Andrej Longo was called Andrej after a character in War and peace ,he studied in Bologna .Before writing he had worked as a lifeguard ,waiter and cook .He published his first book in 1992 ,Ten is his fourth book ,it won the Prize Bagutta in Italy .He has also written plays and for radio and television .
I used to have dark, smouldering eyes and a tenor voice .and when I sang people got cold shivers even if it was forty degrees .At first I sang in church ,during the mass ,or else at christenings ,and at Christmas and Easter .They used to say I was an angel sent from heaven ,nobody in the neighbourhood had ever heard a voice like that before ,with that voice I had to be an angel of God
the opening of the story thou shalt not take the lord thy god in vain ,a singer has high hopes .
Ten is a collection of ten short stories that are based around the Ten commandments and set in the working class underbelly of Naples .The stories all in theme follow the actual commandment the are based on .A singer tries to become more than he is which is a wedding singer release and album but then starts on a slippery slope of decline in his fame and starts using drugs (this one remind me so much of those singers caught up in the reality shows in the uk and how sometimes there dreams turn sour ) this story was used to illustrate the commandment thou shalt have no other god .So we see a man on the run with his son for the commandment thou shalt not Kill .A man in a Ferrari is killed by three men to demonstrate the commandment Thou shalt not covert thy neighbours property .
Tell him now ,I thought .But it wouldn’t come out .
Tell him now.But I didn’t say anthing .
“How old are you ?” He asked.
“Fourteen next month “.
“And what could possibly be upsetting you at the age of fourteen “?
“I….
I took a deep breath .
“I’m three-month pregnant “I blurted out .
The priest sigh
“Who’s the baby’s father ?”
A young daughter has something to tell but who is the dad ?
As you see compelling stuff ,I was reminded of the other great Italian writer of the underbelly of Italian Life Leonard Sciasscia his Scilly is here replaced by Naples ,I read wine dark sea by Sciasscia and was reminded of those stories in these stories,as they are not exactly to do with the Mafia ,but they show the violent undercurrent than can run in so many large Italian cities especially in the poorest parts of these cities. they are t he same people that, crop up in the true life stories of both Petra Reski and Roberto Saviano .These stories also show what great short stories can be and that is a slice of the world, with a bare frame-work of facts and how the characters are ,but we see people lives for the briefest moment .So we meet the parents want a better life for their kids ,the brothers standing up for one another ,a daughter with a huge secret .And through these Naples comes alive in these pages not the one you see on the holiday shows or the umpteen travelogue shows their seems to be on tv these days ,no this is the Jeremy Kyle ,ASBO kids ,chav of italy .We see the real town and yes it is scary and wonderful painted in Longo’s words and yet again a wonderful translation from Italian by Howard Curtis surely one the hardest working translators around .
Have you a favourite Italian novel/ short story collection that displays the underbelly of Italy ?
Every time a book from Istros books drop through my door ,I know for a fact I’m in for a treat so far this is my fourth books from every one as different as the one before but equally as brilliant as the one before so no to the book from Marinko Koščec ,He is a lecturer in French literature for the university in Zagreb .he works as an editor for the Sysprint publishing house and also teaches novel-writing .He has so far published five novel his novel someone else won a big prize in Croatia ,this book Handful of sand was nominated for the Jutarnji list award .
For as long as I can remember I’ve been a magnet for weirdos both for those who are kept at a safe distance with that label ,as well as people who live among us peacefully and pose no danger til something in them erupts, for no apparent reason and seem to need my proximity when it starts .
Haven’t we all felt like this at times ?
