Divorare il Cielo - Paolo Giordano

 

I got this book as I had (surprisingly) loved Tasmania last year and, after all, Paolo Giordano had written one of the biggest Italian editorial successes of the 21st century. 

Instead, with Divorare il Cielo we have a very early, but very serious, contender for "worst book I've read in 2025". 

The plot is poor and jumps the shark about 25 times. The characters are either unbearable, unbelievable, or underdeveloped (in particular every woman other than the narrator), but preferably all three. Somehow, the book also made me sincerely uninterested in Apulia, which is now widely considered one of the coolest regions of Italy. 

It really felt like Giordano was trying to present himself as the Italian Franzen here, but fell way short in all things that make Franzen great, and just went way more wrong in all the things that at times make me question Franzen's actual greatness...

Tasmania - Paolo Giordano

  

I was more than skeptical at the start. I had read Giordano's La Solitudine dei Numeri Primi and found it rather bland, so when I borrowed this (e)book my expectations were rather low, but hey I was proven wrong! 

Tasmania was such an unexpectantly pleasant read that it actually took me a while to fully admit to myself its many qualities: the prose is that of a very talented writer, and the scientific knowledge that of a great disseminator (how good a physicist Giordano actually is, I have no idea). And while the couple dynamics between the narrator and the love of his life at times leave a little to be desired, those between him and his main academic point of reference are absolutely fasciating (and it's great to see Giordano showing how - looking at the same dataset - academics can often come to diametrically opposite conclusion and decide to completely overlook some variables). 

And maybe, after all, we should all just consider moving to Tasmania. Just in case...

La Solitudine dei Numeri Primi - Paolo Giordano

  

It all depends on how one approaches the book, I guess. 

Do you read it as the first work of an aspring young writer? In that case, it's full of promise, does an extremely good job of portraying aspects of the deep sorrows of the teenage years, and it is the kind of effortless read that deserves to be rewarded. 

Do you read it as one of the best books published in Italy? In that case you can't help but feel sorry for the state of Italian literature, wondering how on earth something so raw, with such a poor conclusion, and that focuses on feelings that the author (at 26) might not have experienced/understood can be received with such widespread acclaim.