Il Visconte Dimezzato – Italo Calvino

My second favourite novel from Calvino’s Ancestors trilogy. I read it as a 13 year old who struggled to find any stimulus in literature, strongly pushed by my dad, much like he had been at the same age (and with the same set of books) by his best friend.

I’ve always thought, and I still do, that I didn’t really read the book the way it was meant to be read. Not liking allegoric and metaphoric works, I just read the novel as a funny short story about a viscount whose body gets split by a cannon ball and whose two halves have very different personalities.

I wonder how I would feel about re-reading the book now, and I also wonder whether I should have read all of Calvino’s books (in particular the ones I didn’t particularly like) using the approach highlighted above, since it definitely seemed to work.  

Gli Indifferenti – Alberto Moravia

Much like the title suggests, this book has left me completely indifferent. The novel reads like a bad (very bad) soap opera: characters despise each other, pathetically fail to kill each other, pretend (very poorly) to love each other etc. For once, a book set in Fascist Italy that I didn’t like. Actually, not just that: a book whose point (assuming there was one) I completely missed.

Somehow Gli Indifferenti is considered one of the great classics of Italian 20^th century literature. Why? I don’t know. If it is, like many critics claim, an acute portrayal of the hypocrisies and problems of the Italian society of the time, I missed it because I was bored to death… Luckily, this is a book that is frequently taught in Italian high-schools, I suspect they are just trying to make sure that those few students who actually enjoy reading end up having any sort of passion for literature beaten out of them at an early age.

Transmission – Hari Kunzru

The third Kunzru novel I’ve read, something considerably more light-hearted than My Revolutions but still really enjoyable. Both in literally and touristic terms, I’ve never really felt the pull of the Indian subcontinent with its charm and its mysteries – yet this book, split between India, the US and the UK, made me reconsider that.

Arjun, the novel’s main character, is so adorably ill-equipped to face the world that you just want to reach out to him through the pages and hug him. Most people who have left home to find work have probably faced some similar misadventures (I surely have) – but probably very few have had so many. The ease with which Kunzru portrays the challenges of life in India, in the UK, and in the USA are probably a reflection of his own life experiences between the three countries (and continents)

Many have tried to write modern love stories in the internet age, but very few have done it with the light touch of Kunzru, who in many ways also preceded the writers of The Big Bang Theory (seriously, some traits of Arjun’s personality really remind of Raj).

Quer Pasticciaccio Brutto de Via Merulana – Carlo Emilio Gadda

This book was a Christmas gift from a friend – a gift that stupidly remained unread for a couple of years too many. Reading it was undeniably hard work (something best done with a good dictionary next to you), but it was also definitely worth it. Again, a book set in the Fascist era, although one that isn’t really about Fascism. Again, a book about Rome and the city’s unique people. Again, a mysteriously intricate story and a pretty cool investigator to try to make sense of it all.

I have already mentioned my love for unfinished works of art – even better if they are left intentionally unfinished (which actually raises all kinds of questions about whether they are actually finished or not, I know) – and Gadda’s book is definitely no exception. And the different registers and styles that Gadda uses show a kind of virtuosity that I have never seen in any other novel and, even if just because of that, everyone should read this book.

Post Office – Charles Bukowski

A couple of supposedly angry girls in my high-school class read something by Bukowski and boldly declared him the greatest writer of the 20^th century. For their own sake, I hope that they were saying that because it was cool to do so – if they actually believed what they said they were either fairly dumb or awfully misguided (or both?!?).

I think post-men are awesome literally characters (just ask Skármeta!), but Chinaski’s adventures and miseries are just boring and, well, miserable – not to mention not particularly well written. He likes to get laid, and he likes to drink. He likes to play tough and he ends up on the losing end of life’s battles. That’s as much as I remember from this book. I have read plenty of other books in which characters do pretty much the same things and I often find those novels really good. This one, however, just isn’t.