The Stolen Bicycle - Wu Ming-Yi

 

I believe this was the first Taiwanese book I've ever read, and in many ways a lot of the anecdotes (at the end it's almost a collection of anecdotes tied together by the search for a bicycle/family heirloom) reminded me of the touching stories by Mo Yan. 

The "technical" sections on the mechanics of bicycles and their evolution were in all honesty fairly boring, even for someone who enjoys his own bike and can look after it reasonably well. 

One thing that I found curious was the lasting legacy (and presence) of the Sino-Japanese war throughout the novel, much like for many Italian authors the impact of Fascism remains a constant (and again, much like Mo Yan goes back to the Sino-Japanese war time and again, with all the obvious disclaimers about the differences between mainland China and Taiwan). 

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 novels 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. 

Portrait in Sepia - Isabel Allende

 

Damn, how Allende bores me. Then again, she's sold millions of copies worldwide, has plenty of admirers and, when the ebook offer is limited (and at Southwark we're really down to a handful of potentially readable titles for me), beggars can't be choosers. 

I guess the overarching positive is that, by setting this story in the 19th century, she couldn't remind the readers of the importance of Salvador Allende, the dark years of the Pinochet dictatorship etc. 

What she could do though, was cover her novel with the standard romantic patina, the usual empowered rich heroines who defy odds (real or imaginary) to carve their own path, and the habitual love triangles and tangles. 

It's probably quite telling that the part of this story that I enjoyed the most was actually the one set in San Francisco and the interplay between immigrants of various races there - her always identical takes on Chile and its idiosyncrasies just leave me profoundly unmoved.  

The World According to Garp - John Irving

 

What a book! 

The World According to Garp is a beautifully written (and at times laugh out loud funny) book about, well, the world: sex (consensual and not) and sexuality are the obvious themes, but in the epic family history there is so much space for love (often misplaced, misunderstood and misguided, but still love) and loss (the chapter after the car accident, where at the end the readers realize that their attention was fully devoted to the survivors without feeling the absence of one voice, contains some of the most hauntingly dramatic passages I've ever read). 

Despite the fact that my main literary advisor - yes, my mum... - told me to read pretty much every John Irving book straight away, I'll try to pace myself with him in the upcoming months as I don't want to overdo it and forget how much I loved this novel. 

Snow - John Banville

 

Running out of readable ebooks on the Southwark libraries app (add some new decent titles, please!) I decided to give Banville's attempt to write a detective story a go. 

And I spent most of my time thinking (and sometimes saying aloud) "John Banville, come on, since when have you become a banal author reverting to all the most obvious plot twists used in airport paperbacks?!?". 

Seriously, rarely a writer has disappointed me as much as Banville did with this book. It had them all: the detective with the troubled love life, the manipulated and mentally unstable black sheep of the family, the abusive Catholic priests (I'm really, really far from being even just remotely a fan of the Catholic Church, but this is one of the three easiest and most annoying tropes around), etc. 

And not a single actual surprising moment through the book. Never. 

Il Colibrì - Sandro Veronesi

 

Granted, my parents had warned me (I had just forgotten about it, but hey...), yet I was expecting more from Veronesi. Not sooo much more, but at least a little more. 

This book is light as its titular hummingbird. And I don't mean that as a good thing. The long protracted story of a pretty uninteresting main character left me rather untouched. The sappy final scenes of love, forgiveness and hope openly annoyed me. 

At most, this is the sort of book that I think one should read over the span of a couple of afternoons at the beach. Except that I don't like beaches, so I don't think this book really has any space in my life, and will have very little space in my memory. 

La Traversata Notturna - Andrea Canobbio

 

I guess that when you don't have many ideas, you can write an autobiographical book. 

I guess that when you aren't the best of writers, you can borrow from other authors' approaches and styles (hello Perec!). 

And I guess that when you have interesting sources and artefacts (the family heirlooms pictured in the book are often the most interesting parts), you might as well use them. 

This is actually an OK book; I'm glad I've read it as it's an interesting perspective on a city - Turin - that I know quite well. I just think that it really shouldn't be considered one of the best Italian books of 2022, but since that's apparently the case, mala tempora currunt, 

Lessons - Ian McEwan

 

Now here's an author (like Ali Smith) who seems more unable than me to let Brexit go, and this is saying a lot. 

