***REGION 23: Europe V

If you have not read the information on the master thread regarding the intent of these regional threads, please do this first.

***23. Europe V: Italy, Vatican City, San Marino, Malta

Six Characters in Search of an Author and Henry IV by Luigi Pirandello

I hadn't heard of Pirandello before this year; he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934 and I imagine him as a kind of Existentialist-before-Existentialism. Both of these plays blew me away. In Six Characters... a family seeks out a writer and a venue for their tragic story to be told on stage, and they then help in its preparation. They have trouble believing the authenticity of their own actions as they unfold on stage, and argue questions of right and wrong that all seem very relative to individual perspectives.

Henry IV is about a guy who fell off a horse while doing a Medieval reenactment and woke up believing he was Henry IV. His wealthy relative created a world in which he could go on living in his fantasy. Decades later, his former-lover, a psychologist, his relative and a few other friends come to visit him and try one last time to wake him up from his madness.

I love both these books and was extremely moved by Pirandello's portraits of individuals and his rather dark perspective on mankind and human interaction. There was an interesting anecdote in the introduction to Six Characters... about how Einstein saw one of his plays and approached the author afterward, saying that he felt they were kindred spirits. I'm looking forward to reading some of his novels next year.

I'm also on the hunt for other inspiring Italian books...I'm about to read Cesare Pavese's La luna e i falò and hope to enjoy it...

ITALY/FRANCE

The Law by Roger Vaillard

I'm not sure I can do this little gem of a novel justice. It's the story of life in a small village in Apulia, 'that wild, remote heel of the Italian peninsula.' It proceeds at a leisurely, meandering pace, yet each paragraph and each section fit as perfectly within the book as pieces fit within a jigsaw puzzle: I can't imagine any other way to have put it together.

The book is funny and, at times, a little sad. It centers around Marietta, who on the verge of womanhood, inspires lust in all the men in the village. Several old lechers argue among themselves about who will 'take' her virginity. I'm happy to report that Marietta outsmarts them all, in more ways than one.

The plot involves 500,000 lira that was stolen from some Swedish tourists. The Judge, Allesandro, is getting pressure from above to solve the case, but is stuck with a corrupt and lazy police chief. The Judge's beautiful wife, Dona Lucrezia, meanwhile, is secretly in love with Francesco, a naive young student, who is the son of one of the 'capos' in town. However, this is not a mystery novel, but a novel of characters, and these characters and others charm, enchant and amuse us. Vaillard brings this small village at a time shortly after the end of World War II to vivid life.

And, then there's the sinister game of 'The Law,' which is apparently played in the bars and taverns of Southern Italy, and which in this case motivates some of the characters to take the actions they do, and in other cases serves to illustrate their true nature.

The New York Times said that this book deserves every reading it will get, and I agree

(Vaillard is a French author, but this book clearly relates to Italy.)

ITALY

La luna e i falò (The Moon and the Bonfires)--Cesare Pavese

This book is about a man nicknamed Anguilla who left his small, impoverished town in Piedmont to travel and see the world, ending up in California. About twenty years later, he returns to his hometown and meets some old friends and acquaintances, observing how life has unfolded in the place where he spent his childhood. He spends a lot of time talking with his friend and former mentor, Nuto, who has stayed in town and established himself as the head of a family and a land owner. Both men share rather gloomy outlooks on the world and mankind, and I enjoyed reading their interactions. I thought it was a remarkable depiction of small town life, and the descriptions of the rolling hills, vineyards and plant life of northern Italy made me want to visit that part of the world. The story is set in the years immediately after WWII, and I also enjoyed reading about the war's effect on a rural Italian community.

Italy:. Geschiedenis van mijn puurheid / (Storia della mia purezza) by Francesco Pacifico - 4 stars

This book tells the story of the young Italian Piero Rosini who became extremely catholic in his early twenties. He and his wife now lead an exemplary life (or like to think so), leaving behind their sinful habits and friends. Leading an exemplary life however is not as easy as it seems and when he's struck by the beauty of his prude sister-in-law, the ghost is out of the bottle. Piero finds it more and more difficult to sustain the catholic way of living and somewhat flees to Paris where he's faced with even more challenges. When he befriends a jewish girl and her uncle, his antisemitic ideas cannot stand the test of reality either.
This is a humorous, often sarcastic, biting novel about the dichotomy of life having to chose between being exemplary or human. There's more to this book than I can tell in this brief review, but it's a whirlwind of a book, forcing you to think about some major issues of life.

Italy: XY by Sandro Veronesi - 4,5 stars


This is a fascinating book (published in Italy in 2010 and already translated to Dutch) and probably one of the better reads for me this year. The book starts off with what seems to be the setting of a detective-novel: a group of people is found brutally murdered in the woods near a small and remote hamlet in the Italian dolomites. The eyes of the world turn to the small community that is shocked and desperate about what has happened.
The story is told by two protagonists, a priest who wants to help his flock and wants to overcome the madness and insanity that slowly creeps in and a young psycho-analist who has left her overpowering boyfriend and wants to help the priest to cure the community. Despite their noble efforts, things evolve differently than expected.
This might have been a corny story with the traditional contrast between man-woman, faith-reason, old-young, city-hamlet, etc. It is not. Instead it is a very delicate, gentle, sensitive, thoughtful yet sometimes humorous, multi-layered story in which there's plenty of room for insightful thoughts and imagination.

I won't give away much more about the plot. However, I highly recommend this to anyone who slightly shares my reading-tastes.

Italy: In de ban van mijn vader (The Force of the Past) by Sandro Veronesi - 4,5 stars

Sandro Veronesi is rapidly becoming one of my favourite authors. I like the themes he chooses for his books and in combination with his fluent, unique style, his books are a joy to read. In The Force of the Past an author of children's books meets a man who claims his father was not the rather right-winged Italian gentleman he used to think but a Russian KGB-spy. He has a very hard time believing this. But as his insecurity grows, he realizes other people have secrets as well and are not who they seem.
This is a book which one may read on an entertaining level: "man finds out his father is a KGB-spy", but on a deeper level, it deals with the importance and the relevance of identity. The stream of consciousness towards the end of the book was magnificent, the way in which Veronesi is able to portray the insecurities, anger, disappointment etc. of the main character is impressive.

