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.  

Gli Interessi in Comune - Vanni Santoni

  

I normally don't even smile at books whose covers promise to make you "laugh out loud". Gli Interessi in Comune didn't make such promises, but it was without a doubt the funniest book I've read in years. 

The title already encapsulates what the book is about; vignettes from a group of friends who share common interests: Magic: the Gathering (because they are nerds after all), loitering at the local bar and, most of all, an almost academic research into all possible drugs - legal or not. 

My wife was surprised to hear me laugh by myself every 5 minutes as I was reading this book, and so was I. Yet, this is not just a funny book, it's surprisingly deep and it offers and insight into the "normal" lives of the characters outside of their psychedelic loops. And much like in Trainspotting, a lot of these druggies turn up alright in the end, though a fair few of them don't. And I still struggle to believe that someone could pull a book like this out of the Tuscan province.

I Fratelli Michelangelo - Vanni Santoni

 

 

Apparently there are still authors in Italy who a) know how to write, b) have something to say, c) don't spend every other page congratulating themselves for being "oh so very good and look how elaborate are my metaphors" (more on that, and on Nicola Lagioia, later). Seriosuly, the overlap between a) b) and c) is really rather minimal.

This is a book that my wise mother suggested, and it was - as often happens - a really good piece of advice. At the time I hadn't read such an enjoyable Italian book since Piperno's Il Fuoco Amico dei Ricordi, and I Fratelli Michelangelo might be partially responsible for my decision to have a road trip of sorts around Tuscany with my family in a few weeks.

I loved it because of the depth of the characters and the breadth of interests that Santoni quite clearly has, but it's also a book written by an author who is still a bit raw, or at least someone who quite clearly didn't know how to end an ohterwise remarkable novel. 

Then again, when I was young an Italian rap band used to sing "who cares about being Zucchero [Italian singer with raspy voice, btw] when Joe Cocker is already around?", and one can definitely ask the same in this case: is there a point to a novel like this, when Franzen wrote The Corrections way before? I'd say there is, but plenty of people would probably disagree.