A handful of sand is a story of a romance between two people ,but is larger than that, it is the story of two people ,but also living and growing up in the modern Croatia of the book .The book is formed of interchanging chapters one from a male narrator the other a female narrator .The male narrator works in publishing as a proofreader (we also see a number of mentions of translations into Croatian here ) we follow him from his child hood through university to now working in publishing ,the ups and downs of a modern life loss, disappointments ,his relationship with his parents ,the female narrative moves along a same path to the male ,but it is the male story I associated with more ,what comes across is how do we get to where we are ? This book I said is a romance novel but instead of starting at the usual point we start a romance novel we start and the start and get to the starting point of the romance ,so as the book progresses we she the two unnamed narrators move closer in each others circles to each other .Til ?and then out again
Very soon ,perhaps while we were still standing there ,I knew I wasn’t imaging things ; although that couldn’t yet be true because truth still had to be woven ,weft for weft and warp for warp .I’D been irritated and disheartened so many times by those standard expectations that I just fulfil the stereotype and nourish it with my flesh
How often have you felt this upon meeting someone
I think the most important bit of information I discovered about Marinko Koščec is that he teaches french Literature ,because at times this reminds me of existentialist writing the books is so much about detail as about why and who we are ,what makes us the person we are at a certain point which is of course the whole question behind existentialism . Marinko Koščec Has a dark wit as well a couple of times I even laughed out loud during this book .This book shows how precious and fragile love is between two people in Modern Croatia ,but this story is also a story every one can associate with even outside Croatia .I not sure where the title comes from but I imagine sand draining out of a hand til you end up with two grains of sand left by chance and isn’t that what love is sometimes chance aren’t we all grains of sand waiting to end up together .I also wonder if it is an homage to the Waugh book a handful of dust,but as I read the book I just thought it was chance they had a similar titles .I must also mention that any one near london and book fairing it must see Istros books as they are running the Croatian book stand at the fair the first time a Balkan state has had a stand at the book fair
Well when this was named on the longlist for this years Independent foreign fiction prize longlist I was please ,not being a big fan of reading completely the works of writers ,I was pleased to have a chance to revisit Ismail Kadare ,this is the fourth book by Him I will have read ,I have also under review the pyramid .The big difference between that book and this one is the fact this one has been translated directly from Albanian not French like a number of the earlier novels were as secondary translations .Ismail Kadare is probably the best known Albanian writer (there are others dalkey archive have published one I know off ),his books have opened the lid on Albanian life for more than fifty years .He was born in Gjirokastër which happens to be the setting for this novel .
And what happened was this n the afternoon that preceded the dinner ,after the tanks and armoured vehicles had rumbled and rattled their way into town ,there stepped out from one of the military cars onto the city square Colonel Fritz Von Schwabe ,commander of the German division and bearer of the Iron cross his legs still stiff ,he stood surveying the scene and announced “Gjirokastër I have a friend here .”
The colonel arrives and remembers his friend the doctor
This book starts in the second world war and just as the Germany army is heading in Albanians direction as they look to grab land and recourse .They arrive in Gjirokastër. A troop of soldiers is sent to the town they are led by a Colonel Von Schwabe .This Nazis officer is happy to be coming to Gjirokastër as he has a very old friend that lives in the town ,the town doctor ,with whom he studied when younger .So he is invited to the Doctor Gurmante for dinner .The next day we see the troops move out of the town the doctor is called a hero by the people in the town ,are these two events connected ? what will happen after the war to the doctor when the communist take over the country .The facts are clear the Germans were bad ,but then the authoritarian regime that followed the war was also very brutal .This book shows war and the aftermath in one place ,on one man and what repercussions happen due to friendship he had with a german officer .We see one man go from Hero to villain over the course of this book .
As evening fell ,another man was listening carefully to the tumult from the upper floor .The unhinged Remzi Kadare ,the former owner of the house ,huddled in army blankets added his own expletives to the bedlam above .”you tart ! You whore !” he shouted ,addressing the house that had been his own house before he lost it at poker .
Is this a member of Ismail Kadare’s family ?is kadare a popular name in Albania .
Well this one shocked me I have found in the past Kadare uses a lot of imagery like in the pyramid where the building of a pyramid in egypt echoes events in communist Albania .But, no this felt a much more personnel book from Kadare than pother by him I have read ,I think because it is set in his home town of Gjirokastër ,there is a character with the same surname as him in the book makes me think this is Kadare want to talk about his childhood ,he seven when the Germans invade his home town .In some ways the way the story is worked is like a child remembering what happen ,there is truth and there is lies ,the germans came but didn’t leave as in the book .Was there a doctor ? well to me it doesn’t matter at the heart of this book is a discourse on extreme regimes and their effect on the public whether right-wing or lef wing it is the way they treat the people who is remembered .I felt Kadare’s writing follows better in this book sure that is due the nature of it being a direct translation .But part of me thing that fact this is published after the Albanian regime has fallen Kadare is free to speak about past events than before .