Italy: Kalme chaos / (Quiet Chaos) by Sandro Veronesi - 4,5 stars

This is the third book by Veronesi I've read and it's the third one that ended up on my list of favourites. What's even more surprising is that they're all very different and I'm not able to choose a "favourite of favourites".
Quiet Chaos starts with the main character Pietro Paladini and his brother rescueing two women from drowning while Pietro's wife dies of an aneurysma. In order to protect his 10-year old daughter from grief, he decides to stay near her all day when she starts school again. The next day he decides to wait before her school again. What starts as a temporary measure, becomes a habit and Pietro Paladini stays there for months on end. While waiting there, Paladini gets to know the people in the neighbourhood. His colleagues, friends and family come to visit, ask advice, quarrel, share their problems. While the world is moving on, Pietro stays in front of the school and sees the world pass by.
I really like the mix of deep, fragile, poetic insights with the mild and absurd humour, the way in which Veronesi portrays his characters and the ease with which he's able to convey feelings of loss, tenderness, despair, love, empathy.
Needless to say, this one is highly recommended.

Italy: Van acquit (L'acchito) door Pietro Grossi - 3 stars

This is a short and simple story of a man who's working on cobblestone-roads, plays billiards and is happy with his wife planning trips they never make. But then his life changes when the cobblestone-roads are replaced by asphalt, he wins a billiards-tournament and his wife is pregnant. But then something else happens that change his life forever.
I'm not sure what to think of this story. It may have a deeper meaning, but I thought it was a somewhat depressing novella that did not lead to anything. But then, that might me my literary blind spot I seem to have towards some books that are widely acclaimed to be literary...

65. From the Land of the Moon by Milena Agus

From the Land of the Moon is a beautifully written ode to love. Love in all its manifestations: infatuation, lust, married conviviality, familial caring, patriotism, even an all-consuming passion for music. And it’s a story about the consequences of love’s absence, the desperate desire to fill the void with something: sex, kindness, even a lonely sort of madness.

And she stayed at his pace, her beautiful fur-lined shoes in step with those ugly ones of grandfather’s, because she wasn’t angry with him—on the contrary, she was so sorry she didn’t love him. She was so sorry, and it pained her, and she wondered why God, when it comes to love, which is the principal thing, organizes things in such a ridiculous way: where you can do every possible and imaginable kindness, and there’s no way to make it happen, and you might even be mean, as she was now, not even lending him her scarf, and yet he followed her through the snow, half frozen, missing the chance, lover of food that he was, to eat the local potato ravioli and porchetto on the spit. During the trip home she was so sorry that in the darkness of the bus she leaned her head on his shoulder and sighed, as if to say “Ah well.”

Grandmother, the only name by which we know the main character, has suffered greatly for love and lack of love. Her parents beat her for failing to catch a husband, her eventual husband loves only the perverse sexual pleasure she can give him, and the one true love of her life is an elusive, ephemeral encounter that lingers unseen in her mind. She worries that there is something about her that causes love to flee, even as she stretches her hands for it. Her granddaughter thinks that perhaps there is a reason:

If at night we sleep without nightmares, if papa and mamma’s marriage has always been free of bumps, if I’m getting married to my first boyfriend, if we don’t have panic attacks and don’t try to kill ourselves, or throw ourselves into garbage bins, or slash ourselves, it’s thanks to grandmother, who paid for everyone. In every family there’s someone who pays the tribute, so that the balance between order and disorder is maintained and the world doesn’t come to a halt.

Milena Agus is a wonderful writer capable of capturing the longing for love that is fundamental to human relationships and turning it into a delicately woven story reminiscent of a folk tale. I would never have guessed that this was a first novel, and I fervently hope it is not her last.

ITALY

I Was an Elephant Salesman: Adventures between Dakar, Paris, and Milan by Pap Khouma
Originally published in Italian in 1990; English translation 2010.

Note: I am posting this here, as well as in the thread that includes Senegal, because it mostly takes place in Italy, and was written in Italian, even though it is by a Senegalese author (who is now a naturalized Italian).

This autobiographical novel takes the reader on a journey with the narrator from his home in Senegal, where he studied pottery, despite this being considered inappropriate for someone with his traditional family background, but then followed some cousins to the Ivory Coast, where he first started selling trinkets to tourists, and finally to Italy, en route, he thought, to Germany where a Senagalese fortune teller told him he should go. Through Khouma's first person tale, the reader experiences the hectic pace of the illegal immigrant's life. Even when he is not traveling to Paris, trying and failing to get into Germany, having difficulty getting back into Italy, returning briefly to Senegal, and then coming back to Italy, he is on the go: trying to buy the elephant sculptures, jewelry, shirts, and other objects; traveling to beaches and cafés and metro stations to sell them; searching for places to live that are cheap and safe; moving from town to town to find customers and escape the police. It is a hard, difficult, dangerous life, especially because Khouma and his narrator were among the first Senegalese to travel to Italy (the novel takes place in the mid-1980s and was published in 1990). Khouma also gives the reader a real sense of the brotherhood among the Senegalese immigrants, how they will mostly try to help each other even if they didn't know each other back home, although everyone is more or less equally poor and struggling. Their friendships and support of each other are largely what keep them all going. Towards the end of the novel, the Italian government gives the Senegalese immigrants papers that allow them to be documented immigrants and legally stay in Italy, but then the police oppression picks up.

I enjoyed this book for its vivid depiction of the life of these immigrants and the ways they try to stay beneath the radar of the authorities, including arriving places separately, traveling in different cars on trains, and more. I also appreciated the way it illustrates the mixed relationships between the Senegalese and the Italians, the tourists who want to buy the items the vendors are selling while the police not only try to stop them from selling (confiscating their merchandise, threatening them with jail or deportation), but also suspect them all of selling drugs; the terrible lack of treatment the narrator receives when he is very ill and goes to a hospital versus the kindness of some Italian café owners and others. Above all, the reader gets a real sense of what it is like to be very hard-working but very poor and very black and very undocumented.

In the introductory notes to the translation I read, both the translator and a Dartmouth Italian professor point out that Khouma was not only one of the first Senegalese to come to Italy but one of the first to write about the experience of African immigrants there. When he wrote the book, which was published in Italy in 1990, he had the help of an Italian journalist in shaping the stories, but he has since gone on to write other books without that kind of editorial assistance. They also point out that he was a trailblazer: other immigrants have followed in his footsteps and written perhaps more complex and novelistic works. Nonetheless, this was a compelling read.

Italy The Inspector Montalbano series by Andrea Camilleri

I'm hooked! After reading my first Inspector Montalbano mystery, I became entranced by the characters, the place, the humor (both gentle, as another LTer has noted elsewhere, and more pointed), the food, and of course by Salvo Montalbano himself and his ways of subverting bureaucracy to do the right thing for people, thinking of literary references at the oddest times, and refusing to talk while he's eating. They are light but substantive at the same time, so that even thought I'm reading them to avoid concentrating on anything more serious, I don't feel I'm consuming fluff. Camillleri is particularly skilled at pacing and at creating memorable characters, and I was a little disappointed that one of my favorite characters from the first book was killed in the second, and that another retired after the third book, but I'm sure he'll keep other interesting ones coming.

