandinavian humorous novel revolving around suicide and loneliness that I've read. 

I'm willing to believe that the theme can be given a humorous twist, but I'm not willing to concede that this particular novel is funny (or maybe I just don't get Scandinavian pseudo-dark humour), or deep (it is the sort of novel that might satisfy an urge for people who want to feel that "life is beautiful after all" and watch the Netflix series afterwards). 

Even in this case, the long series of very short chapters might work for the busy people who read a book in 5-minute instalments while sipping on a flat-white, but not for snobs who consider themselves semi-serious readers (like me...). 

Also, my mom doesn't quite hit all her book recommendations. In particular when she starts them with "I haven't read it, but the critics are saying...". Don't trust the critics!

Questa Non E' Una Canzone d'Amore - Alessandro Robecchi

 

I have a brilliant idea: why doesn't someone write a crime novel? Maybe with a caustically ironic main character, throwing in a bit of police incompetence, with a hint of political subterfuge to add to the mix. 

Yes, what a novel idea. Which is exactly what Robecchi must have thought (and, sadly, exactly what editors and readers alike have thought, given the number of sequels that this book has spurred). 

The author appears to be in love with himself, his own sense of humour, and his imaginative metaphors. Much like most authors of books entirely made up of 4-page chapters. Too bad I don't even begin to consider them remotely and/or potentially serious or respectable. 

Baugmartner - Paul Auster

 

And thus one of my favourite authors got a book published just by virtue of being Paul Auster. 

This book has no redeeming features. It is a series of short(ish) chapters in the life of the titular character as he grows old. A lot of them look like they were put together haphazardly, and Auster most likely recycled bits and pieces of some of his previous unpublished work to put together the underwhelming story of an ageing academic. 

Auster can only be forgiven because of the tough times he's going through, but I doubt an up-and-coming writer would have been able to publish a book of this (low) calibre. 

Scheletri - Zerocalcare

 

I've read a few books by Zerocalcare, but somehow never wrote about them here (stigma against comic books, even for someone who has read a lot of them?). 

Of all the ones that I've read, this was probably the one I found most interesting (not necessarily the best, but the most interesting). It does have - as usual - its fair share of deep moments (in particular reflections in terms of what we know and what we do not know about the people around us) and light-hearted ones. 

More than anything, though, I would have liked to see something more of Secco and understand better why he is at times critical of Zerocalcare and his success (and, implicitly, his inability to deal with children, like most childless 30-something men). 

Killing Commendatore - Haruki Murakami

 

I'm not about to become a Murakami fan. Not even close. But with a dwindling supply of readable books from the Southwark e-library I found myself picking this 700-page novel that at times seems to struggle to find its own purpose. 

Yet, for a good 500 pages, I found this to be my favourite Murakami book so far (which, admittedly, is not saying much). Then it really jumped the shark, or - literally - it went down a delirious imaginary (rabbit?) hole for 150 pages before a couple of final chapters that try to provide a semi-coherent end to this story. 

Not really a great read, but to be completely frank my expectations were so low that for large sections it managed to exceed them. 

Murder Before Evensong - Richard Coles

 

Well, I guess that if I must read a run-of-the-mill crime novel every now and again (and whether I like it or not, every now and again I do have to do that...), I might as well read something by an author that I find to be at least an interesting person.

Murder Before Evensong is a well-mannered novel by someone who comes across as a well-mannered clergyman and decades ago came across as a well-mannered pop musician. It's not going to rock anyone's world, but at the very least it did not upset me as much as John Banville's crime stories mixing rural life, religion and aristocracy. 

Also, obviously, being Richard Coles, his treatment of marginalized groups (being them queer or gypsies) is really rather delicate. And the novel has enough references to pop culture to be palatable for me.