Well after a year of going how am I going do this wonderful book Justice and a rereading (which is rare for me ) .I feel with it being named on this year’s IFFP longlist I am finally able to review it .So László Krasznahorkai is probably alongside his fellow Hungarian write Peter Nadas the best know Hungarian writer .He studied Hungarian literature and Language at university and after he qualified he became a writer straight away .Satantango although his third novel to appear in English was actually his debut novel .The book was also made into a seven hour film by the well-known director Béla Tarr nine years after the book came out in 1985 .I did watch the film many years ago but remember it being slow and very tough to follow at point but the main feel was the feeling of an Isolate community in flux due to one man .
” I beg your pardon ,I didn’t get that ” .”Your Name!” “Irimias” His answer rings out ,as if he were proud of it .The captain puts a cigarette in the side of his mouth ,lights it with a clumsy movement ,throws the burning match into the ashtray and puts it out with the matchbox .”I see ,so you only have one name ” Irimias nods cheerfully “doesn’t everyone ?”
The first encounter with Irimias
So Satantango the novel its self is the story of a remote farming community working on a dying collective farm .The people who are there are drinking to forget and have a wholly bleak outlook on life .The book builds a glimpse of there lives when this man /devil arrives Irimias and his friend servant sidekick Petrina .Now when these two enter its starts a chain of events that seize the village and the people there in change greatly ,outburst of violence and revenge ,some horrific scenes to what is a bleak dark grey world already .Is he the devil well the is some feeling he has gone from the village and returned ,but has he change has the village change ,has the way he has changed set the village of the way it has ?
Quietly ,continually ,the rain fell and the inconsolable wind that died then was forever resurrected ruffled the still surfaces of the puddles so lightly it failed to disturbed the delicate dead skin that had covered them during the night so instead of recovering the previous days tired glitter they increasingly and remorselessly absorb the light that swam slowly from the east .
This place is so bleakly describe by Krasznahorkai
Well that is enough about the story it hard to describe without spoiling the book and the fact there is so much I could quite easily write a thousand words on the story but then it be spoiler filled .So where does this book fit in the grand scene of things ? Well it is easy to draw comparisons to feel central European figures writing at the same time or just before Krasznahorkai people such as Thomas Bernhard ,Peter Nadas ,Milan Kundera and Witold Gombrowicz it falls nicely in with them style wise it is what is described as modernist the book drifts from the observed ,to the imagine and back .Of course the bleak setting and over all feel of despair brings to mind Beckett for some review’s I’ve read .But for me I felt this book had a lot of central European mythology ,that has been brought to the modern age and also what makes myths, a man who may or not lived some where returns things happen ,this is what start the witch hunts of the past the return stranger ,a figure , a being ,even animals that have thus cause chaos ,in isolate communities strangers or people who have appear to change because they have been to the outside world are always the catalyst for change so here Irimias is that catalyst or as they have been called the bogeyman ,the devil or the many names that have appear in European mythology over the centuries .The book is also a hard-hitting polemic in the reason why collective farming in communism had failed the despair and hopelessness of the characters is there to see on the page .Although written nearly thirty years ago this book is still as fresh today as the day it was written in fact I would say its influence can be seen in other books particularly the book I read last year Hansens Children another book more recent about the fall of a remote community during communism .A tango with the devil indeed rather like the book that build from chapters up then down you be left breathless wanting more and thinking for the rest of your life about what happen in this book .
I ve been planning this for last six months since reading Witold Gombrowicz Diaries and deciding that A. I needed to read more Polish literature B. we all need to maybe know a bit more about this hidden gem of European literature and C. There has been some great books from Poland published in the last year or two .
So what is coming up ,well next week I have a give-away for ten books that has been kindly offered by Joanne at Stork press 5 of Madame Mephisto by Am Bakalar ,which was the first book written by a female writer from Poland in English and 5 of their novel Illegal Liaisons by Grazyna Piebanek ,Also Joanne has written me a piece on publishing Polish literature in English .I’ve also a piece from Magda who is the head of Polish Literature at the Polish Cultural Institution . I’m also contacting a number of translators for suggestions of books and Translations they have made from Polish .I hope to have a great list of books for every one to read between now and June .Here is my fist suggestion on I will be reading as well -
Stone Upon Stone by Wieslaw Mysliwski
A badge - I have been working on a badge for Polish literature month but haven’t quite done one I’m happy with so hope to have one in a couple of weeks when I ve work a bit more on it .So every one can have one for post and sidebars in time .