This thread has what looks to me like an extremely high quality to quantity ratio! Thank you all for the excellent suggestions so far.

Naples '44: an intelligence officer in the Italian labyrinth by Norman Lewis

This is a diary (edited/reconstructed later) of just over a year in Naples, from September 1943 to October 1944. Norman Lewis arrives in Naples from war work with the Field Security Service in North Africa. Over the course of the year, he feels compassion for the dire poverty and deprivation around him, amazement at the sexual habits of the Neapolitans (which he periodically has to interpret for one British lover), growing disillusionment with the way the occupying forces crack down on petty theft of Allied army property while doing nothing at all about the dealers and profiteers who buy what they have stolen (he believes the black market is largely run by Vito Genovese, New York mafioso turned advisor to the American Military Government).

He and his colleagues are supposed to be investigating Nazi collaborators, but find themselves bombarded with allegations - some true, some based on dislike of a neighbour, some intended to get rid of a rival (in legitimate or illegitimate business). He comes to love Italy, although it's clear that far from all of his colleagues share his attempts to understand the place or to behave respectably.

This is wonderfully written, whether Lewis is describing an air-raid ("The windows blew in, the blackout screens flapping like enormous bats across the room") or the eruption of Vesuvius: The lava was moving at a rate of only a few yards an hour, and it had covered half the town to a depth of perhaps thirty feet. A complete, undamaged cupola of a church, severed from the submerged building, jogged slowly towards us on its bed of cinders. The whole process was strangely quiet. The black slagheap shook, trembled and jerked a little and cinders rattled down its slope. A house, cautiously encircled and then overwhelmed, disappeared from sight intact, and a faint, distant grinding sound followed as the lava began its digestion.

But it's more than just a travel book with an unusual angle. I couldn't help thinking that its portrait of life as a foreign occupier - friendly but out of one's depth in the local society - has a lot of resonance with more current situations.

Would anyone know whether Il fucile di Papa della Genga by Francesco Serantini has been translated into English? Just for fun, I rather randomly bought a paperback Finnish translation (Paavin Pyssy) of this book while in Helsinki on vacation this month, attracted by its presence in a bargain bin and by the beautiful cover art. Adding the book to my LT library, I did some research and became intrigued, but can't find an English language copy that I can actually read. (I am, sadly, one of those idiot Americans who only speaks/reads English.) Any help out there? (About the book, not about my inability to learn another language. :) ) Thanks!

ITALY

Equal Danger by Leonardo Sciascia
Originally published 1971. English translation 1973.
Cross-posted from my Club Read and 75 Books threads



This beautifully written novella starts off as a straightforward crime story. Varga, a district attorney trying a highly publicized case, has been killed in a place that is and isn't Sicily, and Rogas, the "shrewdest investigator," is sent to figure it out without finding out anything that might make Varga look bad. Soon, judges are being murdered too, and Rogas does what any smart and savvy detective would do: he tries to find connections among the victims, specifically trying to find innocent people who were convicted by Varga and one ore more of the judges. Although he finds someone he considers highly likely to have committed the crimes, complications ensue because some "witnesses" saw "revolutionaries" running away after one judge was shot, and the powers that be, for their own reasons, attach themselves to this idea and demote Rogas to working with the political department of the police. And then Rogas sees how there are all sorts of connections among the powerful from all backgrounds.

For this novel is masquerading as a police story. It is a story of collusion and collaboration and corruption at the highest levels, mixed in with philosophical comments and literary quotes and allusions. It is a satire of sorts, and Sciascia has a wonderful sly, pointed wit. For example, when another character comments that a revolutionary group is shrinking, Rogas points out that all its members are spending the summer at their parents' country homes or on their yachts, and that the only group members left are the poor ones. At another point, Rogas is talking to the minister responsible for the police, and notes that he thinks they have gone off on the wrong track in the investigation; the minister looks at Rogas "with sympathy and suspicion" and replies, "Perhaps. But right or wrong, stay on it. Stay on it." Other high spots include Rogas's visit to a noted author who is embittered because an earnest revolutionary is staying at their villa as a guest of his wife, and his visit to the chief judge who believes a miscarriage of justice is impossible in the same way that the failure of transubstantiation in a Catholic service is impossible.

The ending, perhaps to be expected, is also both shocking and bleak. Sciascia's note at the end of the book says about it that "I kept this fable in a drawer in my desk for two years. Why? I don't know, but this could be one explanation: I began to write it with amusement, and at the end I was no longer amused." Those are the very feelings of the reader, at least this one.

ITALY

To Each His Own by Leonardo Sciascia
Originally published 1966; English translation 1968.



Thanks to reading Sciascia's Equal Danger, I discovered that I'd had this novella on my shelves for almost five years. And I liked it even better. Sciascia takes his epigraph from Edgar Allan Poe: "Let it not be supposed that I am detailing any mystery, or penning any romance." And indeed, while the protagonist, an educated but not street-wise schoolteacher, who still lives with his mother, earnestly tracks down clues to the double murder of a pair of hunting buddies, a doctor and a pharmacist, and becomes enamored of the doctor's beautiful widow, the reader develops his or her own suspicions and, in the end, it turns out almost everyone else in the Sicilian town knew what was going on all along.

For, like Equal Danger, this is a story only masquerading as a mystery. But it was even more enjoyable for me because, in addition to Sciascia's wonderful writing style and his pointed wit, this novel involves more complex and interesting characters, is more indirect in its indictment of the breadth of corruption, collusion, and complicity, and provides a broader portrait of many aspects of Sicilian society, including politics, the Church, and sex. I can't resist quoting this comment about the schoolteacher's reluctance to help turn in a guilty person, one among many that are both thoroughly delightful and eminently quotable:

"Laurana had a a kind of obscure pride that made him decisively reject the idea that just punishment should be administered to the guilty one through any intervention of his. His had been a human, intellectual curiosity that could not, and should not be confused with the interest of those whom society and State paid to capture and consign to the vengeance of the law persons who transgress or break it. At play in this obscure pride were the centuries of contempt that an oppressed people, an eternally vanquished people, had heaped on the law and all those who were its instrument; a conviction, still unquenched, held that the highest right and truest justice, if one really cares about it, if one is not prepared to entrust its execution to fate or God, can only come from the barrels of a gun." p.120

ITALY

The Day of the Owl by Leonardo Sciascia
Originally published 1961; English translation 1963.
Cross-posted from my Club Read and 75 Books threads.



