Io Khaled Vendo Uomini e Sono Innocente

 

Even months after having read this, I'm not quite sure how I feel about this book. 

On the one hand, it's obviously important to talk about the people behind the trafficking of migrants across the Mediterranean, and show their place in "the system". 

On the other hand, at times this book made me feel as if the author was herself exploiting the suffering of migrants in her book (and surprisingly, the most gruelling scenes left me relatively unmoved - perhaps because we are all getting tragically used and routinely exposed to them?) while being a bit too supportive of the narrator's own attempts to deny his own agency and importance within the people smuggling network. 

My Friends - Hisham Matar

One of the many books suggested by my mother, and yet again one of her many on-point suggestions. I greatly enjoyed reading this, but for me it was very much a story of two halves. 

The first half, with the main character's walk from King's Cross to his home in Shepherd's Bush was a work of art, introducing me to something I didn't know about (the shooting from the Libyan embassy in 1984), talking about something that I feel I know so well (that part of London, in particular the shout-out to the caryatids of St Pancras New Church, right outside my beloved undergraduate student hall), and making me think about some of my favourite London writers (Kureishi obviously, given the period being discussed and the immigrants' stories). 

The second half, however, was just a bit much. While it is true that wars are being increasingly fought by middle-aged men, I found it a bit far fetched and hard to buy into that two semi-intellectuals would find themselves at the forefront of the violent actions of the initial phases of the Libyan Civil War, and  reading about their discovery of Ghedaffi in hiding really appeared excessive to me. 

The Wind Knows My Name - Isabel Allende

What's cooler than being cool? Ice cold!

And what's cheaper than trying to write something supposedly moving by brining in children? Adding the Holocaust!

I have long stopped enjoying Isabel Allende novels (actually, I think I only ever really enjoyed Paula), yet I keep on reading them because the Southwark library is so desperately under-stocked. 

And I also read them because they are easy. Yet, this novel is not just the standard "easy" and "sentimental" Allende novel, it's also - as mentioned above - really rather cheap. I hope it's not actually the case, but to me it read as if she was exploiting the suffering of fictional (yet fully believable) children across centuries to sell a few copies and make a few readers feel like they've read something deep about the tragedies of contemporary society. 

Le Perfezioni - Vincenzo Latronico

 

This was one of my frequent attempts to engage with Italian literature by going through the shortlists of the country's biggest literary prizes. 

As usual, I despair for the present and future of (just?) Italian literature. I can  picture authors stopping to re-read a sentence and spending 10 self-congratulatory minutes to remind themselves of how wonderful their prose is, and how imaginative their plot twists are, when in reality they are "meh" at the very, very best. 

But this is a book that I absolutely loved to detest. The main characters are obnoxious, the kind of Italians abroad that I hate with passion, those who leave the country but can't think of learning a new language besides basic rudiments, who are completely unable to break the umbilical chord that links them to the motherland, who anyway will always be able to count upon family wealth as and when needed and who only really have meaningful interactions - no matter where they are - with people born within 500 km of their native village. 

If Latronico's book is an ironic critique of this kind of people, I might read something else by him, but I actually doubt he had any intention of criticizing his characters or their way to see the world. 

Almarina - Valeria Parrella

  

Yet another book that I picked out of the long list of recent Premio Strega finalists. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it: it's quite well-written, it's current, it touches upon obviously important themes. And it's not engaging. 

I perhaps thought so little of this book because its main character is struggling with her unfulfilled hopes in a way that I find quite trivial, or because her decision to help Almarina get on her feet feels like the superficial action of the most stereotypical do-gooder (in her defense, Parrella does talk about it with more than a hint of criticism). 

At the end of the day, though, this book also highights a huge limitation that I have as a reader: I have to like a novel's main characters if I am to like the novel itself.

Seasonal Quartet - Ali Smith

 

Funnily enough, the Southwark electronic library has a e-copy of the first two books of the series, but I had to go to the actual library (exotic!) to get the hard copies of the last two. 

With hindsight, that was somewhat fitting, as I fell in love with Autumn and Winter, thinking of ways to write to Ali Smith to tell her how impressed I was with her decision to tackle events "in real time", take such a clear stand on so many social issues, and express (yet again) her love for Italy and Italian culture. 

Said love started to subside by Spring, and ultimately Summer left me rather unsatisfied. Much like had happened with Jonathan Coe's Middle England I felt that Smith couldn't quite manage to finish with a "bang" so, to avoid finishing with a "thud", she decided to finish with something that is safe and whose vibe (though - in her defense - not its details) is largely predictable. 

Also, that should teach me about reading four books from the same author in quick succession. I had grown tired of her writing style by the end, and I really wish that hadn't happened.

The Wall - John Lanchester

 

Over the last three years I haven't become illiterate and I haven't lost the ability to connect to the internet. I just didn't update this blog, but I'll now try to make amends. Now that most of my reading is done on my iPad, and now that my iPad stays in the office on Monday and Tuesday nights I'll hopefully be able to find some time to play catch-up with the novels that I read through multiple lockdowns and the birth of my second daughter...