Twitter – I will be using a hashtag for the month and all posts it will be #plm13 ,so if everyone could use it before and during the month it will make finding post much easier .
Cooking – I will during the month be cooking a traditional Polish dish ,I will post a the start of the month A list of ingredients then in the last week be doing a cook along via twitter and posting the results here on the blog .
Film – I will be choosing a film to watch during the month ,I ve not quite decide which but will be doing a post on Polish cinema and the choice of Film for everyone to watch .
Drink – I will also be trying some polish Beers and spirits to do a post on what to drink .
As you see I want June to be a month we all get Polish .Its important I feel as a recent report showed Polish is now the UK’s second Language .But if you ask the average reader to name a Polish writer they may just mention one but not many more so lets all get to know Polish literature better .
Now sometimes you read a book love it but it unsettles you in some ways ,this is what happened with Where I left my soul ,I read it late last year ,but decide to sit on it and let the book settle in my mind as it is quite a powerful book that unsettled me but one that I feel people need to read .Now one has to admire Christopher Machlehose and his team for yet again getting a great book out for the writer to then win a major prize Jérôme Ferrari latest book in France last year won the Prix Goncourt ,this book had won four literary prizes in France and one of my tips for this years IFFP .Jérôme Ferrari is a rising star of French fiction , by day he is a philosophy lecturer ,he has live in Corsica and Algeria and is currently professor of Philosophy at the French school in Abu Dhabi .So to where I left my soul .
He sat facing Tahar .
“We won’t touch you ,you know “
“I ask no favours ,Capaitaine .I’m ready to receive the same treatment as my Comrades “
“It’s not a favor .It’s nothing to do either favors .It’s a matter …. a simple matter of Logic ,you see .You can’t denounce yourself ,can you ?
The first exchange between the Capataine as Strachan has chosen to keep him from Tahar’s view and Tahar .
For the book Ferrari has chosen Algeria where he has lived before ,but to an earlier and more turbulent period in the country’s history and the year is 1957 ,this falls in the middle of the war for independence from france .the setting is a french army camp and the interrogators have got a Algerian freedom fighter Tahar an idealistic man willing to do anything for his country and willing to face the consequences is the rebel leader and called” the Pure ” .The French are represented by two main characters Captain Degorce he is an older French solider that has been impression and interrogated himself and was also impression in Vietnam ,Then the is the younger Lieutenant Andreani also served in Vietnam with the captain ,but this man has a very vicious streak .What follows is a tale of three men and what war makes people do and except as being caught .The events in the book take part over three days as we see what happens between the three men and how they end up there .
Your contempt does not matter any more than mine ,mon capitaine ,it is powerless against the force of this love I have never managed to eradicate from my heart ,for it has been rooted there like a weed ,full of vitality ,and I know nothing will eradicate it .
powerful words from Tahar near the end of the book
The heart of this book is beliefs truth and how to stay human in war .Thou set in 1957 during what is regard as the most violent and hard-fought war of the 20th century the war of independence of Algeria .The title is even a play on the mind of you as a reader as who has left their soul? ,who has soul? ,who hasn’t it ? and maybe can a pure soul be defeated ?.It’s a story of three men and how even thou the captain and Tahar are from different sides and he has seen what the lieutenant has to the man they call Tahar the Pure .Ferrari has said he want the book to show” the moment we open our eyes to Horrors ” and this is what trouble me I have read accounts of torture before but something in this book had touched me .But it is a timely remind of the fact that eye for an eye tactics in war ,don’t really work and when we casually use words for torture it is maybe remove the effect on the people being tortured and also those doing it in the long-term .One is remind of the main times you hear of torture on the news at present it is sryia but as the book shows it is a harrowing experience .
Have you read any books set during the Algerian war ?
