Tutta la Vita che Resta - Roberta Recchia

 

One of the Italian books that I just have to read every now and again. Melodramatic to the ninth degree - with somehow managed crisis after somehow managed crisis and the very occasional brief interlude of something resembling calm. 

Yet, this is not the utterly unbearable A Little Life. I actually got to feel something for the characters, and in all this drama I didn't think that the author was simply riding on the readers' emotions (and their manipulation), but was actually telling a genuinely compelling story and touching on a variety of themes with skills. 

Obviously, a number of plot twists were rather predictable - ranging from the family eventually finding a way to patch things up, to the solution of the initial crime, to the disappearance of central yet ultimately expendable characters. Still, this remain a book that I enjoyed way more than what I had expected.  

McGlue - Ottessa Moshfegh

The other day I thought of the student who many years ago gave me My Year of Rest and Relaxation and decided to read the other Moshfegh books I could get my hands on. Obviously, I couldn't find them in my London libraries, so I had to read them in translation (and in doing so I discovered that Moshfegh's translator is a lady I had met years ago at a literary festival). 

McGlue ended up being easily my least favourite novel. Despite being short (it can actually be labelled a novella) it took me a while to finish it, in part because of the rambling nature of the prose (I had as much interest in this fictional alcoholic ramblings as I have in the real ramblings of the local alcoholics on the Thames Path), in part because I really had no interest in discovering whether McGlue killed his friend or not (the exploration of their relationship came in way too late for me to actually care about the murdered). 

And ultimately - sadly - it really didn't matter to me whether McGlue would spend his life in a cell or get executed. Partly, perhaps, because it doesn't matter to him (and that makes the novel a hard sell, at least for me). 

The Little Friend - Donna Tartt

 

It took me about a month to read this book. In part because of its fairly imposing size, but mostly because the book is full of snakes. Literally to the brim. And if my phobic self had realized that before the start, I wouldn't have even started this novel...

Yet, I enjoyed it more than The Goldfinch. It's a bit of a 21st century Stand By Me with a hint of To Kill a Mockingbird, detailing the stories that children tell themselves to explain events around them, the risks that they obliviously run and their first experiences of love or something resembling that. 

Needless to say, though, it's not exactly the kind of novel that makes me want to visit rural Mississippi anytime soon, and not just (though mostly) because of the snakes. 

Murder Before Evensong - Richard Coles

 

Well, I guess that if I must read a run-of-the-mill crime novel every now and again (and whether I like it or not, every now and again I do have to do that...), I might as well read something by an author that I find to be at least an interesting person.

Murder Before Evensong is a well-mannered novel by someone who comes across as a well-mannered clergyman and decades ago came across as a well-mannered pop musician. It's not going to rock anyone's world, but at the very least it did not upset me as much as John Banville's crime stories mixing rural life, religion and aristocracy. 

Also, obviously, being Richard Coles, his treatment of marginalized groups (being them queer or gypsies) is really rather delicate. And the novel has enough references to pop culture to be palatable for me. 

Last Night in Twister River - John Irving

 

Reading three hefty books by the same author over the span of a couple of months is too much, and it's probably partly because of that that Last Night in Twisted River is my least favourite John Irving book so far. 

In part, it's also because the main character (Danny) is ultimately quite dull if compared to the plethora of interesting people he is surrounded by (obviously his dad and Ketchum, but also Six-pack Pam, Jane, and his mother). He's an observer, overly-attached to his father, and doesn't really seem particularly able to take decisions and make things happen (rather, things happen to him). 

Also, I didn't quite buy into his becoming a great writer - too much of his writing is too auto-biographical and not inventive enough to suggest that he's someone who can encounter worldwide success. In addition, once the "cowboy" finds the two Baciagalupo, the story immediately loses momentum, and the long wait for Lady Sky is not enough to prop up multiple flat chapters. 

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"...

