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. 

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). 

 

Io Non Ho Paura – Niccolò Ammaniti

Probably the most successful book by Ammaniti, also owing to a movie by Gabriele Salvatores that was good but lacked the magic of some of his earlier works (Mediterraneo and Turné above all for me). I remember being utterly surprised by the fact that a translated copy of the novel had somehow made its way to the tiny Italian section in the tiny college library of our Canadian high-school, and I forced my then-girlfriend now-wife to read it when I found it.

The book tells the story of a kid and his discovery of a hideaway where a kidnapped boy is held prisoner. The contrast between the simple world of the local boys and that of the troubled adults is evident throughout the book,  but Ammaniti deserves credit for not idolizing and over-romanticizing youth. The book is a great, quick read – not something that will re-write (or has re-written) the history of literature as we know it, but something that can make the reader think about the turbulent 1970s and 1980s in Italy from a different perspective.

And with this I’m all caught up, having written something about all the books that I’ve loved, liked, or that I was meant to have loved and liked over the past few years. Or at least the ones that I can remember. From now on, updates will be a lot more sporadic (like a blog should be), particularly now that the new academic year is starting and that I am supposed to teach a course I have never taught before.

Ti Prendo e Ti Porto Via – Niccolò Ammaniti

My biggest high-school crush, the one who, quite literally, crushed my heart, gave me this book. It wasn’t even my birthday. I thought it meant she was mine. I was clearly wrong.

Probably because of the mood I was in as I read the book, this is my favourite Ammaniti novel. It does have some gory pulpy sections (like the idea of throwing a radio in a bathtub to electrocute a teacher – something not even the most sociopathic bully would dream of doing, hopefully), but they are few and far between so actually end up being just funny interludes.

Of the two main male characters, one is clearly a jerk, but the other is absolutely adorable in his sadness and his desire to change his life around despite his very young age. Back when I read the novel, it gave me hope for both Italy and Italian literature. Worry not, in both cases I’ve lost most of it by now.

Io e Te – Niccolò Ammaniti

As an engagement present I got my wife an autographed copy of the book (I had met the author at the same literary festival already mentioned a bunch of times). Then I also got her a ring, otherwise she would have been upset.

The book (little more than a short story) much like Calvino’s Il Barone Rampante starts from an improbable premise that is, however, the dream of many children (Lorenzo doesn’t do what his parents think/want him to do, and hides in the basement for a week instead of going skiing with supposed friends). The novel is sweet, surely because Ammaniti refrains from being gory for once, and the treatment of the detox process of the other – unexpected – guest in the basement as seen from the eyes of a child is character-building without being patronizing like in Grossman’s Someone to Run With.

A great novel for a (short) train ride. Not much more than that, but still quite an enjoyable read.