Well Peter Stamm is one of those writers that has been on the edge of my radar and wish list for a for a few years now and after reading this has jumped to writers I want to complete .So Peter Stamm studied various subjects as diverse as English ,business information (?) ,psychology and Psychopathology ,He had worked in a psychiatric ward as and intern after this .Before becoming a freelance Journalist and then on into writing in his early thirties .He has won number of prizes in Switzerland ,Seven years is his tenth novel and the seventh to be translated to English .
Meet Ivona ,said Ferdy .She’s from Poland .This is Rudiger ,and this -is Alexander .He was standing behind me ,I had to almost vertically look up at him .Have a seat said Ferdy .The women put her glass down on the table and next to it her tissues and her book ,which was a romance novel showing a man and a women on horseback .
Their first meeting and maybe a subtle hint at what is coming .
So Seven years is a spin on the old seven-year itch story ,a phrase that has been coined by Psychologist as the time a couple that has had a monogamous relationship is likely to stray and to have an affair .So the couple in this book are Alex and Sonia ,they are described as a sort of trendy hip middle-aged couple into the hip things and image they are both Architects ,on the hip edge of this Sonia loves the works of the Franco /Swiss architect and urbanist Le Corbusier .So we she her going her and there to see his buildings . So it is a shock when the third part of what becomes a love triangle in this book is Ivona she is a rather dull plain women from Poland that had come into Alex’s life a number of years before he started the affair with her then and we are being told how it happened .What develops is a very strange and almost awful relationship Alex like the fact that Ivona is the total opposite to his wife and when she tries to make her self more appeal he makes her stay the same ,she top him appears as an object a thing he has to use not often as a person .Whilst his wife is going on about a new house and this and that .This happened in the past and is told with a cold tone at times giving an insight into Alex as maybe an emotional devoid man.
I had known her body in all its details .The heavy Pendulous breasts ,the rolls of fat at her neck ,her naval ,the stray black hairs on her back ,and her many moles .I knew how she smelled and tasted .How her body responded to touch ,I knew it repertoire of familiar movements ,but when I saw Ivona sitting there ,I had to acknowledge that I din’t know the least thing about her , that she was a complete stranger to me .
Sonia was a conquered land in Alex’s eye and Ivona was a woman of mystery .
I was looking forward to this on a number of levels I had heard how easy Stamm is to read ,he is the book took me a day and a half to fly through but then kept me thinking about it for the next week or so which was the other thing I had heard was that Stamm is a writer that lies with you long after you have put the book down ,and yes he does .The other thing I really like is the fact it is a Hofmann translation I have always found his translation to be top drawer clean and unfussy style ,with real sense that it isn’t a translation .So Alex and Sonia what do I make of them they struck me as very much like a typical English couple in the age group and tastes something of the yes they’ve read the books , like the right films but at the heart of the couple is a real void all the things in the world can’t make up for the fact they are quite shallow and really uninteresting people at the heart of it I was reminded very much of the women from the film of Nick Hornbys High fidelity Charlie played by Catherine Zeta Jones ,who John Cusacks character describe her and her friends as being some one you like to be with but when you there with them you realise they are actually quite vacant people .Where as Ivona the Christian book seller is described as dull woman but the more the book goes on the more she leaps off the page .A real tale of love ,lose and marriage told with a subtle and careful tone by Stamm.
Pierre Michon is one of the most highly regarded writers in France raised by his mother ,he studied literature at Clermount -Ferrand ,he then decide to join a travelling theatre company travelling .He entered the world of Literature at the age of 37 with the book small Lives ,a collection of interlocking stories looking at eight lives also published by Archipelago .This book the eleven is his twelfth novel and even thou it is a short book at just 97 pages it is one that Michon spent fifteen years working on .It won the French Grand prix prize from the French academy .
We know he was born in Combleux in 1730.
It is just upriver from Orléans with its visible church towers, and
it bathes gently on both branches of the Loire. Overhead of course
are those French Poussinian skies, which he rarely painted, and from
one steeple to the next following the levee the length of the river,
those islands, willows, rushes where as a child, one would have loved
to hide, and the sudden flights of birds. The Loire carried boats at that
time: and it is because of the boats, and what carried them, that the
creator of The Eleven was born on the shores of the Loire.
