Stoner - John Williams

 

A book that I read this Christmas during a solo trip to see my parents. And what a pleasant read it was!

Perhaps the beauty of campus novels is that (when they are good?) they age remarkably well. Or perhaps it's just that, having been on a campus for the last 20 years, I feel particularly drawn to these kind of stories. 

Stoner though has a significant added value: its main character is one of those figures who seem to be particularly dear to (some) students despite not having the infinite list of credentials of senior academics. And, go figure, I rather relate to that!

Though one thing I can't quite relate to is Stoner's (at times dreadful, at times simply improbable) family life, or his rivalries at work (perhaps I'm too unimportant at my university to even be on anyone's radar!). 

Donne di Tipo 1 - Roberta Casasole

 

Picked this book because of its cover. A staunch feminist colleague of mine (who has taught me a couple of valuable lessons) uses a picture by the same artist as her avatar, so I just assumed this book would have been at least insightful. 

Instead, this was without a doubt the worst book I've read this year. 

Obviously, you don't need to like a book's main character in order to like the book, but you have to find him/her at the very least remotely interesting. Instead, the book's protagonist is a selfish entitled brat with misguided ideas about her academic value. Still, I can find a way to live with that.  

What I can't live with is the constant feeling that the author finds her creation (and herself, by default?) hilarious. It's just irritating. 

Also: what kind of supposed feminist spends her time talking about how hot someone is?!?

La Ricreazione E' Finita - Dario Ferrari

I got this book thinking it'd be a (reasonably) pleasant light read that would leave no lasting memory. Said assumption was motivated by the synopsis on the novel's jacket presenting the main character as a symbol of the generation of the pseudo-promising pseudo-young pseudo-intellectuals that fill the Italian universities on precarious contracts. So something that was bound to resonate with me, but also something that I've heard so much about that was quite unlikely to find this book particularly interesting and novel. 

Clearly, I was in for a big surprise. The sections on the beginning of the protagonist's doctorate are pleasant and fresh (and his web of relationships made me think of Eshkol Nevo's World Cup Wishes), but the detailed story of the fictional writer/terrorist that he ends up researching is something that absolutely steals the scene. 

Sure, I could have done without some things (I would have loved for the main character to also interact with some non-Italians in Paris - man, do my people ever leave their country, even when they cross its borders?!? - and his infatuation for the pretty younger girl in the second half of the book leaves a lot to be desired), but the final pages, with a twist that I definitely did not see coming, make up for any  minor shortcoming. 

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 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!).

Shroud - John Banville

A book taken from the book-crossing shelves at Turin airport that manages to be so delightfully Turinese (even in its title) despite being written by an Irish author.

I didn't know anything about Banville (bad me, I mean, the guy even won the Booker Prize) and my mom, right as usual, persuaded me to read this book despite not having even read it herself.

The book is beautifully written, though at times it is possibly a bit too deep and ponderous even for me (or maybe I'm just not as good a reader as I think I am!). The shadowy identity twist from the main character's WWII years, and the decadence of the contemporary setting, however, made this an excellent read. Though, after consecutive books with big WWII discoveries, I really needed something solely focused on the contemporary world and without Nazis around!

Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis

One can only go so many years in the UK without reading any Kingsley Amis. And one can only work so many years in a univeristy without reading Lucky Jim. 

A couple of months removed from the book, I'm now wondering what I was left with after I finished it. Turns out, not so much - the fact that the academic world doesn't seem to have changed that much over the past 60 years is interesting but not particularly surprising, and as for the humour I'm afraid it's a bit dated (or maybe I should learn to refer to my colleagues as "old chaps" and try to be more quintessentially British?) and, at the cost of sounding blasphemous, I'd pick a lighthearted David Nicholls novel over Lucky Jim if all I need is a bit of fun. 

The Black Album – Hanif Kureishi

Yet another book from the farm. Yet another 50p I’m glad to have invested. Yet another read by Hanif Kureishi that is extremely enjoyable (so much so that it led me and my mom to debate on the author’s status as one of the 20th century great British all-around intellectuals). Yet another novel that ultimately left me only half satisfied though.