And here's an author (like Ali Smith) who probably tries to pack too much in too few pages. The story of Roland and Miss Cornell, for me, would have been enough. The persistence of his memory of her throughout his life, and her unexpected brief return, would have made this a great novel. 

Turning the book into a brief history of Britain from WWII to today as seen through the eyes of one person, on the other hand, was stretching it a bit. Even when I find myself agreeing with most of McEwan's points about British politics and society, I don't really see the need to read about them. They are not surprising, they are not particularly engaging. Not for me at the very least. 

A shorter novel on the frenzy, trauma, and confusion caused (?) by Miss Cornell would have ranked among McEwan's finest. Instead, I consider this a great "intro to the current British divisions" for my mum, along the lines of some of Ali Smith's recent books and Jonathan Coe's Middle England. With the added bonus of having large passages set in Suffolk (where we were coincidentally holidaying as I was reading the book) and mentioning Mick Jagger's stint as an LSE student. 

Absalom, Absalom - William Faulkner

  

At a time in which I only had a few books left on my bedside table, I picked this one up. After all, Faulkner did win a Nobel prize and I couldn't just dismiss it on the basis of having struggled with The Sound and the Fury. 

Well, I struggled just as much with Absalom, Absalom!. Though I remember its plot vaguely more (most likely just because I've read it more recently) I found again the charm of the American South to be lost on me and, even more, the prose to be often completely inaccessible. 

In the end, I've decided that Faulkner is an author that makes me feel silly as, no matter how fluent and articulate I think I am, his brand of English remains largely impenetrable for me.

Il Tempo Migliore della Nostra Vita - Antonio Scurati

  

The typical book that my family keeps aside for me because "it's on Italian Fascism". 

Problem is: half of this book is pretty much my PhD thesis (which I wrote - but not published - way before, by the way). Better written, with much more literary fluorish (though with no historical embellishment) than my work, and ultimately read by a lot more people than the dozen unlucky academics and friends who had to read my dissertation. Still, the overlap was a bit too signifcant for me to find much pleasure in the sections on Leone Ginzburg. 

And the other half was a beautiful portrayal of family life in Fascist Italy. Problem is: there are so many of them around, and I'd always pick the family lives of unknown peasants over the family lives of people who just happened to be lucky enough to have a grandson who would go on to become one of the most acclaimed Italian writers and one who (unlike me!) has actually managed to re-ignite the interest of many Italians in their country's own past. 

So, this is arguably a vanity project, but one that is extremely well-written and worthy of a read, even when half of the book doesn't reserve any surprises (for me, at the very least).

A Tale of Love and Darkness - Amos Oz

  

I like Oz's novels, I like Oz's children books, and I was clearly bound to like his own autobiography. 

It's long, and that's undeniable. It also often repeats itself, but that's to be expected with a non-linear timeline for some 500-odd pages. Yet, it's fabulously written, and the history (both the capitalized version, and the family history) depicted in the book is obviously fascinating. I don't think I could have coped with 100 more finely printed pages, but man I'm glad that I've read this book. 

And perhaps I should watch Natalie Portman's movie version too...

La Ferocia - Nicola Lagioia

  

Well, let's be honest: I was bound to hate this book and to find reasons to hate it from the start, as I first heard it mentioned on the pointlessly pretentious podcast of a kid from my hometown, who was salivating at the thought of Lagioia's talent with words. 

Yes, Lagioia writes well. Yes, Lagioia knows it. But does he need to remind the reader about it with countless pages of heavy-handed metaphors? 

This book left me with nothing. I would have probably liked the story had it been written by someone not so completely in love with himself. Instead, I only have very vague recollections of the plot. 

Yet, I'm sure there'll be plenty of people who'll praise this novel because they feel like they have to. And the wonderful local podcaster is probably one of those. Here's to you "Radical Nik", may the world of vanity publishing allow you to establish yourself as the great author you are (but possibly next time you compare yourself to Don DeLillo, do it with a bit of irony...)!