In a small town in Sicily,Salvatore Colasberna is shot as he is boarding a bus at 6 in the morning. Like the fritter-seller in the square, the bus passengers all melt into the background, so nobody saw anything when the police arrive to investigate. " 'Why,' asked the fritter-seller, astonished and inquisitive, has there been a shooting?' "

Captain Bellodi, a northerner from Parma assigned to Sicily, a man more thoughtful, educated, and sensitive than his Sicilian colleagues, takes charge of the investigation, which soon includes two more murders, and soon concludes that these murders are not only related but also mafia-related. Of course, nobody else believes there is a mafia; surely they must somehow be crimes of passion. As the novella proceeds, the course of the investigation is interrupted by conversations between unnamed people -- His Excellency, the Minister, and so on. The reader sees the web of complicity, even without knowing how these people are or how they are connected.

Captain Bellodi himself is a fascinating character, a police officer who unnerves the people he is questioning by being courteous with them, a man who ponders the nature of the Sicilian character, a dedicated officer of the law who is pleased when the mafia chief he is questioning (or really having a discussion with) calls him a "man" (his highest form of praise) and responds in kind. He is eventually sent back home to Parma to participate in a trial there; while he is away, the case he has carefully developed falls apart. Nonetheless, after first feeling more at home in Parma, Bellodi realizes he loves Sicily and will return "Even if it's the end of me."

This is the third Sciascia crime novel I've read and, as with the others, it is much more than that. It is a portrait of Sicily in the early 1960s, it has deft, insightful characterizations, and Sciascia's wonderfully oblique, understated, yet perceptive writing.

ITALY

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
Translator: William Weaver

Calvino recounts a traveller's description of many imaginary cities in a beautiful piece of wordcraft. I love his use of language and the truly unusual way he leads the reader to re-examine and re-imagine the world we ourselves inhabit. Calvino may not be for everyone but if he catches your imagination, this book will transport you on a unique journey.

I'm not an Italian speaker so I read this in translation. This read very well and the translation didn't dispel the magic of the text.

Italy

The Leopard, Giuseppe di Lampedusa, 1958, translated from Italian by Archibald Colquhoun


Cover comments: yeah, whatever

Comments: The Leopard is set during the Risorgimento of Italy in the 1860s, and follows Prince Fabrizio and his family's decline from aristocracy to discarded relics.

The author wrote The Leopard--his only novel-- over the last 12 or so years of his life, and it was published posthumously. Thus he never knew the high praise and critical acclaim it received, including being called the Greatest Italian Novel of All Time. The English translation by Colquhoun has also been met with high praise.

Although I can see the literary merit in it, and there are many magical passages, overall the book just didn't work for me. It's only 320 pages, but it took me 24 days to read it because I could only follow it if I put my complete focus on exactly what was being said. When I read normally, I'd realize that my thoughts had wandered off and I had no idea what I'd just read, and I'd have to go back and refocus. What is the exact opposite of a compelling read? Whatever the term, that's what The Leopard is. Also, there was sexist thread going through it that was beyond what I'd expect to find in an Italian novel about the 19th century. For example, at an aristocratic ball, the females in attendance are described as inbred, although somehow the males there aren't. There was too much of that sort of thing. Females are silly, females are dumb, females are like monkeys. No thanks.

Recommended for: The Leopard regularly makes all the lists of top novels, so if you're wondering why, go ahead and read it and don't take my comments into consideration.

Why I Read This Now:: It's one of the older books in my TBR pile.

Italy (author), Portugal (setting)

Sostiene Pereira (1993: Pereira Declares / Pereira Maintains) by Antonio Tabucchi (1943–2012)

 

I came across this largely by chance whilst looking for something to read in Italian. It first caught my attention because I'm a sucker for anything set in Lisbon, and I was impressed to discover that Tabucchi had what must have been one of the best ever day-jobs for a novelist: as professor of Portuguese literature at the University of Siena, he got to spend half his time in Tuscany and the rest in Lisbon. I think I could cope with that as a lifestyle (except that I know almost nothing about Portuguese literature). Maybe I should have gone in for Romance languages at college after all...

Sostiene Pereira is an absolute gem of a novel. It's set in Lisbon in the hot summer of 1938, and it is as drenched in lovely Lisbon atmosphere as any of Saramago's novels. Pereira is a recently-widowed, middle-aged literary journalist with a heart problem. He's got an undemanding job running the "culture" section of an undistinguished afternoon paper, and he is perfectly happy to lead a quiet, routine life, pursuing his interest in 19th century French literature and closing his eyes to all the nasty things that are going on in the world around him (and in Portugal in 1938, there's no shortage of those).

Of course, narrative inevitability dictates that he's going to be confronted with a situation where he has to make a choice whether to keep his eyes shut or to stand up and make an act of futile resistance. And we know from experience how easily that sort of story becomes crass and insensitive when it's written by someone who wasn't around at the time. But that's not the case here. Tabucchi establishes Pereira's character and the way that history challenges him with a vast amount of patience and subtlety. Tabucchi makes sure that we are drawn into engaging with Pereira and seeing what the world looks like from his point of view at the same time as we laugh at his little absurdities. Because there's so much repetition of settings, actions and phrases from chapter to chapter, this feels from the inside like a very slow-moving novel, but it actually packs a lot into a relatively small space.

There is a lot of discussion of the writers Pereira either talks about or doesn't talk about in his columns, and some more philosophical speculation about repentance, individuality and the nature of the soul (Pereira is dreadfully worried in the opening pages because he can't bring himself to believe in the resurrection of the body). All of which adds colour and humour as well as giving a bit more depth to the discussion of quietism vs. futile resistance. And there are also almost certainly more omelettes than I've ever come across in a single novel (which struck me, since I've spent a few holidays in Portugal where the only vegetarian dish anyone could offer me, day after day, was an omelette...).

Probably the most difficult thing about it is the word sostiene. It seems to mean so many things in Italian (holds, supports, affirms, undertakes, maintains, expresses, suffers,....), and Tabucchi uses it in just about every way he can think of, at least once or twice on every page of the book, to underscore everything Pereira does or says. It must be a big challenge for any translation. I looked at the opening pages of the translation by the British poet Patrick Creagh (thank you, Amazon!), who went for "declares": that seems to work pretty well in the text, but in the title it has the unfortunate effect of making it sound like a cricket novel.

>22 thorold: Interesting. I read this a few years ago, in translation. Your review makes it sound so much better than I remember! I suspect I didn't have the patience necessary to appreciate the slow unfolding and "Pereira declares..." was rather grating as it does not have as many different meanings in English.

>23 ELiz_M:
Yes, I can see how it might be irritating. Creagh's version of the opening pages looks rather beautiful, but I don't know how easy it would be to keep that up.
There is a lot of repetition in the book, and (to my ears), it sounded very good in Italian. But I'm perhaps still at that over-exuberant stage of learning the language where the weather report sounds as musical as Dante...