Corentin early life and origins described
So the Eleven the title is taken from a painting a fictional painting that was supposed to have been painted during the height of the French revolution .The Artist Corentin is brought in to compile a painting the one of the title the eleven ,this title refers to the eleven members of the committee of .WE see how this painting was made from a number of angles ,we learn of the artist ,how he came to do the painting his thoughts whilst he is painting the paint ,the people in the painting .First Corentin this guy is a man who rose through the society he lives in, due to his talent as a painter .He rises from his humble beginnings in Limousin region a rural area of France .The committee well to mention a couple of names -Robespierre and Saint – Just two names that even I had heard of in regards the French revolution .The struggle of Corentin in how he is to portray these men on the canvas with his feeling for them and how they want to be shown on the canvas .He is also comission to paint before this the mistress of louis XIV . So we see where his conflict comes from
Can you see them, Sir? All eleven of them, from left to right: Billaud,
Carnot, Prieur, Prieur, Couthon, Robespierre, Collot, Barère, Lindet,
Saint-Just, Saint-André. Unchanging and erect. The Commissioners.
The Great Committee of the Great Terror. Four point thirty by three
meters, a bit less than three.
The painting described and who starred in it
Corentin is maybe a representation of a number of artist that probably painted during the French revolution and how they maybe struggled at times with the art and the subjects they were painting .Well as you see this is one of those French books that is very French(that sounds wrong ,I mean in a publishing context ) I can hardly see a British publisher taking a chance on a slim book about a fictional painting and painter that has very little happen in it yet so much this is one of those books that makes you think .I was reminded at times of the Robles novel I read last year ,as this book has the same feel of themes on top of themes a web of ideas ,The eleven is rereader a book that I ‘m sure you get more from after every time you read it .The main theme is of course the connection between art and politics ,well the power of politics and politicians.I mean how often do we see the dictators round the world surrounded by images of themselves painting sculptures .Also how often has art been used to capture a moment in time , I mean some of the most famous paintings from France that I remember are paintings that fall in that category The raft of the Medusa being one of them also Delacroix liberty leading the people an image also from the French revolution .We see the turmoil of the artist doing these paintings of these figures who hold the power but have let the power get to them .
Now Dacia Maraini is a name that always seems to be in the top ten when the odds for the Nobel literature prize are mentioned every year so when before Christmas I saw this in my local Oxfam I decided it was time to try her .So Dacia Maraini is an Italian writer her mother was a Sicilian Princess she was an artist and art dealer and her father was an Ethnologist and mountaineer ,The family fled Fascist Italy but end up In a camp in Japan til 1946.They return to Italy and Dacia lived with her father and was educated in well-known Florence school .She started writing age 27 in 1963 ,she had been married before that but was at that time living with the well-known Italian writer Alberto Moravia whom she spent time with til his death in 1983 .Well longer than usual Bio but I felt after reading her Wiki entry she has had a really interesting life .
How can that stone child have survived in that Ghetto ? Would he have had the strength to survive ? Was turning to stone a way of holding on ? And what if ,after all ,he had made it ? A boy has his life before him and it isn’t easy to break stone .
Amara musing after reading a letter from Emanuele
So to Train to Budapest well this is a novel of stories and two main plotlines ,mix styles and genres .So to break it up the main character in the book is Amara she is an Italian Journalist ,we join her on the train to Budapest she has been ask to write about the growing divide that is happening between east and west Europe post world war two .This is 1956 and the Budapest itself is heading to is itself heading to trouble as the brief freedom that is flourishing there is looking troubled .The reason that Amara took this job to write about Budapest is the second main plot of the book and that is the other main character in this book and that is Emanuele who was a friend of Amara when she was growing up they had both lived in Florence, then Emanuele family had gone to Vienna and this fallen foul of the Nazis .Emanuele story is told via the letter he had written to Amara during this time so you see the changing face of Austria the fact they have to wear stairs then can’t go here and there and then they are moved to The Ghetto the ? Well I leave that you to find out but at a point the letters to Amara ended and she is taking this journey to find out what happened to her friend after that point and the people he knew and she did via the letters .Then you add to that a lovely half Jewish man that she meets on the train who’s job sees him stepping in to be the father for people at weddings .Amara own war memories are mixed in as she take the journey things she will never forget .She also meets someone wanting to print letters from the Russian front .Will she find out what happened to her soul mate ?