I Fratelli Michelangelo - Vanni Santoni

 

 

Apparently there are still authors in Italy who a) know how to write, b) have something to say, c) don't spend every other page congratulating themselves for being "oh so very good and look how elaborate are my metaphors" (more on that, and on Nicola Lagioia, later). Seriosuly, the overlap between a) b) and c) is really rather minimal.

This is a book that my wise mother suggested, and it was - as often happens - a really good piece of advice. At the time I hadn't read such an enjoyable Italian book since Piperno's Il Fuoco Amico dei Ricordi, and I Fratelli Michelangelo might be partially responsible for my decision to have a road trip of sorts around Tuscany with my family in a few weeks.

I loved it because of the depth of the characters and the breadth of interests that Santoni quite clearly has, but it's also a book written by an author who is still a bit raw, or at least someone who quite clearly didn't know how to end an ohterwise remarkable novel. 

Then again, when I was young an Italian rap band used to sing "who cares about being Zucchero [Italian singer with raspy voice, btw] when Joe Cocker is already around?", and one can definitely ask the same in this case: is there a point to a novel like this, when Franzen wrote The Corrections way before? I'd say there is, but plenty of people would probably disagree.

Purity - Jonathan Franzen

 

And I actually liked it. I liked it better than Freedom, the book it displaced on my bookshelf. Granted, I might be biased as a big chunk of it is set in my wife's hometown (Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, is not exactly the most literarily visited of places, the only author I know that has written about it was Mario Vargas Llosa, but that doesn't count as he lived right next door!). 

I don't think anything will ever come close to The Corrections, but Purity has enough flashes of genius to remind the reader of how amazing a writer Franzen can be. Said flashes of genius (first among them Andreas Wolf's first TV interview outside the Stasi archives) are enough to make one overlook some unpredictable turns of events that are actually not so unpredictable. 

The penultimate chapter (The Killer) felt absolutely eternal, and I do think Franzen could have shaved a fair few pages from the 563 of the book, but it remained a great read to end 2019. Also, this book is so very reflective of his disdain and disregard for a number of contemporary developments and trends, and to me it appears clear that Tom Aberant is in the end his favourite character. 

East of Eden - John Steinbeck

One of the best swaps I've ever made at Alpha Books - getting rid of three paperbacks for which I had little time and getting a copy of East of Eden that at most had been flicked through by its previous owner (despite a lovely message from a friend on its first page).

I hadn't yet read this novel, despite of my passionate love for Steinbeck, because I was really rather sceptical of its biblical allegories. Granted, I could have done without that, but this book remains so very beautiful.

For me East of Eden doesn’t have the literary significance of The Grapes of Wrath, and Adam Trask cannot compete with Tom Joad (chiefly because he’s just way, way too good). However, it is not too far behind, thanks to its epic family (hi)story and, crucially, the utterly fascinating secondary characters – the evil Cathy Ames, Samuel Hamilton (who, as far as old wise men go, is really second to none), and also Charles, who I was really sorry to see disappear completely after Adam moves west.

And then there is Lee, who might be the best character Steinbeck ever created and who encapsulates so many of Steinbeck’s defining features as a writer – his dry humour, his wisdom, his awareness of the struggles of common people and their desire to do well thanks to their intelligence and skills.

Having finished the book, I really asked myself why my generation (at least in Italy) was raised thinking of Hemingway as the greatest American writer of the 20^th century…

St Urbain's Horseman - Mordecai Richler

Oh, how long since I had last read a Richler novel. Sure, my former Canadian teachers presented him as an awful human being (years before my time there, he came to give a guest lecture at our school and left everyone rather unimpressed), but in terms of North American Jewish writers for me he's right up there with Roth and Bellow.

St Urbain's Horseman doesn't have the epicness of Solomon Gursky Was Here or the comedy and mystery of Barney's Version, but it remains an impressive book. Large sections of the book are set in a London that I don't find too drastically changed in nearly 50 years. The parts about the legendary horseman are wonderful portraits of Canadian life in the first half of the 20th century, and the idea of him looking for Mengele (though not even the narrator actually believes that, probably) are the work of a genius.