Perspective(s) - Laurent Binet

My boss gave me this book as she believes I can read French well and easily. That's a lie, at least partially. It had been years since I had last read anything more than a page in the language, and being able to read a whole book was a great ego-boost. Sure, being familiar with the setting helped, but I’m still rather happy to have read a whole novel in my (non-existing) fourth language.

Before moving on to what I liked about it, let me mention two things that I wasn’t entirely sold on, in the most classic of “feedback sandwiches”.

1. The premise: I cannot suspend my belief enough to buy into the author finding these letters in an antiques shop. They wouldn’t be just “yellowed” with time, they would be falling to pieces. They also wouldn’t offer so complete an account (also: what conspirators save their entire correspondence?!?). I do realize it’s a bit unfair of me to compare a good book like this one to one of the greatest works of the 20th century, but in Il Nome della Rosa Umberto Eco frames everything so much better, openly admitting that he had to do a lot of further research and put in much guesswork in order to fill the huge gaps left by the sources he had stumbled upon.

2. Anachronisms: a lot of things went over my head because my French is what it is, but at times I felt like 16th century Italians wouldn’t really talk/write like that. Often this was just a feeling of mine, but at times it felt more tangible (like when Maria writes that she wouldn’t want to run away from Florence like a “bohémienne”)

Having said that, I loved the characterization of Vasari. I find him unlikeable, but he steals the show. And the many snide comments about other artists perfectly highlight how he (and his biases – positive and negative) influenced the way in which I, and the world in general, think about the art of the period. Michelangelo is the one I could have done without, as I think it’s a bit of an easy escamotage to have the most known name in the story act as the Deus ex machina pretty much raiding Florence from Rome.

The book’s biggest success for me is the way in which it made me long for Florence. It perfectly captures the spirit of the city (and often of the time) in what is probably the most sincere declaration of literary love for the Italian Renaissance that I’ve come across since reading Ali Smith’s How To Be Both almost a decade ago.

Snow - John Banville

 

Running out of readable ebooks on the Southwark libraries app (add some new decent titles, please!) I decided to give Banville's attempt to write a detective story a go. 

And I spent most of my time thinking (and sometimes saying aloud) "John Banville, come on, since when have you become a banal author reverting to all the most obvious plot twists used in airport paperbacks?!?". 

Seriously, rarely a writer has disappointed me as much as Banville did with this book. It had them all: the detective with the troubled love life, the manipulated and mentally unstable black sheep of the family, the abusive Catholic priests (I'm really, really far from being even just remotely a fan of the Catholic Church, but this is one of the three easiest and most annoying tropes around), etc. 

And not a single actual surprising moment through the book. Never. 

Solar - Ian McEwan

  

I much prefer McEwan doing "science" (or thereabouts) like in this book than him doing sci-fi like in Machines Like Me, but that's not saying much. 

Solar wasn't a bad read, but I have the feeling it's already aged quite a bit over the span of a dozen years. The main driving force behind it shouldn't be the personal life of its main character (which is not as interesting as that of a number of his other characters), but rather its scientific approach, which in 2022/3 already feels quite dated. 

And the finale, with the chickens coming home to roost isn't really the most surprising.

Ohio - Stephen Markley

 

Gotta love a big chunky novel about suburban America. Actually you don't have to, but I do. Actually, so few people do that the only way for me to get an electronic copy of this book was by borrowing it from my Italian e-library (arguably better stocked than the London ones) and read it in translation. 

Ohio was a great read, suggested by my mum, to whom it was suggested by one of my closest friends (why didn't he suggest it to me in the first place, who knows!). It's well-written, depressing but witty, and ultimately a very interesting portrait of the American mid-West in a community taken over by narcotics and general socio-economic malaise. 

It's also a bit too much. Every page is extremely intense. The parallel plots are one too many, as is the number of chapters. And literally there doesn't appear to be many major characters that are both alive and mentally stable human beings by the end of the book. For the sake of the people of Ohio, I hope their lives are generally a bit simpler than this.