Also, I read it during a rainy winter weekend, which is perhaps the best possible time to read a novel where people are suffering from the heat!

I'm with >23 ELiz_M: - I wanted to like the book but found the repetition of 'Pereira maintains' an annoying tic, as there were a lot of contexts where it was describing a demonstrable fact (so why would he need to 'maintain' it?). It's good to know that there is more variety of meaning in the original.

Italy

La forma dell'acqua (The shape of water, 1994) by Andrea Camilleri (1925– )

 

Andrea Camilleri has had a long career as a director in the theatre (apparently he was the first person to direct Beckett in Italy) and for RAI television, where amongst other things he was responsible for many crime serials, including the Italian version of Maigret. However, he didn't manage to achieve literary success until he started, in his late sixties, with Montalbano. His other works include a couple of historical novels set in Sicily.

>12 rebeccanyc: has already commented on the Inspector Montalbano stories: I was prompted to try to read one of the books in the light of her comments and my own positive opinion of the TV version (which features lots of stunning Sicilian scenery, not least in the form of Luca Zingaretti, who takes his shirt off several times in each episode...). Certainly a tougher read than Tabucchi: I had to guess at lots of Sicilian dialect and criminal slang that wasn't in the dictionary, and a fair amount of swear-words as well (most of which are familiar to me from my Italian colleagues' phone calls...). I'm sure I missed a certain amount, but it wasn't too hard to follow the story.

La forma dell'acqua was the novel that introduced the character of Salvo Montalbano in 1994 (some later novels and stories are set earlier in Montalbano's career). In the opening pages, a prominent local businessman and political figure is found dead in his car in an a bit of waste ground notorious for drugs and prostitution. Even though there's nothing in the physical evidence to suggest foul play, Montalbano isn't happy, and launches an investigation, much against the wishes of his superiors.

As Rebecca says, the humour, the constant subversion of the political establishment, and the exaggerated food-worship are all very endearing. Camilleri's stage and TV experience show in the construction and execution of the story: generally in a good way, especially in the care he takes with the dialogue, which is always spot on and has to do most of the work of telling the story and defining the characters. But there are also some bits of "business" that didn't seem to work as well on the page as it would on screen: notably when he uses the old "gunfight with his own reflection" trick and we can see it coming a mile off.

>22 thorold: >23 ELiz_M: I enjoyed Pereira Declares (the title of the translation I read) when I read it a few years ago.

>26 thorold: As you note, I'm a big Camilleri fan. I am SO impressed that you read both the Tabucchi and the Camilleri in Italian.

>27 rebeccanyc: It's really not a big deal. When you already know French and a bit of Spanish, getting to a basic understanding of Italian is pretty straightforward. I don't think I'm quite ready for Dante yet, though.

Absurdly enough, chance took me on from an Italian novel set in Portugal to an Italian novel that's not only set in London but written in what seems to be an affectionate parody of British style.

ITALY
Mr Gwyn (2011) by Alessandro Baricco (1958- )

 

If you asked people outside Italy to name a living Italian literary novelist, Baricco is probably the name that would come up most often apart from Eco: Although he started out modestly enough as a music critic, he's had a high-profile public career in the theatre and cinema as well as publishing a string of successful novels and founding a creative-writing academy, the Scuola Holden.

I read two of Baricco's novels in translation a few years ago: Silk (1996) didn't impress me very much (I found it little more than a slick piece of commercial soft-porn), but I enjoyed Ocean Sea (1993), a complicated and intriguingly poetic bit of nineties postmodernism.

Mr Gwyn is a Bartlebyesque tale about a moderately famous British novelist who decides that he would rather not publish any more books or articles, and says so publicly in an article in the Guardian. To everyone's astonishment, he means it. However, after a while he finds that hanging around in launderettes is not enough for him: the craving to express ideas by putting words on paper is too strong. He is forced to look for a new release for his literary energy. Baricco shows us, with infinite patience and elaborate attention to detail, how Gwyn comes up with his great idea and puts it into practice, and what happens. Along the way there's a good deal of good-humoured teasing of writers, publishers and readers in general and British ones in particular, and Baricco gets to to set out a few theories of what literary narrative is supposed to do and how far it succeeds in that. Nothing very profound, perhaps, but it's all very nicely done and quite agreeable, and there are some memorable images: not least Caterina de' Medici e il maestro di Camden Town.

>28 thorold: Well, I used to be able to read French, and I did find that knowing French and a very very little Spanish enabled me to read some Italian labels in museums when I was there, and sort of read menus (although at least once with disastrous effect!). But I don't know if I could tackle a book in French now, much less one in Spanish or Italian.

>28 thorold: Your review of Mr Gwyn has piqued my interest! It sounds like an enjoyable read.

ITALY

Clash of Civilisations over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous

I pulled this novella off my bookshelves to accompany me on a weekend trip in Rome. It appears to be a murder mystery, narrated by various people living in or near one apartment building in Rome - but the real mystery is about the person the police are seeking for the murder, a man known as Amedeo. What is his background? The police are describing him as an immigrant, but many of the people who know him refuse to believe this.

This book is about immigration - we meet immigrants from Iran, Bangladesh and Peru, a Dutch student, the building's Neapolitan concierge and a Milanese professor who sees Rome as part of Italy's backward south, as well as Amedeo himself. It's about misunderstandings - the concierge thinks that the Iranian is Albanian, the Peruvian a Filipina, and the Bangladeshi from Pakistan (and she is suspicious of him because he denies being from Pakistan). The Iranian and the Neapolitan each mistakenly believe that the other is swearing at them. And it's also about the other forms of tribalism - one of the reasons that no-one knows Amedeo's real background is that they are more concerned to reassure themselves that he is not one of the tribes they dislike (a Roma fan, for example, or an environmentalist).

As we hear the different stories gradually the truth about Amedeo comes to light. It seems that the reason that he has been all things to all men is that unlike almost everyone else, he takes the time to see people as people, rather than as symbols.

ITALY



The Pope's Daughter by Dario Fo translated from the Italian by Antony Shugaar
first published as La figlia del papa in 2014

Lucrezia Borgia, a Nobel Prize winning author, a Europa edition; it sounded like perfect summer reading in the record breaking heat. The Pope's Daughter though is not a straightforward read; not a bad thing, just unexpected.