The Black Album has many fascinating characters, yet, at the same time, feels immature like the protagonist. With the exception of the main character, all the others in the book appear to me to be too monolithic and simply too representative of leftist intellectualism, Muslim dogmatism or junkie desperation (delete as appropriate).

That being said, to me The Black Album is in so many ways a precursor to White Teeth, and that’s no mean feat, as the delirious interactions between characters and races, the chaotic burning of Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses (which somehow made me think of the launch of FutureMouse), and clearly the peripheral London setting kept on reminding me of Zadie Smith’s masterwork.

The Body of Jonah Boyd – David Leavitt

A book that my mom got from the BookCrossing stand in Turin airport (such a nice idea, and yet, at least in that location, so neglected…) and that she left with me after her last trip.

Having only read particularly “gay” books by Leavitt, I was surprised by how “hetero” this one was. While not of the same literary calibre of The Secret Language of Cranes, The Body of Jonah Boyd is an extremely pleasant read.

I really liked it because it’s Jewish, it’s about academia, and most of all because it’s sub-urban. Yet, I didn’t find it mind-blowing chiefly because I think books about writers are often (even if indirectly) a bit too self-congratulatory – but the title, and the fact that Jonah Boyd is not murdered and left in a ditch as I assumed (or that his body is not sculpted like that of a Greek demi-god and the subject of the desire of the author), is pure genius. 

White Noise – Don DeLillo

As many have probably guessed by now, my favourite literary theme in my late teens and early 20s was anti-Fascism, that on my late 20s (probably owing to a process of – relative – de-politicization) has been American suburban life, and White Noise might be the greatest book on the topic that I’ve read so far.

I don’t know why, but reading about the miseries of the American middle-class somehow makes me happy (hysterically happy at times – maybe it’s some kind of disorder...). In addition to that, Jack, the main character, is a fairly successful historian lacking the most basic skill needed in his trade: he can’t speak the language of the country his research is focused upon (I picked my Ph.D. topic also because it was the one time in my life in an English-speaking country in which I could have used my language skills, and I found Jack’s issue absolutely hilarious).

White Noise is just an excellent work from start to finish, constantly exploring new issues with a clinic and cynical eye: first we have a clear picture of the daily lives of the characters and their idiosyncrasies, then we move on to a wonderful discussion on life and its instability (turns out we all have to die, whether we have been exposed to an “airborne toxic event” or not – something really rather banal but that is expressed so wonderfully in the novel) to finish with great pages on our steadfast faith in medications of all kinds and the actual value of revenge. Just priceless.

Disgrace – J.M. Coetzzee

I somehow have the feeling that this book is about actual life in South Africa much more than any of the works by Nadine Gordimer.

No matter how far he has fallen, David always seems to find a way to reach new lows. Despite the fact that so many of his actions are condemnable, the reader (or at least, in my case, the white reader with a sheltered life) wants his misery to end well before the invasion of Lucy’s farm. And the depiction of Lucy’s apathy after the robbery and rape is absolutely paralyzing. I am not quite sure whether things will improve for David after the end of the book, I’m afraid not – and surely things are going to spiral downwards for Lucy.

Notwithstanding its uncontainable grimness and harshness, or possibly because of that, this is one of the best novels I’ve ever read.

Possession – Antonia S. Byatt

 

What do I care about the unfulfilled love life of a fictional 19^th century writer? Nothing, I never did.

What do I care about the unfulfilled love life of a 20^th century Londoner? Nothing, if it’s written with such corniness (I would have probably answered “very little” but, for the sake of symmetry, I’ll stick with “nothing”).

What do I care about the research of a struggling London academic? Nothing, now that I have finished my Ph.D. and have put aside “real” academia – at least for now.

What do I care about the role of private money in advancing academic scholarship? Nothing, and – personally – I wonder whether public money should be spent for said advancement in the humanities (for much that I’d like to be bold enough to claim that public money shouldn’t fund research in the humanities, however, I probably believe it should – otherwise we’d just become fairly hairless monkeys in a couple of generations)

For all that, the last page of the book is one of absolute beauty – but you do have to overcome 400 lengthy ones before that.