The Thursday Murder Club - Richard Osman

  

Yes, I occasionally read contemporary best-sellers. They have their positives in general, chief among them they are so very easy to read. And this one has a positive in particular: I find its authors really extremely funny. 

As for the book, it was entertaining enough and funny enough, but nothing more. I guess I've been around - or heard my mom tell stories of - enough old-people homes and communities to be largely inocluated against these "endearing elderly". Even if they were belieavable, I surely wouldn't find them likeable. 

The one character I honestly do find endearing is Bogdan. Who would have thought: hard-working European builder who moved to the country ages ago and still feels like an outsider, and I liked him eh...

La Ferocia - Nicola Lagioia

  

Well, let's be honest: I was bound to hate this book and to find reasons to hate it from the start, as I first heard it mentioned on the pointlessly pretentious podcast of a kid from my hometown, who was salivating at the thought of Lagioia's talent with words. 

Yes, Lagioia writes well. Yes, Lagioia knows it. But does he need to remind the reader about it with countless pages of heavy-handed metaphors? 

This book left me with nothing. I would have probably liked the story had it been written by someone not so completely in love with himself. Instead, I only have very vague recollections of the plot. 

Yet, I'm sure there'll be plenty of people who'll praise this novel because they feel like they have to. And the wonderful local podcaster is probably one of those. Here's to you "Radical Nik", may the world of vanity publishing allow you to establish yourself as the great author you are (but possibly next time you compare yourself to Don DeLillo, do it with a bit of irony...)!

The Long Goodbye - Raymond Chandler

In all honesty I was biased against this novel before even starting it: after reading quite a lot of Chandler, I had had enough of him and with how cool Marlowe finds himself, but I did like the movie (though many didn't!) and needed something reasonably long and reasonably light to carry with me to the hospital as my wife delivered baby numero dos. Yes, because that happened too...

Unsurprisingly, I didn't particularly like the book, but the setting remains one that I enjoy (though I'd pick an LA novel by Ellroy any day over this one!). The biggest surprises were in the differences with the movie, but I never really got into the plot, and that's partly due to the little time that I have for Marlowe and to the fact that I was quite on the sleep-deprived side of things those days!
 

All in all, though, it was oddly enough the perfect read for uncomfortable nights on uncomfortable hospital chairs!

Eileen - Ottessa Moshfegh

Had it not been for a former student, I never would have known who Ottessa Moshfegh was. Instead I saw this book selling for 50p at the local farm, and immediately made it mine. Now it has been sold to Skoob (the secondhand bookshop in Russell Square) for 50p as it didn't quite make it as one of the 283 novels I have space for in my living room. The circle of life applied to books!

This was one of the most disturbing (if not the single most disturbing) reads of the year, one in which you know from the start that things are going to go so darkly wrong. Kind of like watching Fargo. 

I can absolutely see why Moshfegh is hailed as one of the best young American novelists, though I think that My Year of Rest and Relaxation deserves more praise, but that may have to do with the even more bizarre plot.

London Fields - Martin Amis

Another of those books that remained on my bookshelf for century because of their intimidating size. And another that I thoroughly enjoyed in the end.

I have to say I was actually kind of happy to find out that London Fields was not actually set in London Fields, as I struggle a fair bit with how fashionable the "hipsterland" between North and East London is.

The premise of the novel (a narrator, a murderer, a murderee and a foil) is genial, at least in my humble opinion. The prose is virtually flawless, and some passages might be among the best in recent British literature.

Sure, Nicola Six is an improbable character (to say the least!), and I could have done without the dystopian elements (not quite sure whether they really need to be there, to be honest), but London Fields remains a great book.



The Talented Mr Ripley - Patricia Highsmith

The fact that it took me almost a month to read this book is a sad representation of how little I am reading these days. But it will change over the summer, I promise! And then child number 2 will make me nearly completely illiterate, but there's still time for that as the due date is December 5th...

