“At some point it is easier to go to war than to return home.” Attention please. We are faced with a true narrative text, as has not happened to us for a long time, in which the story narrated, modern in many of its aspects, is combined with a dusty style (in a positive sense) typical of quality writing after the Second World War. As we like to specify, the text will last for years,...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “Today is my birthday. Everyone come and taste my sautéed pork liver.” When we reached page 50 we wanted to beat up whoever recommended this reading to us; by page 135 we had already cried three times; once we finished the book we were looking for the author’s complete bibliography. (Note to the reader: “The City That Doesn’t Exist” was released in recent days by Feltrinelli.) Yu Hua has mastered the ancient art of...
“We have already been halfway around the world: so why do we feel like we have never traveled before?” Paolo Rumiz confirms himself to be, also in this book, the pen of the wandering traveler that we would all like to be. A fluid prose that at times borders on poetry, due to the pool of words in which it invites the reader to immerse themselves. The text is a reportage of six stories that report...
“Correcting Italian homework is a torment. […] read one, you’ve read them all. Three in a row can cause death.” If you have in mind the Starnone of his latest novels, forget him. Form, substance and times belong to another writer (in a figurative sense), the only point of contact between the pen of yesterday and that of today is the ironic component, typical of Neapolitan culture. The book is in fact the disarming transposition...
“Misfortune had made a man out of him.” Moving like few other books, capable of touching the dormant childhood within each of us. With this long story, Bassani delves into his memories as a boy, up to take us to the beginning of the school year of 1929-30 in a classical high school, in his beloved Ferrara (the city of Bassani’s heart!). The shyness of the protagonist and a character that has not yet fully...
The books chosen by Andrea Salonia This review is available only in the original language _________________________________________________________________________ La si ama o la si odia. Non c’è un grigio nei sentimenti che si possono nutrire per Valeria Parrella. Proprio non c’è: è una questione di bianchi o di neri. Lo credo con forza, e per questo son partito con l’amare: io faccio parte di quelli che son stati mosche dentro la pancia di quella sua balena; così...
The books chosen by Federica Dagonese This review is available only in the original language _________________________________________________________________________ Due sono le persone nella mia vita con cui riesco a parlare di ciò che leggo liberamente come e quando voglio…e a loro da mesi e mesi ripeto sempre la stessa musica: impegniamoci a leggere la letteratura nuova, quindi le ultime uscite, perché troppo spesso diamo valore solo ai classici. Bene, dopo questa recensione penso di non meritare più la loro amicizia!...
The books chosen by Federica Dagonese This review is available only in the original language _________________________________________________________________________ Oliva è una trentenne in cerca di sé stessa e quindi del proprio futuro e della sua felicità. A prima vista è una normalissima donna, perché se la guardiamo ha un lavoro da precaria, un brillante fidanzato che sta anche per sposare e una normalissima famiglia. Insomma, vista così Oliva è un campione preso a caso delle trentenni dei...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “No one has ever come out to say – Christ, I’m sick as hell – Nobody, do you understand?” The book opens with a long preface by Fernanda Pivano who with expert wisdom explains why and how Bukowski became a giant of literature: if this is what you want to learn more about, read her, which is better. Is she not nice to you? We too, although, far from any sympathy or antipathy, her merit as cultural ferryman...
“Only dead fish go with the current.” Sweet, attentive, unscrupulous, acute. A text that is read with pleasure and that makes you happy in reading. In the same way the protagonist (and how could she not be otherwise?), Margherita Dolcevita has a nickname that characterizes (at least in Italian language) her both emotionally and physically, the usual clever pun that the author has accustomed us to in his books. Margherita is a fourteen-year-old teenager, full...
