Platform - Michel Houellebecq

After giving Houellebecq a chance and loving The Map and the Territory I stole my mom’s copy of Platform (a rather atypical 50p buy from the family-friendly local farm). And it was just a bit too much.

I don’t think I’m too much of straight do-gooder, and I’m often rather cynical, but after reading about the protagonist’s 400^th blowjob I just lost interest. The exploitation of the sexual potential of the Far East was intriguing, the terrorist attack brutal and the reaction to it interesting even if completely politically incorrect, but the constant references to sex were just plain boring after a while.

Then again, maybe I would have enjoyed it more as a horny teenager (though at the same time it makes me wonder how many men in their 50s have the sort of stamina of the protagonist – I surely won’t…).

Sabrina - Nick Drnaso

A few weeks ago, IKEA in Wembley was giving out one free book from the 2018 longlist for the Booker Prize to its customers. I was happy to force my wife, her brother and his girlfriend to make it all the way there to get four free hardcover books that would have otherwise cost £64 (disclaimer – we were already in Green Park and my wife wanted to go to IKEA anyway, so it wasn’t that crazy…).

Of the four books, Sabrina was the only one that I had heard of before, given the attention that the press gave to the first graphic novel to be longlisted for the prize (attention here being really rather relative, as the mainstream press doesn’t really care that much about the longlist for the Booker, or literature in general).

At the cost of spoiling it for the readers, it was a huge relief to finish the book to realize that the build-up made of conspiracies and fake news did not result in further deaths. While the alienation and the agony of the novel make it a really good book, their continuous presence (for me) prevent it from being a great book – I really could have done with an occasional page of light relief.

Also, the stylized drawings are visually really pleasing, but am I the only one who found himself confused by characters that looked rather similar (though I suppose that was something done intentionally)?

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…