Postcards - Annie Proulx

 

A very unique take on epistolary novels (or at least novels with an epistolary element): one whose chapters are introduced by postcards that cannot get a reply because the sender is running away from his past and his crimes without leaving an address. 

I wish the edition of the book that I have didn't include reviews praising it as the new "great American novel" because this really isn't a reflection on American values, poverty and family ties of the caliber of Grapes of Wrath, but it is a really good novel nonetheless. 

Loyal (the main character) is someone the reader gets to know and support - a bit! - throughout the novel despite not forgetting that he committed an atrocious murder right at the start. The rest of the family, however, are not people I could bring myself to find particularly interesting (except perhaps the mother?) as their lives and life stories were a bit too scattered due to the structure of the book. 

The Power and the Glory - Graham Greene

 

Very believable: this is a book by Graham Greene that I greatly ejoyed. 

Significantly less believable: this is a book by Graham Greene that made me appreciate the work of (some members of) the Catholic Church in oppressive times. 

I had read a bit about the Cristero War in Cacucci's books, but The Power and the Glory clearly brought it to life in a much more in-depth way. The book's protagonist is likeable because he's human and interesting because he's weak. The reader both grows fond him and forgives him his (many) lapses and ultimately respects (without always agreeing with) a number of his decisions. 

The semi-uplifting ending though feels a bit too allegorical (and, well, Catholic!) for me though...

Call for the Dead - John le Carré

 

Oh, le Carré...

This is the book that started it all - Smiley, Mundt, and essentially established the standard for spy stories. Yet, it's a book that I hadn't read until I had a very healthy number of le Carré novels under my belt. 

While perhaps not as intricate as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy or as iconic as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, this novel has the great privilege of introducing the readers to George Smiley, and with this they get to know a spy who doesn't look like James Bond, doesn't talk like James Bond, and doesn't use the same kind of gadgets that James Bond uses. And perhaps because of that becomes - in my humble opinion - the spy we would all want to become: calm, collected and curious. 

... che Dio Perdona a Tutti - Pif

 

A book I honestly would have never picked up if it hadn't been free on Olio, and one that I found very pleasantly surprising. 

Pif is a very popular Italian comedic journalist, so my expectations for this novel of his were a little less than zero. Strickingly, what left me rather unmoved were the anecdotes about football and Sicilian sweets - often full of stereotypes and predictable. And what I actually found genuinely interesting were the author's/narrator's takes on Catholicism. 

The Catholic church - and the Catholics'! - hypocrisy is often a very easy target for satire, but this is a deftly written book, and at the end of the day it's not satire. It's a reflection on our values, on what it means to be a good person (and/or a good Catholic), and the more saccharine passages of the book are still meaningful enough to be, at least, readable. 

The Debt to Pleasure - John Lanchester

 

Oh, the random books that one can find on an old bookshelf in a building that is about to be demolished...

This is not the Lanchester I'm used to. Even the book's cover has very little to do with those of his other works. 

One thing that really makes this novel stand out compared to his others, for me, is how ornate the prose is. And unfortunately I don't mean it in a positive way. Because of how rich the language is, and how intricate the sentences are, I often found myself drowning in a sea of words. I really liked the idea of such an unreliable narrator, but unfortunately I thought that most of all the narrator was unintelligible, and the plot twists intertwined with culinary discussions were sadly often lost on me.