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. 

My Name Is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout

 

Out of the - now limited - range of titles that the Southwark eLibrary offers these days, there are a few Lucy Barton books. I have tried not to read them in too quick a succession, and it's largely proved the be the right call. 

While Strout remains a great story-teller, the feelings she leaves me with are always the same (even when her plots are different). The problem is that after a while the returns diminish, and the above-mentioned feelings get diluted. I was mind-blown by Strout's prose the first time I read one of her books, now I just read them as a pleasant intermission between books that I find either more engaging or more substantial. 

I also have to admit that one of the reasons why I didn't particularly enjoy this book is my inability to understand a character who has such a troubled relationship with her mom because, like all good Italian kids, I love my mamma. 

Una Vita Violenta – Pier Paolo Pasolini

My parents each had a copy of this book when they moved in together back in the 1980s and, thirty years later, realized they had no need for two copies in the same house so gave one of them to me (that said, they’re not even sure whether they read the novel or not!)

I did love Ragazzi di Vita, but I found Una Vita Violenta (which in many ways follows in its footsteps) to be of a whole other calibre. Whereas one grows to like the Riccetto in the former a bit less as the book goes on and he settles within “the system”, I actually fell in love with Tommaso more and more with each page (after feeling the intense desire to strangle him during his football match with kids half his size at the beginning of the book, I just felt the need to protect him from the evils of the world).

Sure, his political path is a bit too allegoric for me, but by the end of the book my nerves were completely shattered. I was glad he did not drown in the flood that hit his old neighbourhood, but the end is really no less devastating (and yet, it is the only way the book could/should have ended in order to be one of the great works of the Italian literature of the last century). 

La Coscienza di Zeno – Italo Svevo

I was expecting worse.

Granted, the book is long and tedious, but I was expecting worse. Sure, I’m no smoker (quite the opposite!), but the chapter on Zeno’s “last cigarettes” is kind of interesting. Other than that, the chapter on his father’s death and the one on Zeno’s wedding left me completely unmoved, but I was expecting worse. The part on his extra-marital affair is fairly useless and ultimately fairly banal, but I was expecting worse. Zeno’s commercial exploits are just quite pathetic, probably like the man himself after all, but I was expecting worse.

His final conclusion (that in a sick world realizing that life is crazy is actually a sign of sanity), on the other hand, couldn’t have been worse. Plenty of supposedly deep movies and books (hell, probably even nursery rhymes!) have passed this trite message without being hailed as absolute masterpieces.

Still, the fact that I was expecting worse (in case you hadn’t realized) maybe means that La Coscienza di Zeno might deserve to be considered one of the all-time greats. Except that probably it doesn’t...

A Home at the End of the World – Michael Cunningham

A book that the same girl who had given me The Hours lent me when I was 16 (kudos to her, she figured she could impress me with Michael Cunningham).

Three-way loves have been explored by countless authors, but Cunningham simply does it better (and it also throws in a bit of suburban life and a passage in New York City for good measure, just to make sure he can have me hooked). The scene of the death of Bobby’s brother in the first few pages, and the final one in the lake are, somehow, two of the most vivid images a book has ever left me with.

And I’d just like to copy and paste my final comment about The Hours since it clearly also applies here: “The book is written with such a soft touch that probably only gay writers can master without falling into plain sappy romanticism (although Cunningham himself doesn’t like being referred to as a gay writer). It’s a shame that, now, so many readers seem to have forgotten about Cunningham’s talent.”

Although it’s probably kind of sad when you start quoting yourself.

The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen

A book that a student in the university hall where I used to work left behind (unread) when he left. Random stranger: thank you very much.

I hate myself when I love best-sellers, but again I couldn’t resist the pull of epic family stories, sub-urban American life and, ironically, its dullness. Much like Alfred, I am despotic and obsessive compulsive, and I am quite worried about what might happen to me (will happen to me?) once/if my mind starts to go.

And, with my grandparents in a similar situation to that of Enid and Alfred, I kind of wish their stories will have similar endings soon. Maybe that means I’m an evil and ungrateful grandson, but I’d love to actually think of myself as very loving and caring in this situation.

Despite the fact that I ultimately don’t really care about these characters, their frantic lives are between intriguingly absurd (in my favourite parts) and hilarious (although this can get to be a bit much at times). Also, never has falling off a cruise ship been so funny.