Dario Fo won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997, yet this is his first novel, published almost two decades later in 2014. The form of literature that engages Fo is the play. All aspects of theatre intrigue him, as he also direct, acts, writes songs, and performs comedy. All this is evident in this novel, as Borgias, Sforzas and Farneses move around in ways that often suggest a master story teller directing characters on a stage. Events happen out of sight, off stage, and the characters react by plotting further. Further reenforcing this sense of theatre is the use of pantomimes in the plot. This makes the writing sound clumsy, which it decidedly isn't, but like a play, it is episodic.

Just like in the kind of theatre that was then in vogue, at this point there is nothing left for us to do but drop the curtain and change the scene: at the Palazzo dei Diamanti, Duke Ercole was deep in discussion with his advisors.

Fo's theatrical eye for detail is everywhere:

And Cesare began the narrative, pushing his place setting aside on the table so that he would have more room to tell the story of his adventures and gesticulate while doing so...

The Nobel citation for Fo's award said, He if anyone merits the epithet of jester in the true meaning of that word. With a blend of laughter and gravity he opens our eyes to abuses and injustices in society and also the wider historical perspective in which they can be placed.

What better setting to present the uses and abuses of power than the Italian Peninsula in the Renaissance period? Here we have Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, about to be elected Pope Alexander VI, explaining to his four astonished children that he is indeed not their beloved uncle as they had thought, neither is their father their real father, for it is he, the Cardinal, who is.

I am your father, your own true father, the father of you all, and not merely the spiritual father, but your actual carnal father, and I engendered you with your mother, the only real person here.

Asked why he was only revealing this now, Rodrigo gave them a fine lesson summoning up an entire philosophy:

Why, it's as simple as can be, my darlings. In a few days I will be elected to the very tip of the pyramid. A pyramid made up of thousands of men, some more powerful, and some less, and each with his arms raised helping to uphold the construction. Those who support this pyramid must do so by balancing carefully, and if they waver or wobble they are soon crushed or expelled and quickly replaced by someone better suited and more astute. The only one who is never at risk of being squeezed out of the pyramid is the one who stands at the very tip-top, that is, the pope. Only death can remove him from office. And so, neither slander nor calumny, to say nothing of unutterable truths, will be able to touch me. And the same goes for you, who are my children. As I once learned from my professor of geometry, it is a dynamic equilibrium that is the true strength of faith. There are those who say this is blasphemy, but I like it just fine the way it is!

Lucrezia herself emerges as the strong capable woman today's history credits her as. Fo doesn't discount the stories of her relationships with her father and brother, but neither does he dwell on them. He does, however, initially picture her as someone the Borgias had intended as a victim, someone to be used as a pawn in their alliances. As the tale develops and Lucrezia matures, he then skilfully shows her as a woman who has learned her lessons well, well enough to not just survive on her own, but to become a power in her own right.

All this is leavened by sly humour and by Fo's asides. This particular edition has many illustrations with the somewhat puzzling attribution "Illustration drawn and painted by Dario Fo in collaboration with Jessica Borroni and Michela Casiere."

55. I Am Livia by Phyllis Smith was the story of Octavian Caesar's (Augustus) second and final marriage to Livia Druscilla . Since I had spent over a month reading about Cleopatra/Caesar/Antony I decided to follow the story up with this historical fiction novel. The day to day life and marriage of Livia to Octavian (Tavia) is conjecture; but the history of Rome, the Roman Civil Wars, and the foreign wars were very accurate. This is the 2nd account I have read of Livia, the first being I, Claudius many years ago. This novel paints Livia in a kinder, gentler light; although certainly no door mat. I do understand the machinations that took Rome from a republic to an empire better after this read. My only complaint is that the book informs readers that Octavia (Octavian's sister) raised the 3 surviving children of Antony and Cleopatra. Most historians agree that the oldest male, Alexander Helios was killed by Octavian very soon after parading him as a trophy in Rome. 391 pages 5 stars

Italy

For Solo Voice*, Susanna Tamaro, translated by Sharon Wood, 1991

* No touchstone suggestions for the English or Italian titles.


Cover comments: At a glance, it's a fine cover. However, it's entirely misleading to the contents of the book. This cover says "nice story" & "quintessential women's fiction" and that is just WRONG. So, despite being aesthetically pleasing, it's a bad cover.

Comments: The five short stories in this collection all share unreliable narrators (a favourite of mine) and an unflinching look at trauma. Apparently Susanna Tamaro is a popular author in Italy, but these stories could be set anywhere.

This collection starts powerfully and then slides to a wilted ending. The first story, "Monday Again," was the best. A children's book publisher sees life as a happy fairytale. Obviously, she missed the real meat of the Brothers Grimm where parents abandon their children in the forest to be abandoned by wild beasts, or Cinderella's stepsisters hack off pieces of their feet to fit the glass slipper. In her cheerfulness she attempts to cover the brutal reality of her life. (*5 stars*)

The second story, "Love," is an intense story of a young girl taken by gypsies to work as a street thief. Horrific but fascinating. (*4.5 stars*) The third story, "A Childhood," is the coming of age tale what happens to a boy raised in neglect, abuse and perhaps mental illness. A bit too rambling, but still excellent. (*4 stars*)

The author lost me on the last two stories, however. "Beneath the Snow," was the most traditional of the lot. It's about a woman looking back on her life when she had been a 16 year old in WWII who fell in love with a deceptive American soldier, and then had her baby taken from her at birth. (*3 stars*) The final story, "For Solo Voice," was a long stream of consciousness tale of whoa and regret from a Jewish Italian who had survived repeated trauma throughout her life. But had she survived? I had to sift through a lot of words to find anything of interest or meaning in this one. (*1.5 stars*)

Rating: 3.5 stars. Too bad about the last two stories.

Recommended for: brave readers who can look at the raw wounds of life. If you're looking for a book that fills your craving for a literary trip to Italy, move on because Italy isn't even mentioned in the the first three stories, and is almost non-existent in the others.

Why I Read This Now: I had a stack of possible books, and read page one of each. This one grabbed me.

Italy

Margherita Dolce Vita, Stefano Benni, 2005, translated by Antony Shugar, 2006

(cover graphic not loading at this moment. Will try to remember to return and fix when it's working again)
cover comments: Europa Editions have notoriously ugly covers, so in that light, this isn't too bad. It's maybe even quite nice.

Comments: Margherita is a teenager who lives on the edge of some unnamed city in northern Italy with her off-beat family -- mother, father, two brothers, and a grandfather. Overnight, a new cube-shaped house appears in the field next to their house, and a fancy rich family moves in. A satire of consumerism and modern life follows, and then there's a super bizarre ending that has some readers upset.

There were some fabulous sentences in this book -- the author is highly talented at sharp, creative observations. But the whole thing together didn't really work for me -- the Margherita character was just too precocious. Precocious children can be great (Coraline) or beyond annoying (The Elegance of the Hedgehog). This one was sliding toward the too annoying end of the scale. And I didn't care that much about the characters or the story.

