Come Fossi Solo - Marco Magini

  

Again, as far as amateur authors go, Magini is good. Actually, this book, his first, is arguably much more impressive than Gli Ospiti. 

For once, I liked the characterization of the novel's one real-life character (Dražen Erdemović) better than that of the fictional characters (the judge and the former Dutch soldier with PTSD). The last of the three for me lacked depth and the judge simply reminded me of Spencer Tracy in Judgement at Nuremberg. 

Dražen, on the other hand, stole the show for me. Magini's ability to re-create his life and emotions is remarkable. Most of all, for me it served as a great stimulus to read up on what happened in the aftermath of Srebrenica, and the fact that he was the only one to serve time for the atrocities defies belief.

Uno, Nessuno e Centomila – Luigi Pirandello

How dreadfully boring! Seriously, I understand this book is meant to be one of the greatest Italian 20^th century novels, but can we all just agree that it’s a 150-page yawn in the 21^st century?

So, Vitangelo Moscarda (even his name is dreadful) is a loan shark and is having second thoughts about his life and his identity. So what? 90 years after the book’s publication all its brilliant points are just so utterly trite. I got really happy when towards the end he got mortally wounded – knowing that there were still a few pages to go I was hoping that the first-person narrator would then start telling some bizarre after-life tale that could add a bit of flair to this novel. Sadly, Pirandello just seemed to use the term “mortally wounded” rather inappropriately, as Vitangelo survives…

Or maybe I’m just being harsh because Pirandello was fundamentally a Fascist?!?

Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky

I figured my best chance of reading (and understanding) Crime and Punishment was to power through it over the long Easter weekend. I thought my mind was going to be blown away. Much to my surprise, it wasn't. 

The problem was that I didn't care about what happened to Raskolnikov. He could turn himself in, he could be found, he could run away - it just didn't matter to me. His mental lapses, his guilt (or lack thereof), his rants left me rather unmoved. And - to make matters worse - I also kept on thinking about Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko (yes, I know I'm linking one of the universally recognized greatest novels ever written to a 1980s trashy - but oh so good - best-seller!) and his comments about the triviality of Russian murders... And the epilogue - with the promised redemption - upset me a fair bit with its cheesiness. 

The only moments in which I actually liked Raskolnikov where the ones in which he came to the realization that he is not a Übermensch (where he appeared not just like a human being, but like one who might deserve some sympathy). And I felt that my favourite character - Svidrigailov - was not given the attention (and the space) he deserved - his story was the one that deserved to be told in minute detail, in my humble opinion...