The Talented Mr Ripley is an absolute delight despite the fact that it's quite dated and, can one say "Orientalist" in its depiction of Italy? There are pretty laughable mistakes in the Italian sentences, the stereotypical descriptions are a bit over the top at times, and the depiction of Italian society is a bit superficial at the very least...

Yet the book is compelling, the reader wants Ripley to escape justice and have a half-decent life, and one is bound to think about how easily he would get discovered in the 21st century...

The Dressmaker - Beryl Bainbridge

I've read too many books by McEwan, Greene (I'm afraid), and possibly even Paul Auster - somehow I still haven't had enough of Beryl Bainbridge.

The Dressmaker is probably her most famous work, and at the start that I just found its oppressive atmosphere a bit too oppressive. As the love story between Rita and "her" soldier takes off alongside her illusions and self-deceptions though, so does the book.

Much like with every Bainbridge novel, the reader braces him/herself from the start for what is bound to be a dramatically twisted end. And much like with every Bainbridge novel, no matter how prepared I thought I was, the last few pages still caught me off guard.

The Map and the Territory - Michel Houellebecq

The first book I've read since re-discovering LSE's Shaw Library, of which I'm probably the only user right now (between the fact that term has ended that the fact that, well, nobody really reads anyway).

Having never read any Houellebecq I knew that I had to give him a chance at some point. I was biased before the start, knowing that he's an arrogant reactionary ass, and with this book I discovered that he is all that, but also a genius.

It takes a boundless ego to put oneself as a larger-than-life secondary character whose aura can be perceived across the entire novel like Darth Vader's presence can be felt on the Death Star, and I think he had the time of his life describing the aftermath of his own murder, but the book is surprisingly deep in its reflections on the ageing process, in its handling of love, and crucially in its poignant descriptions of the art world (and the opening with Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst is just so incredibly good).

A Universal History of Infamy - Jorge Luis Borges

At a time when I had virtually no books left to read at home, I started going back to my wonderful Meridiani (a collection of books presenting the complete, or at least the best, works of hundreds of authors in finely printed volumes) and picked up Borges.

Having only read a few of his short stories years ago (and having been left relatively unimpressed) I was happy to give him another chance, and so went for what is apparently considered as the first work of magical realism.

The short stories are curious and gripping, and knowing some of the characters discussed makes them more interesting. In the end I liked the book a lot more than I had expected, so much so that I decided to read another Borges straight afterwards - however, I limped through the first short story of the following book (The Aleph) and decided to put it back on the shelf, where it will probably remain for quite a while.

The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky

And finally here we are, the book that stayed with me for pretty much a month! In the words of Coldplay “Nobody said it was easy”, but it was in the end so very worth it. I honestly thought this was going to be one of those books that I would read just for the sake of saying that I have done so, but I was wrong.

The Brothers Karamazov ended up being way less philosophical than what I was fearing and just plain enjoyable – every single character is interesting, deep, and troubled in his/her own way and the fact that some of their ideas and feelings remain hidden for hundreds of pages adds to the interest of the novel. Well, I said every single character is interesting, but I actually meant “almost every single character” as I found Alyosha to be simply too saintly (even more so than his own spiritual father).

Maybe I’m just reading too much into it, but since there is a break in the narrative as Karamazov Sr gets killed (sorry for the spoiler, but also my own Wordsworth Classics edition mentioned the event on its back-cover!) are we sure that Dimitri is ultimately innocent and that Smerdyakov did the deed? I mean, can we really trust Smerdyakov’s own confession? Possibly I’m the one who’s being too philosophical now…

And again, speaking of me reading a bit too much into it, I actually wonder whether the fairly open finale means that Dostoevsky actually thought that at some point he might write something on the lives of the Karamazovs and their women after Dimitri’s “departure”.