Rating: a solid okay: 3 stars

Why I Read This Now: I read a short story by the author in 2009 and was blown away and searched out anything else written by him. It's been in my TBR stacks for a few years, and I read it now before my trip to Italy.

Recommended for: reader reviews tend to be more favourable than mine. If you liked The Elegance of the Hedgehog you might like this. Both were published by Europa Editions. I hunt out Europas, but I have to say that they're really hit or miss for me. They often publish unusual slightly zany stories. An Italian book they published that was much better was Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous.

As a rather belated follow-up to >22 thorold: above, another book by Tabucchi I read a couple of weeks ago:

Il filo dell'orizzonte (1986; The edge of the horizon) by Antonio Tabucchi (Italy, 1943-2012)

  

No obvious evidence of Tabucchi’s Portuguese interests in this one, which purports to be a simple crime story set in a small town on the gulf of Genoa. Mortuary attendant Spino becomes interested in the body of an unknown young man killed in a shoot-out between police and gangsters, and decides to try to find out who he was. In the course of the increasingly confusing investigation (a patisserie on the wrong side of the tracks? Under-the-counter hair-tonic?? The docks at midnight???) we become less and less sure of all sorts of other things, but Spino does seem to be learning something about himself.

A couple more recent Italian reads (full reviews on the respective book pages):

Le piccole virtù (1962; The little virtues) by Natalia Ginzburg (Italy, 1916-1991)

  

Natalia Ginzburg liked to subvert Italian clichés (she boasted about wearing worn-out shoes and not being able to drive a car, for instance), and she's famous for her simple, unpretentious but often very hard-hitting style. In this collection of short essays she writes about her life, her experiences under the fascist regime which sent the family into exile in Arezzo and later murdered her first husband, about the role and duties of a writer, and about parenting.

---

Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana (1957; That awful mess on Via Merulana) by Carlo Emilio Gadda (Italy, 1893-1973)

  

A complicated modernist novel disguised as a crime story set in 1920s Rome, but getting less and less like a conventional crime story as it goes on. Lots of wordplay, social satire, dialect, and some (encoded) LGBT subject-matter as well.

Italy

The Breaking of a Wave, Fabio Genovesi, 2015, translated from Italian by Will Schutt

Rating: 4.5 stars -- It was going to be a 5 star read, but then around the 3/4 mark I got a bit bored. This novel is almost 500 pages long and should have been 350-400. Interesting to me was that online reviews by Italians are rated much lower than reviews written in English.

Comments: The Breaking of a Wave is set in the off-season Tuscan beach town of Forte dei Marmi, and tells the story of a loosely connected group of loners, eccentrics, and misfits. The centre of the story is 13 year old Luna, a clever and likeable girl who also has albinism. She struggles with the death of her older, and much-loved, brother and her mom's depression. She also befriends an odd boy named Zot. Their lives are tied in with 3 friends who are all single men in their early 40s, who each still lives with his mother (an Italian phenomena known as "mammoni" or "bamboccioni", which translates to "big babies." But I digress). I have to admit defeat and say that I cannot adequately describe what this novel is about.

I loved it because I found it refreshing and unusual. I loved the writing, even though many Italians thought the writing was appalling. I loved the story of contemporary Italian lives (as opposed to the US/UK fantasy versions), and I loved the setting of Forte dei Marmi, in the province of Lucca. This is the area of Italy that I know better than any other, and I learned a lot of little things about the place and it's culture. I can't count the number of times I had to stop and read passages out loud to my husband (who spent his childhood summers here).

Recommended for: readers who like current Italian fiction, or who like unusual books with quirky characters. I should mention though that there are some gritty parts, and several scenes of nasty bullying. So it's not all light hearted fun, if that's the impression I gave.

If I ever find other Genovesi books translated into English, I will buy them in a heartbeat. If not, I guess I'll have to improve my Italian language reading skills.

Italy

The Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio, 1352. Translated by Mark Musa & Peter Bondanella, 1982


cover comments: the painting is lovely and suitable, but the arrangement of the whole is less than artful

Why I Read This Now: I bought this book in 1984 when I was studying Italian history, but then my studies took me elsewhere and I never got around to it. It's been on my to-read list for the last two years as I've been travelling (and trying to travel) to Italy. I started this the weekend in March when Italy slammed shut for the COVID-19 lockdown. What better time to read a book set during a plague in Italy than during a pandemic in Italy? (Now I'm finished and COVID-19 can be finished too, please and thank you.)

Comments: It's 1348 and the Black Death is raging through Florence. A group of wealthy 20-somethings (seven ladies and three gentlemen) decided to self-isolate in a country villa. To ward off the boredom of eating and drinking, they set up a game of each telling ten stories over 10 days ("Decameron" is ten-days in Ancient Greek). The tales cover characters from all aspects of Medieval life, and many of the stories are rather humorous and often bawdy.

My favourite story, by far, was "Sixth Day, Fourth Story," in which "Chichibio, Currado Gianfigliazzi's cook, turns Currado's anger into laughter with a quick word uttered in time to save himself from the unpleasant fate with which Currado had threatened him". I loved it so much I read it out loud to my husband and daughter.

My mass-market paperback edition was just under 700 pages of tiny smudgy print crammed onto pages with the narrowest of margins. Physically, it was an unpleasant read. That's part of the reason I read the publishers suggested list for university professors who want to teach an abridged version. This still resulted in me reading 54 stories, introductions, summaries, etc, and still reading close to 400 pages of the text. No one needs to read every single word.

Recommended for: if you liked The Canterbury Tales, you'll love The Decameron. Chaucer visited Italy in the 1370s where he may have met Boccaccio, but whether he did or not, his writing was distinctly influenced by the Italian.

The Shmoop Tough-o-Meter says "If you stick with a good translation, the toughest thing about this work is the length."

Rating: 4 stars

Italy

Hollow Heart, Viola Di Grado (translated from Italian by Antony Sugaar), 2015

Comments: Most of Dorotea Giglio's narration takes place after her suicide in July 2011, with some flashbacks to her life in Sicily before. On both sides, she's depressed, lonely, and a little bit emo. Now a ghost, she meanders through her apartment and city streets, and goes to her old job regularly, where her boss can still see her. She also likes to go into her coffin and report on the details of her decomposing body.

Rating: I like the uniqueness of this story and the Italian setting; but overall it perplexed me and I struggled with the world building. Dorotea has no body, but she talks about eating and drinking, and she's able to move things around, but at the same time can float through walls. She says she can't read anymore, but certain parts only make sense with written language. Her life after death wasn't all that different from when she was alive, and we don't know why she committed suicide. It all seemed a bit pointless. So 3 stars for a decently written novel plus 1 star for being creative and unusual.