Over the last three years I've discovered the joys of library ebook loans. Southwark gives me some, Westminster gives me more, and, incredible as it may sound, my small Italian hometown gives me the best service of all three.

Over the last three years I've read almost all the novels from the Southwark Library that I found somewhat interesting. The Wall was something that I wouldn't have picked by its synopsis, but I decided to read it because all the John Lanchester books I had read I had found to be somewhere between "easy and cute" and "brilliant".

Over the last three years I've read a number of dystopian novels, like this one, and remained ambivalent to most of them (though this one has the advantage of making me ask myself "would I survive in a similar situation, and if so how?).

Over the last three years, dystopian novels haven't changed that much in tone. But that's probably true of dystopian novels over the last century. And in the real world the climate threat hasn't changed that much either probably, but now it feels much more real, and this novel makes it scarily so.

The Childhood of Jesus and the Schooldays of Jesus - J.M. Coetzee

Two hardcover books from the stock clearance section of the Barbican library bought for a grand total of 50p. That would be a good buy for any author, let alone someone of the calibre of Coetzee.

Both books follow the same story, and while I find certain aspects profoundly fascinating (and eerily current) I was ultimately bothered by the magic undertones of the two novels, particularly the second.

The idea of two migrants who reach the shore of an unknown country, unable to tell (or remember) anything of their previous escape, tied together despite not being father and son is an extremely compelling one. And yet the abstract discussions about letters, numbers and, ultimately, dance, are a bit too much for me to bear. In particular towards the end, where I so wouldn't have wanted to see Simon start to dance.

All the characters are full of mysteries and miseries (not just Simon and David, but everyone else too). I just wish someone was a bit plainer and a bit easier to understand...

Moses Ascending - Sam Selvon

Much like with The Lonely Londoners, I very much loved this novel, its vignettes and Selvon's propensity for the vernacular. 

It doesn't have the same significance of its predecessor, but it's arguably funnier. That said, it is really nice to see Moses's life come full circle, and the two books allowed me to understand why one of the characters in the book I talk about above is named like that.

The Lonely Londoners - Sam Selvon

Actually I take it back - over the last month or so I've read mostly books by black authors, not just a few. And The Lonely Londoners, much like Brixton Rock, deserves to be right up there.

In all honesty, I'm not quite sure why I had never even heard of Selvon, as this book is truly magnificent. Again, it's probably an easy sell for me as I love Brixton (or at least used to, when I was a pseudo-basketball player and I went there three times a week to train) and there is plenty of it, but to me the scenes with the greatest literary significance are the ones at Waterloo station, where the hopes and dreams of the recently landed clash with the acquired wisdom and shiftiness of the "old hands".

And, much like Brixton Rock, this book opened my eyes to an entirely different use of the English language and of writing dialogue.

The Ballad of Peckham Rye - Muriel Spark

My wonderful employer gives us 100£ every year to spend on books that help us do our job - I argued that for my workshops on London I need to get ideas from books set in the city. Surprisingly, this long short worked (and thanks to Amazon I now have 20 extra books or so that should see me through the summer).

The Ballad of Peckham Rye made me really happy - it's not exactly great literature, but seeing the problems caused by immigrants (Scottish and Irish) that nowadays are no longer considered immigrants was truly interesting. Disclaimer - I'm an immigrant myself, though I have British nationality now because, you know, short-sighted policies, decisions, referenda etc.

Most of all, however, the book reminded me of how I love being able to visualize the places were a novel is set, and how wackily funny life can be in South London.

Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Am I an awful human being if I write that I was expecting more from this book, given the nearly universal acclaim? I mean, it's a good book, but I'm not quite sure it's a great one.

One thing that I found a bit disappointing, for instance, is that the cultural reference points of the main characters appear either to be Western or, out of the African names, most are rather "mainstream" (Achebe, Fela Kuti, etc.). The reflections on race are interesting and poignant, but not excessively original - though that's not to downplay their importance. And, crucially, the happy ending is a bit sickening, making me react in the same way in which the cinematic version of Breakfast at Tiffany's had made me react years ago.

The sections in London and (most of the ones in) Nigeria make up for the blandness of some of the American passages, and for the sappy romanticism of the end. And probably I would have enjoyed the American parts a lot more had I not previously read Malcolm X's thoughts about styling black hair...

Youth – J.M. Coetzee

50p. Local farm bookshelves. All that.

Now, I would buy pretty much anything written by Coetzee (and pretty much anything that sells for 50p for that matter) so I couldn’t resist the temptation to buy Youth, but, objectively, this is just a very well-written story of (what was then a) fairly average young man trying to find his way in big and scary London. Sure, Coetzee writes impeccably, and the sections of the story set in the IT company at the outskirts of London have got the traits of a bizarre coming-of-age story (his nerdy  colleague who can’t feed himself is probably the best part here), but that’s about it.

All in all, its literary weight is probably inferior to that of Orwell’s Keep the Aspidistra Flying (which I found just about bearable a few months ago), but since I love Coetzee and I don’t really love Orwell, I’ll try to not say this too loudly…