Unsheltered - Barbara Kingsolver

Yet another author that I read because of my mother's recommendation (though admittedly she did win the Pulitzer, so I don't think my mom can be credited with discovering Barbara Kinsgolver!). 

Despite the fact that some of the more romanticized passages about the house and the locations of the novel bored me a bit, this was a truly pleasant read. 

Surprisingly, even the 19th century part of the plot kept me entertained, and brought to life the scientific debate of the time in a much more persuasive way than many other works of fiction. The optimism in the face of uncertainty that transpires through much of the contemporary part of the plot was at times a bit overdone for me, but hey, I acknowledge that the author might need to sell some books (and that she might feel optimistic about life in general...). 

La Quarta Versione di Giuda - Dario Ferrari

Despite being utterly fed up with detective stories, I gave this book a try because I liked La Ricreazione E' Finita so much. 

And I have to admit that Ferrari somehow managed to make me enjoy a book that is both about a murder (well, two by the end of it) and religion (there are few things I dislike as much as literary Catholic-bashing, despite being really, really, really far from being a fan of the Catholic Church). 

Perhaps it's his multiple mentions of Sciascia, or perhaps it's the fact that Ferrari's defence of the poor and oppressed doesn't feel tokenistic, but for once I am honestly glad I read an Italian crime novel (despite the fact that the citations from Borges left me rather unmoved). 

The Pilgrimage - Paulo Coelho

OK, I've only read this book because I intend to walk the Camino de Santiago this summer, and I felt like I needed to read the book that made it ever so popular among many (already outdated) new age Italian readers in the 1990s. 

I was expecting it to be bad, but damn, not this bad!

In my mind, it would offer at least some sort of inspiration (and valuable information) for someone wanting to walk the Camino, but I found more useful information in random blog posts by improbable pilgrims. 

And the search for spirituality really grows old and uninspiring from the book's jacket onwards. 

If anything, this book could have put me off from my summer walking plans, but hey, tickets are booked already...

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. 

Strong Motion - Jonathan Franzen

 

While I didn't like this book as much as The Corrections (hell, at times I think I won't ever like another 21st century American book as much as I liked The Corrections...) I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed Strong Motion and by the fact that it's not held in higher regard by critics. 

When compared to other books by Franzen, I feel that Strong Motion does religion better than Crossroads, environment better than Freedom, and historical digging better than Purity.  

At times the prose felt a bit too underdeveloped, but two passages that I felt stole the show were the initial confrontation between Reneé and reverend Stites and the crash course in the (economic) history of the United States by Louis's father. This is possibly a relatively raw and juvenile work, but really one that - in my humble opinion - deserves more attention. 

La Verita' Su Tutto - Vanni Santoni

 

I find Santoni to be one of the few beacons of light in the desolate landscape of Italian contemporary literature. He knows how to write, and he does actually have something to write about, while most other celebrated authors appear only able to do one or the other. 

That said, while this book covers a number of topics that other readers might find fascinating, I find most things related to spirituality rather uninteresting (perhaps because I have no spirit in the first place?!?). This unfortunately meant that my reactions to the book were lukewarm. 

In addition, I didn't quite understand the premise (with a journalist interviewing the main character, a device that then gets dropped and picked up apparently at random in a couple of odd places in the book) and was rather surprised to see so many pages dedicated to the initial stages of the main character's "career" and then see her meteoric rise to stardom covered (and explained) oh ever so briefly.  

Crossroads - Jonathan Franzen

  

Hmm...

I feel like I would have liked this book had it not been for the fact that it's all around a religious community. A nice grassroots lay organization with a similar structure and ethos, yes. A religious community, no. 

I'm probably just an awful human being, but hey. 

I would have probably had more time for Russ had he not been a priest, and would have probably found him less boring and petty. Also, had he not worked at a church called First Reformed, I wouldn't have pictured him as a 1970s Ethan Hawke

Indignation - Philip Roth

 

 

While desperately lacking elsewhere, the Southwark electronic library seems to have quite a few books by Roth, and so it gave me a chance to read some of his minor novels, which - in case hadn't come across from previous reviews - I generally find much, much better than Portnoy's Complaint. 

Indignation as a Jewish campus novel had at times a similar feel to passages of Auster's 4321 (minus the overambitiousness, obviously...) and for that I found it rather enjoyable. 

The problem, however, is that I find its time setting (the 1950s) rather dull and boring. Had it been set against the backdrop of the 1970s and the Vietnam War (instead of the Korean one) I would have probably appreciated it more. And another thing I struggled with was the narrator's declaration (later partially retracted) to be reporting from beyond the grave. That's where I normally suspend my suspension of disbelief, regardless of whether it's a book or a movie, just ask William Holden and his opening monologue in Sunset Boulevard for confirmation.

The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie

  

If I was to just write about this as, well, a book, I'd mention the wonderful opening scene and how it made me appreciate magical realism for the first time since I was a teenager. And then I'd talk about how that magical realism grows stale with the passing chapters. 

I'd also talk about how the novel is a sign of an author whose life and allegiance is deeply divided between countries and cultures. 

I'd also say that, ultimately, I don't consider the book a masterwork. 