Without the Jewish elements I probably wouldn't have enjoyed this book this much. But the fact is, the Jewish elements are very much there and so, unsurprisingly, this book is a winner for me.

Mother’s Milk – Edward St Aubyn

I had never heard of this author until my mom just forced me to invest 50p in this book of his at Surrey Docks Farm. As we all know, my mom is very rarely wrong (at least when it comes to literature, when it comes to playing cards with me that’s an entirely different story).

The first section of the book details extremely well a number of feelings that I undeniably felt right after the birth of my daughter (minus the borderline psychic older son, and some of Patrick’s self-destructive tendencies), but what is just great is seeing the odd dilapidation of an impressive family fortune in the following sections (one dedicated to every summer holiday of the main character, which I found to be a wonderful idea).

If Patrick’s complex family situation at first runs the risk of reminding the reader a bit too much of the kind of McEwan novels that have come to bore me, its spiralling out of control is actually closer to a more serious version of Jonathan Coe’s Winshaws – and that’s one of the reason why this novel is ultimately so enjoyable. The other reason, although this is far from being politically correct, is its shrewd treatment of people who age badly – not something I necessarily disagree with. 

The House of Spirits – Isabel Allende

Am I being overly harsh or is this book simply not of the same standard as Paula? The answer is that maybe I’ve just completely outgrown magical realism (which is sad, because back in the day I had loved A Hundred Years of Solitude so very much).

I honestly think that, had it not been for Clara’s extra sensory abilities, I would have enjoyed the novel a lot more. And I would have probably also liked it better if the characters weren’t ultimately representations of various social and political groups (and periods) in Chilean history (the roman à clef as a genre often gets a bit on my nerves). And the fact that Allende also openly declares that Blanca never married Pedro Tercero because she didn’t love him enough just stings – the guy deserved better.

But then again, most of this probably applies only to 85% of the book, because from the moment Alba gets arrested the novel gains massively in literary, political and moral weight (although it’s really too bad that Allende picked the allegoric name of Alba/Dawn for the character that is meant to symbolize hope for the future – think outside the box!)

Radetzky March - Joseph Roth

Ah, Joseph Roth and the finis Austriae! Does it get any better than that? Well, in a way it does, considering that my favourite Roth novel (or rather a short story - The Legend of the Holy Drinker) is actually set in Paris...

Radetzky March is a wonderful novel (despite the fact that it took me a week to finish it because of the impending fatherhood and, erm, the Olympics...) and one of those books that I wish I could persuade my students to read.

Interestingly, Roth ultimately seems to love his characters despite the fact that more often than not these have to be bailed out by the Emperor, and that their careless actions lead directly or indirectly to the death of a number of people throughout the book (then again, the atmosphere surrounding the duel in the first half of the book reminded me of Ridley Scott's The Duellists so those deaths are justified!).

Speaking of the Emperor and his powers - the chapters directly related to his ageing are possibly the best-written of the book, but (speaking as a historian...) Roth seems to conveniently forget the fact that by 1914 the Austrian one was ultimately an empire hell bent on starting a war with Serbia (although not with the whole of Europe).

What a Carve Up! – Jonathan Coe

One of the many books I snatched from Books for Free in Stratford before it closed (the reserves, unfortunately, are starting to slowly run out…). A few months ago I read – and really enjoyed – The Rotters’ Club, but found this novel to be on another level.

What a Carve Up is a cross between epic family novels (Solomon Gursky Was Here is the first one that comes to mind, because of the nature of the Winshaw family and the mischievousness of some of its older members – often more interesting than their kids), cheesy mysteries (Ten Little Indians) and the most enjoyable and ironic Alan Bennett works.

The constant alternation of styles, narrators and registers is obviously yet again a display of Coe’s considerable talent. And the fact that so much of the novel is set in Northern England is again a welcome departure from London-centred British literature.

Much like in The Rotters’ Club with Malcolm, even in What a Carve Up Coe kills off one of my favourite characters (Fiona) relatively early (I mean, not super-early, but the writing is on the wall from the start, so I don’t feel like I’m spoiling too much). Yet I don’t hate him for that. Although I really wish I knew what happened to Phoebe and Graham…