The future opens before her like a precious flower touched by the first ray of the sun but still frozen on the branch ,Because spring is not yet here and the sun has deceived her .
The closing words so poetic .
Well this sounds complicated I can see you saying that but it works ,it is great musing on the world war two and how it affect just individuals not nations people also the echoes of the present (well 1956) Budapest and the situation in the Ghetto and for the Jews a sort of comparison of Communism and Fascism ,with neither coming out on top .The pacing of the book works the sort of feeling of a train journey that feel of moving through the book but not knowing you have done so .Dacia Maraini shows why she is a frequent Nobel favourite to make something so complex so easy to read and to stick with you long after I put the book down is very hard to do .This is one of those books you think why isn’t it better known it should be it is better than some similar books with less complex themes .
Well he we go its been five-year since Maclehose press started publishing their wonderful books. I’ve been reviewing their books since the blog started ,so I came up with the idea of Maclehose press week ,to highlight the wonderful books they publish ,it also helping clear the backlog of books I ve read and not reviewed .So here we go with Marcello Fois this is his second book to reach us in english .He is Italian writer ,playwright and screenwriter he studied Italian at the university of Bologna ,he then published his first book in 1992 aged 32 and has since published 25 books in Italian ,he has also written a libretto for an opera ,also episodes for an Italian TV series .
That he would be called Samuele was decided by Father Marci :
“Samuele was one of god’s knight .The fact is that every time the children of isarel failed to keep the covenant which they made with god which was honour him above all things.
Even his name has a mythical beginning
Memory of the Abyss is set in Sardinia like an earlier book I read by Maclehose also set in Sardinia from a female perspective that was Accabadoa by Michela Murgia this book is told from a male perspective and roughly at the same time ,So the book is set in Sardinia just as Il Duce has come to power and the main character is returning to Italy after being in North Africa .This Guy Samuele Stocchino is a well know Italian gangster ,what Fois has done is taken his return to Italy and his battle with the fascist forces and reimagined him as an almost mythical figure .We see him as a youngster enlist in the army go to North Africa to fight for the italian army against the natives .He returns disliking the empire italy has built ,but also still very proud of being Italian .He also hates what Il Duce and his fascist followers are doing to his homeland .Thus we see how this man takes on the authorities ,killing and genrally causing trouble as he does so the price on his head grows as he ends up battling with just one figure from the regime who really want to get Samuele ,but his legend grows .So we see a mythical figure appearing from the pages a man of legend .
I saw Stocchino when everyone was saying he was dead ,and the Manai and Bardi clans and all their friends had paid for a mass and a new processional rob for the madonna ,embroidered by the nuns ,as well as jewels and a crown of solid silver .
Near the end his myth is huge he almost becomes a myth .
This book fits in the field of lack comedies dealing with war ,So the real life gangster Stocchino becomes like an Italian robin hood or kray twins where the fact he is a killer is overshadow by the fact he is fighting Fascism and trying to keep hold of an older vision of Italy he loved .The language of this book is very rich one imagines Patrick Creagh had a real task trying to get the beauty of Fois writing into English and I think he has succeed ,Fois imagery at times reminds you the richness you find in the Italian masters where you look and keep seeing more and more detail ,this is like that I kept finding myself turn back and rereading passages to get full beauty of the words .Yet again the feel of Sardinia is a world of old values and traditions fighting the changing world rather similar to the world of Michela Murgia painted in the earlier Maclehose book I’d read also set in Sardinia .
RT @ReaderMagazine: "I actually have no fear. Their power is our fear. And if you don’t fear, then they have no power…” —Mikhail Shishkin h… 19 hours ago
RT @DwightGreenCR: Have been focused on Hungarian lit lately, particularly plays. “The Imposter” by György Spiró is a very good one: http:/… 20 hours ago
n the afternoon that preceded the dinner ,after the tanks and armoured vehicles had rumbled and rattled their way into town ,there stepped out from one of the military cars onto the city square Colonel Fritz Von Schwabe ,commander of the German division and bearer of the Iron cross his legs still stiff ,he stood surveying the scene and announced “Gjirokastër I have a friend here .”
