The Indian Clerk - David Leavitt

A book by David Leavitt and my cousins' visit managed to accomplish the impossible: they made me miss Cambridge (though a Cambridge that I've never witnessed, with Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein, fancy rooms in Trinity and semi-secret societies meeting to drink and discuss the meaning of life and the future of mankind). 

But the story of Ramanujan is obviously more than the tale of a genius and his life in Cambridge. It's the tale of his emigration, of his unfulfilled hopes and desires, of personal and institutional racism and, ultimately, of deep and profound unhappiness. 

It obviously also helps that, even after hundreds of pages of this fictionalized biography, his figure remains shrouded in mystery (actually, arguably this book adds to the mythical aura of the mathematician). 

 

A Place I’ve Never Been – David Leavitt

After months of inactivity, let’s start a recap of the books that I’ve read in the last weeks of 2017 – and let’s make a solemn promise that I’ll update the blog more frequently. Or at least that I’ll try.

A Place I’ve Never Been is a typical book from the surprising second-hand book shelves of my loyal local farm – I’m not quite sure how many people read Leavitt in the first place, but I’m surprised that the few who do decide to part from one of his good books (then again, considering it’s the second Penguin edition of a Leavitt book that I find at the farm, maybe someone local is trying to educate the masses and instead, sadly for him/her, ends up educating me).

This collection of short stories doesn’t have the same literary weight of The Secret Language of Cranes, but it’s clearly enjoyable nonetheless. The problem is that short stories are probably not Leavitt’s forte – their characters aren’t as nicely nuanced as the ones from his novels, and the stories don’t seem as deep (a fairly obvious comment for short stories, but then again writers like Alice Munro manage to really make the most out of 20 pages).

Maybe, though, I’m just a bit annoyed at the romantic portrayal of the Italian countryside and the Italian language – I outgrew it all some 15 years ago. Or maybe it just drives me mad to see the number of misspelled Italian words thrown in there – although I suspect that in the early 1990s it really was a big deal to know what a machiato (sic) was.

The Body of Jonah Boyd – David Leavitt

A book that my mom got from the BookCrossing stand in Turin airport (such a nice idea, and yet, at least in that location, so neglected…) and that she left with me after her last trip.

Having only read particularly “gay” books by Leavitt, I was surprised by how “hetero” this one was. While not of the same literary calibre of The Secret Language of Cranes, The Body of Jonah Boyd is an extremely pleasant read.

I really liked it because it’s Jewish, it’s about academia, and most of all because it’s sub-urban. Yet, I didn’t find it mind-blowing chiefly because I think books about writers are often (even if indirectly) a bit too self-congratulatory – but the title, and the fact that Jonah Boyd is not murdered and left in a ditch as I assumed (or that his body is not sculpted like that of a Greek demi-god and the subject of the desire of the author), is pure genius. 

The Lost Language of Cranes – David Leavitt

After reading The Page Turner and quickly sending it to the charity shop, I was delighted to find this book and read something of literary significance written by Leavitt.

The Lost Language of Cranes is, without a doubt, one of the best books I read in 2016. What I liked so much about it is that it can be read as a gay novel just as easily as it can be read as a novel on generational divides, family crises, and so many other things. As a pretty straight-forward heterosexual white reader, I found that I could empathize and sympathize with all the Benjamins, while I suspect that a gay audience would be – understandably – more critical of Rose.

The book allows non-gay readers to reach a better (although by no means full, clearly!) understanding of the AIDS scare of the 1980s, of the problems homosexuals face when growing up and coming out, and also of the practical and physical aspects of gay sex – my mom told me Leavitt openly declared that he wanted to educate people in his books, and The Lost Language of Cranes clearly proves this.

Also, the story made me long for New York – a city that I am afraid I won’t get to visit again for a little while, with the baby and all…

The Page Turner – David Leavitt

The random books one ends up reading when one (or one’s wife) picks up a large pile of novels primarily because they are free. My parents had been talking for years about While England Sleeps, so I figured I should give Leavitt a try.

It was an enjoyable and remarkably light read. The one issue, though, is that I really didn’t find much in the book that I could relate to: as an Italian expat with very little intention of ever going back to the country I didn’t really find anything too magic in the – rather standard – poetic and idyllic descriptions of Rome; as the stereotypical manly heterosexual man, I found little interest in the heady journey of sexual discovery of the main character; and as a spoiled only child who always got along rather well with his mother, I had very little interest in the relatively problematic relationship between the titular Page Turner and his mom.

So yeah, a good book to read on a Sunday afternoon while one is trying not to think of the state of his legs after running 18 miles (damn marathon training…), but that’s about it for me…