The Lock-Up - John Banville

 

Why did I read another John Banville detective story after being recently bitterly disappointed by a John Banville detective story? Chiefly because I think John Banville is one of the greatest contemporary writers and wanted to give him another chance, and because I am almost out of readable titles from the Southwark eLibrary. 

Sadly, if at all possible, I enjoyed The Lock-Up even less than I enjoyed Snow. The reason for that is essentially that, in this one, in addition to the eternally meddling Catholic church (duh) the reader also gets a wonderful peek into the world of former German Nazis and their dodgy collaborations with a state of Israel in its infancy. 

And as a matter of fact, a couple of weeks after finishing this book I don't remember much about it, other than the general feeling of "duh-ness"...

John Henry Days - Colson Whitehead

  

I find it funny that the Franzen quote on the cover of this book is actually an extract from a review in which he states that "John Henry Days is funny and wise and sumptuously written, but it's only rarely a page turner" (thanks Wikipedia!). I do realize it happens all the time, but still. 

But I actually liked John Henry Days in full and with few reservations: it might not be Whitehead's best book, but it deals with the American folk stories that I liked since seeing Disney's Johnny Appleseed as a child, offers some deep reflections on American society, but also the world of mass media and the ultimate, profound, loneliness of some people. 

Oddly enough, I did consider it a page turner at the end of the day.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh

If only the student who gave me this book as a Christmas present had submitted an essay all year (though he actually was one of the best students I've ever had, and I hope he got his act together for his exam!).

Despite taking place mostly in the narrator's own flat, this book is so clearly a "New York book". The plot is so disturbingly believable that I wondered whether the author hadn't gone through similar periods herself (maybe not quite a year's worth of drugged up oblivion, but a few weeks).

It's very well-written and (in a twisted way, obviously) pleasant. Yet it raises so many questions about our society, access to medicines, self-medication, depression etc., and a number of the answers are fairly cringeworthy...

Il Buio e il Miele – Giovanni Arpino

Disclaimer, big, huge disclaimer: Scent of a Woman is an average remake of a great Italian movie (Profumo di Donna) taken from a wonderful novel by Giovanni Arpino, an often overlooked writer from my little town in Northern Italy.

The book is an incredibly touching portrayal of the loneliness of its blind protagonist. At first I struggled to feel sympathy for him, probably because he is a soldier, and that is something that is really prominent in the first half of the novel. Yet, with every stop of the train that he is taking from Turin to Naples, I grew to like him more and more. By the end of the book, Fausto is just a normal man, with his huge insecurities and his understandable unhappiness.

Why more people don’t read Arpino is beyond me. But then again, why more people don’t read is, in the first place, beyond me...

The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway

The book which gave Hemingway his Nobel and for which most people nowadays seem to remember him (sigh!). I am afraid that’s because it’s really a rather easy book, in particular if compared to pretty much all his other works.

Yes, one is bound to empathize with Santiago and with his struggle, but isn’t this metaphor of life just a bit overdone? The perennial fight between man and nature, with man on the losing end but still hoping, is just not particularly attractive to me. The images of the bloody battle between the fisherman and the fish (and later the sharks) are a reflection of the macho Hemingway that I am not particularly fond of. But at least the book is set in romantic Cuba, although if that’s the greatest compliment I can find for a novel that won the Pulitzer Prize (while I can find plenty of praise for a book trashed by critics like Across the River and into the Trees) maybe there is something wrong with me…

Il Deserto dei Tartari – Dino Buzzati

On a bizarre camper holiday, my then-10 year old cousin (a really avid reader, at least back then) ran out of books and borrowed this from his rather surprised mom. He found it really, really sad. I don’t think my comments can be any more insightful, although I seriously don’t think I would have been able to read this classic of Italian literature when I was 10, I was sufficiently emotionally drained when I read it as a 25-year old.

The book is about a soldier’s wait for a long-promised attack to his fortress by the Tartars. Except that the attack never comes. And he waits. And the reader waits with him. I am often surprised by how great writers can draw up masterpieces from simple stories in which little happens, but Il Deserto dei Tartari takes this to an entirely new level – 80% of the book is just about the desolating wait of the main character, Drogo, and yet it keeps the reader’s interest very much alive.

And forget about Drogo’s final deep thoughts, I wanted him to fight the Tartars – winning or losing didn’t matter much, I wanted him to fight, and I am a relatively committed pacifist...