The Fathers - John Niven

 

A book that I picked up by chance, and chiefly because I felt that it could provide some light entertainment and occasional insight. 

And that it did. With the obvious clash of cultures and classes that its cover promised, but done with a gracious touch that reminded me of John Lanchester. 

Nothing in the book is excessively surprising. Things seem to take a turn for the worse, then everything works out for pretty much everyone. Yet, there are enough moments - funny, dramatic (this book did nothing to placate my fear of children and grapes), insightful - to make it a compelling read. And Niven does a really good job of highlighting what I think is one of the most overlooked issues for "my" people: middle and upper-middle class people don't have children, or have them very late in life. 

Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver

 

The second book by Kingsolver that I've read, and one that I picked partly because, you know, it won a Pulitzer and all, partly because a friend I generally recommend book to actually recommended it to me. 

At time I absolutely loved this book, at times I merely liked it, most likely because I often have limited love for adaptations/transpositions of previous novels and because this meant there was relatively little surprise through the novel (I haven't read David Copperfield, but I'm at least familiar with much of its plot). 

Still, no matter my relative familiarity with Uriah Heep (both the character and the rock band), damn U-Haul is a hell of a grotesque and disturbing figure!

Tutta la Vita che Resta - Roberta Recchia

 

One of the Italian books that I just have to read every now and again. Melodramatic to the ninth degree - with somehow managed crisis after somehow managed crisis and the very occasional brief interlude of something resembling calm. 

Yet, this is not the utterly unbearable A Little Life. I actually got to feel something for the characters, and in all this drama I didn't think that the author was simply riding on the readers' emotions (and their manipulation), but was actually telling a genuinely compelling story and touching on a variety of themes with skills. 

Obviously, a number of plot twists were rather predictable - ranging from the family eventually finding a way to patch things up, to the solution of the initial crime, to the disappearance of central yet ultimately expendable characters. Still, this remain a book that I enjoyed way more than what I had expected.  

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). 

The Night Manager - John le Carré

Like with a little black dress, I guess you can never go wrong with a vintage le Carré. And to think of the snobbish look of our librarian when I donated my copy of The Russia House...

For me The Night Manager ranks a bit below Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy and Agent Running in the Field, but it remains a heck of a story. The troubled Pine is one of the most entertaining spies (well, is he a spy or a volunteer?!?) that I've ever come across, and seeing him struggle with his own conscience is absolutely gripping. 

Yet, it's Roper that steals the show. A villain who is always in plain sight and at the centre of the action, not a Palpatine-like figure in the hazy background, he undoubtedly elevates the novel. 

And one is left to marvel at how well some of  le Carré's books - including this - have aged. 

Gli Interessi in Comune - Vanni Santoni

  

I normally don't even smile at books whose covers promise to make you "laugh out loud". Gli Interessi in Comune didn't make such promises, but it was without a doubt the funniest book I've read in years. 

The title already encapsulates what the book is about; vignettes from a group of friends who share common interests: Magic: the Gathering (because they are nerds after all), loitering at the local bar and, most of all, an almost academic research into all possible drugs - legal or not. 

My wife was surprised to hear me laugh by myself every 5 minutes as I was reading this book, and so was I. Yet, this is not just a funny book, it's surprisingly deep and it offers and insight into the "normal" lives of the characters outside of their psychedelic loops. And much like in Trainspotting, a lot of these druggies turn up alright in the end, though a fair few of them don't. And I still struggle to believe that someone could pull a book like this out of the Tuscan province.

Crossroads - Jonathan Franzen

  

Hmm...

I feel like I would have liked this book had it not been for the fact that it's all around a religious community. A nice grassroots lay organization with a similar structure and ethos, yes. A religious community, no. 

I'm probably just an awful human being, but hey. 

I would have probably had more time for Russ had he not been a priest, and would have probably found him less boring and petty. Also, had he not worked at a church called First Reformed, I wouldn't have pictured him as a 1970s Ethan Hawke

Ohio - Stephen Markley

 

Gotta love a big chunky novel about suburban America. Actually you don't have to, but I do. Actually, so few people do that the only way for me to get an electronic copy of this book was by borrowing it from my Italian e-library (arguably better stocked than the London ones) and read it in translation. 

Ohio was a great read, suggested by my mum, to whom it was suggested by one of my closest friends (why didn't he suggest it to me in the first place, who knows!). It's well-written, depressing but witty, and ultimately a very interesting portrait of the American mid-West in a community taken over by narcotics and general socio-economic malaise. 