Recommended for: There are many glowing reviews written in English over at Goodreads. There are also many negative reviews written in Italian. The Italians seem to call BS on this one and say it's boring and repetitive (a tratti noioso a tratti ripetitivo! Italian sounds so much nicer than English), and has no plot.

Why I Read This Now: chipping away at my Italian TBR pile.
'

Italy

A Tranquil Star, Primo Levi, 2007 -- translated from Italian by Ann Goldstein, Asessandra Bastagli, & Jenny McPhee

Comments: A collection of short stories that were published in various magazines during the author's lifetime. The first five, the "Early Stories," were published between 1949 and 1971, and the "Later Stories" were from 1973 to 1986, for whatever that's worth. Of the early stories, I only liked the first one, "The Death of Marinese," which was a straight forward war story, written in 1949. By far not my favourite genre, but still a good story. Levi is a writer who is famous for his books about the Holocaust, so I was surprised that the remaining stories were seemingly unrelated to WWII. Many of them reminded me of the type of story you'd see on the TV show The Twilight Zone. My favourites of the collection were "The Magic Paint," "Gladiators," "The Fugitive," "The Sorcerers," "Bureau of Vital Statistics," and perhaps my very favourite, "Buffet Dinner." This last one is probably also the oddest. It took me a while to figure out what was going on, but then it became clear that this was the story of a kangaroo going to a dinner party. It's really quite complicated, and I felt for the poor guy.

Rating Short story collections are difficult. The reader is constantly figuring out and building new worlds, and then stopping and starting again. There are almost always some duds, or some I don't understand, or some I just don't like. A Tranquil Star was no different. However, there were enough stories that I deeply enjoyed to give this book a high rating. I also really liked the length of the stories -- all about 5 pages, which to me is a good length for a short story (as opposed to those long 67 page short stories). 4.5 stars

Why I Read This Now: I'm working my way through any Italian authors I have in my TBR pile.

Recommended for: fans of The Twilight Zone

Italy

A Girl Returned, Donatella Di Pietrantonio, 2017; translated from Italian by Ann Goldstein, 2019


Cover comments: I like it, especially after reading the book.
The original Italian cover was also lovely:


Rating: 4.5 stars. A Girl Returned also won the 2017 Campiello Prize, among other awards.

Comments: A Girl Returned opens with the unnamed 13 year old narrator being dumped at her biological family, who she didn’t even know existed. Brought up an only child in middle class urban comfort, suddenly and without explanation, she is living in poverty with parents who hardly notice her, sleeping with her bedwetting younger sister, and dealing with three dangerous older brothers. There’s the mystery to figure out about why she’s here, along with watching her learn to live in this messy, difficult family and mourning her past life.

Under 200 pages, A Girl Returned moves along quickly with clean writing and short chapters. While I was wrapped up in the narrator’s struggles, an Italian reader pointed out to me that in the original Italian, the main point of this book was an exploration of class struggles. The text was in Italian and all the dialogue was in Abruzzo dialect. This theme isn’t exactly a surprise as the English translation certainly captures that idea, but the nuances and subtleties just didn’t come through in the translation. Despite that, I think this is a great read for the non-Italian reader.

I have to add that there are some wonderful characters and relationships. I especially loved her younger, plucky sister, Adriana.

Recommended for: Fans of Elena Ferrante Neapolitan Novels will probably like this book, both of which were translated by Ann Goldstein. Personally, I much preferred A Girl Returned, but I couldn’t get past My Brilliant Friend.

Why I Read This Now: I'm trying to read more Italian literature.

Italy: Het geluk van de wolf (The Luck of the Wolf) by Paolo Cognetti - 2 stars


Intimistic stories of inhabitants of the high mountains seem to be the trademark of Paolo Cognetti. The summaries of his books always appeal to me and every time I'm slightly disappointed. It's all a bit too sentimental for me. Let me just say that I find little connection with Paolo Cognetti's oeuvre, but that is a purely personal choice. I know that others enjoy his books very much so don't let my review hold you back if you like this sort of books.

Italy: The Wild Boy: A Memoir by Paolo Cognetti - 3 stars

Although I always intend to objectify my opinion, I rarely seem to succeed. It may be hopeless since the choice of whether or not to read a book already is a value judgment or at the very least indicates a certain interest in something. And this book is no different.
I chose this book because it is set in the Alps where I have spent many summer vacations (though not in Italy which is where this book is set). It is about a man who wants to find his inspiration in peace and quiet and rents a house high in the mountains.
It fascinates me to know what drives people to do something like this. I understand that some people have a desire to leave everything behind, temporarily or permanently, but I always wonder to what extent such a thing is possible. Because in the end you always take yourself with you. But I digress.
Paolo tells the story of that summer and part of the autumn that he spends in solitude. He chronologically writes about the simple life up there, his impressions, his attempts to live even closer to nature, his struggles with the weather, his friendships with fellow mountain inhabitants.
His language is visual, atmospheric and also poetic. And I really enjoyed that part. But after reading this book, I'm still left with the question of what all this escapism yields, except perhaps a well-deserved rest (aka vacation?) before the hectic strikes again?

Italy: The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati - 4 stars


A wonderful, slightly kafka-esque book about a young soldier who is sent to a fortress on the outside border to prepare for an invasion of the barbarians. From day one he wants to leave but even though he gets multiple chances to do so, he eventually stays his whole life. It's an allegory of life, but I'm not sure if it's comforting or daunting. Maybe it's both.

ITALY

Eight Mountains, Paolo Cognetti, 2016; translated from Italian by Simon Carnell & Erica Segre, 2018

cover comments: to come

Comments: Every summer, Piero travels with his parents from their home in Milan up to the village of Grana in the shadow of Mnt Rosa. His parents had grown up in the Dolomites, and loved mountains and climbing them. In Grana, Piero makes friends with a local boy his age, Bruno, and the two explore the lakes, valleys, rivers, and mountains in the area. As adults, they live in very different worlds, but eventually Piero wanders back to the village and their friendship resumes. The last 40 pages or so are particularly strong and interesting.

There is a recent film made from this novel that I will now look for and watch.

Recommended for: Eight Mountains is a quiet novel, suited for a reader in a reflective mood.

Why I Read This Now: I always enjoy a book set in the Alps. I'm also trying to read more Italian literature.

Rating: 3.5 stars. This is a short book that took me weeks to read. I think the problem is that I"m just not interested in reading this summer.

How I Discovered This: I'm not sure but I think I was looking at Italian books translated into English on Book Depository. The Alps setting made it a must-buy