Yet, one cannot talk about The Satanic Verses without talking about how the novel changed our world and, most of all, Rushdie's own world. This was true before 2022, and it has only become more true now. We are not talking about a tasteless Italian politician showing off his t-shirt with a cartoon of Muhammad. We are talking about an author who wrote (and wrote well) dream sequences in a novel, but that also happened to criticize Khomeini in the process. And we're talking about an author whose life was then turned upside-down and threatened time and again by people who most likely didn't even read his novel.

The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne

  

Being in Latin America at Christmas, surrounded by omnipresent religious references, I figured it was as good a chance as any to read The Scarlet Letter. 

As normally happens with 19th century novels, I was expecting to find it dated and hard to approach, but I was pleasantly surprised: the prose is light, the characters deep and the plot, ultimately, still highly relevant. 

Obviously, I felt that a number of passages showed too much sympathy for Dimmesdale and that it would have been so much better had this been written by a woman (you don't say!), but utimately the book was thought-provoking and current beyond my hopes and expectations.

Go Tell It on the Mountain - James Baldwin

 

Oh, the haunting beauty of James Baldwin's writing! In a year that saw the release of the wonderful If Beale Street Could Talk (which I unfortunately went to see with a friend who failed to appreciate it, probably due to its lack of car chases and superheroes) I thought it was fitting to finally read this book. 

In many ways, reminded me of Secrets and Lies transposed in a racially turbulent American East Coast. All the characters appear like good people at heart, but broken (to different extents) but the drama of daily life. The reader wishes them to have good lives, but knows that in most cases there are simply too many hurdles. It is heartbreaking, but it has love in it and, ultimately, hope. 

And, much like with Coates below, I am afraid that it still does not get read by the people who really should, like my friend with his car chases and superheroes.

Lanzarote - Michel Houellebecq

Ah, Houellebecq - sure, he's an arrogant ass who uses his real or supposed insecurities to spit venom on half of the world, but he writes so very well.

Lanzarote is the sort of book that you read during a single bus ride (or at least that's what I did, the one time I didn't run or cycle back from work this summer). Possibly because of its short size, it has way less nastiness than the other books by the same author that I've read so far. And for once, at least some of the groups that Houellebecq attacks are made up of people that I don't feel the desperate need to defend.

Add to that the fact that I believe Houellebecq picks the perfect location for this book, an almost lunar island that manages to attract hordes of tourists nonetheless, and you have a really good read for an hour or so. It won't take much longer than that, and it won't stay with you for much longer than that either, but it will allow you to overcome the boredom of being stuck on a bus in rush-hour traffic. 

East of Eden - John Steinbeck

One of the best swaps I've ever made at Alpha Books - getting rid of three paperbacks for which I had little time and getting a copy of East of Eden that at most had been flicked through by its previous owner (despite a lovely message from a friend on its first page).

I hadn't yet read this novel, despite of my passionate love for Steinbeck, because I was really rather sceptical of its biblical allegories. Granted, I could have done without that, but this book remains so very beautiful.

For me East of Eden doesn’t have the literary significance of The Grapes of Wrath, and Adam Trask cannot compete with Tom Joad (chiefly because he’s just way, way too good). However, it is not too far behind, thanks to its epic family (hi)story and, crucially, the utterly fascinating secondary characters – the evil Cathy Ames, Samuel Hamilton (who, as far as old wise men go, is really second to none), and also Charles, who I was really sorry to see disappear completely after Adam moves west.

And then there is Lee, who might be the best character Steinbeck ever created and who encapsulates so many of Steinbeck’s defining features as a writer – his dry humour, his wisdom, his awareness of the struggles of common people and their desire to do well thanks to their intelligence and skills.

Having finished the book, I really asked myself why my generation (at least in Italy) was raised thinking of Hemingway as the greatest American writer of the 20^th century…

The Black Album – Hanif Kureishi

Yet another book from the farm. Yet another 50p I’m glad to have invested. Yet another read by Hanif Kureishi that is extremely enjoyable (so much so that it led me and my mom to debate on the author’s status as one of the 20th century great British all-around intellectuals). Yet another novel that ultimately left me only half satisfied though.

The Black Album has many fascinating characters, yet, at the same time, feels immature like the protagonist. With the exception of the main character, all the others in the book appear to me to be too monolithic and simply too representative of leftist intellectualism, Muslim dogmatism or junkie desperation (delete as appropriate).

That being said, to me The Black Album is in so many ways a precursor to White Teeth, and that’s no mean feat, as the delirious interactions between characters and races, the chaotic burning of Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses (which somehow made me think of the launch of FutureMouse), and clearly the peripheral London setting kept on reminding me of Zadie Smith’s masterwork.

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”. 

A Clergyman’s Daughter – George Orwell

Another step in my quest to read all of Orwell’s novels (not because I love him or because they’re many, but because I have, well, his “complete novels”).

Orwell himself seems to have disliked A Clergyman’s Daughter, written at a time of financial difficulties and little literary inspiration. Oddly enough, I didn’t dislike it – compared to the dullness of Keep the Aspidistra Flying this was a welcome journey of self-discovery, and I did enjoy the writing (except for the chapter set in Trafalgar Square, the only one the author apparently found worth something).

This is not to say that I particularly liked the book though – I kept on thinking how (literally) miserable the hop pickers were compared to the peach pickers of Grapes of Wrath, and attacks on Christianity (despite my remarkable distance from it!) normally bore me to death, as in this case.