It's also a bit too much. Every page is extremely intense. The parallel plots are one too many, as is the number of chapters. And literally there doesn't appear to be many major characters that are both alive and mentally stable human beings by the end of the book. For the sake of the people of Ohio, I hope their lives are generally a bit simpler than this.

The Casual Vacancy – J.K. Rowling

I’ve only read one Harry Potter. That makes me an awful human being in the eyes of many, but that also means that I’m not disappointed at the lack of magic in this book by J.K. Rowling.

The Casual Vacancy is daring but enjoyable. Its characters for one reason or another are mostly unlikable (maybe with the exception of the Walls and of Andrew?) but remain interesting. The plot is not something that leaves the reader on the edge of the seat – I mean, these are local elections after all… – but the novel is quite an acute portrayal of contemporary Britain.

So in all fairness I think J.K. Rowling should be given credit for writing this book (and for making a number of points that are surprisingly and commendably political). It was really quite good. Had it had a bit more irony or humour in it (nothing really brought a smile to my face, except maybe for old and drunken Samantha snogging teenage Andrew) perhaps it would have even been “really” good…

The Goldfinch – Donna Tartt

There is nothing wrong with reading a best-seller every now and again. In particular one that has won the Pulitzer Prize. In particular one that was bought for 2 cheeky pounds.

However, there are plenty of things that I think are wrong with this particular book: it’s long; Donna Tartt spends the first 400 pages of it essentially trying to persuade the reader of how good-natured the main character is before making his dramatic entry into the criminal underworld (and the fact that it essentially jumps from Theo’s return from Vegas straight into his shady dealings makes you wonder what he has actually done in the meantime – it’s not quite like what’s happened to Jesus between the age of 12 and 30, but almost…), and most of all the ending, with its banal comments about life, its meaning, and its shortness, is so trite that I actually really struggled to read that final chapter.

On the plus side, though, the art comments are really interesting, but probably that’s because I’m Italian and, never having had much time for Dutch and Flemish art, most of those were actually new to me…

Still, I have to recognize that this is a book that has to be read. And, at least in my case, one that should be pretty much forgotten once it’s over. 

A Brief History of Seven Killings – Marlon James

A book that my boss lent to me to re-establish my faith in the Men Booker Prize after I was forced to read an absolutely pathetic novel – Anne Tyler’s A Spool of Blue Thread, which had been shortlisted for the prize last year – for my office’s book club.

I read the first 100 pages of this book with the same ease with which I had read the opening chapter of The Sound and the Fury (i.e. not a lot, being constantly lost in a prose that was simply too challenging for me), but after that rough start Jamaican Patois started to make sense, at least relatively.

Two characters stood out for me: the girl who runs away from Kingston (whose internal monologues felt like they had been written by Zadie Smith, despite the fact that the very end of her story is rather predictable) and the deceased politician who concludes most sections of the book (his description of the Singer’s illness and death is one of the most beautiful pieces of literature that I’ve read in a while). I didn’t find the book’s violence to be as Tarantino-esque as many reviewers presented it to be. Actually, I found the book violent, but not that violent.

Being nearly 700 pages, at times I felt that James could have got to the point more quickly, but then again he was probably doing it on purpose to offer a more vivid picture of the modus operandi (or vivendi?!?) of Jamaican gangs.

Most of all, the book is a wonderful display of how much impact one musician (the Singer is – surprise! – actually Bob Marley) has had on the life of his own country. It’s also kind of funny to see Marley always mentioned as “the Singer” while Peter Tosh and Jimmy Cliff are called by their names.

Also, because of this book I’ve spent the last 24 hours listening non-stop to the soundtrack of The Harder they Come. 

Naked Lunch – William S. Burroughs

Joan Mirò painting while hallucinating and starving is art, Burroughs picking up a pen (or a typewriter) and rambling on a page while under the influence of all sorts of substances, in my opinion, is not.

Why should Naked Lunch be considered a seminal book in 20^th century history, I don’t know. Why couldn’t Burroughs just stare at a wall, or smash some things while high as a kite? The fact that he dared to write in those conditions is clearly not something condemnable, but there is a middle ground between that and being praised and hailed as a great writer for it. He had every right to write this book, but after 20 pages I really didn’t feel the need to read it (despite the fact that I did, because I have issues with closure etc.)

What I found even more frustrating was the fascinating final (relatively sober) report on various drugs and detox methods. 20 pages that, while maybe not a word of art, stimulate intellectual curiosity and can actually be read. More of that, or a novel factually based on that, would have been much appreciated.