Books & Reviews Archive

While in ancient Egypt embalming was practiced to preserve the deceased for eternity, the Shinto worldview and a certain measure of fetishism lead, in Japan, to the preservation and safekeeping of objects and living beings that are important in one's life. The novel speaks of a "specimen," and the technique employed is perhaps akin to that used for the wet preservation of fluid specimens using for

The protagonist is a German woman in her forties who lives in Turkey and runs a bookshop specializing in crime fiction. She describes herself this way: > I have a double chin, orange hair, a mobile phone (an older model, though), and a circle of friends on antidepressants. I am always nervous, but I don't know why . Saddened and disheartened following an argument with her boyfriend, she sets

The novel is set in Friuli in 1944 and deals with an event that actually occurred. In that year, the Germans relocated an army of Cossacks to Friuli, who had sided with Hitler under the illusion that they could defeat the Bolsheviks, their historic enemies. They were a people who had wandered across Europe with women and children in search of a land, spurred by the promise of a victorious return

The context is the French Revolution. > Revolution is like those decks of playing cards where kings, queens, and jacks are split down the middle, one right side up and the other upside down, head up and head down; you turn and spin the card, but not a damn thing changes, the king standing upright is forever tied to the inverted one, as if sneering mockingly at him, as if whispering from below: I

> My mother from the sea died on the top bunk, on one of those nights. Looking at her, she did not seem ill, perhaps just a little greyer than usual. (...) At the funeral, the other mother accompanied me. PoorAdalgisa poorAdalgisa, she repeated, wringing her hands. But then they threw her out; her nylon stockings were all laddered and she couldn't attend the service in that state. This dream

In the final pages of the book, Modesta, the novel’s protagonist, is accused by her son of never having loved him, > because you lived for everyone, always on the go, damn you, talking and acting familiar with everyone . And Modesta answers him indirectly a few pages later, confessing that “in my eager thirst for life, I ran too far ahead in my mind.” The account of Modesta’s life resembles a

There are artists who remain forever pinned to an idea we hold of them, one that prevents us from truly appreciating them. Consider Dino Campana, the mad poet, and how his poetry was reduced to his presumed madness, casting his stylistic qualities and sources of inspiration into the background (see the review on this site of *La notte della cometa* by Sebastiano Vassalli). The same happened to Art

"A vulgar case of fraud, Your Honor, nothing more." Kermeur stands before the judge: he has confessed to killing a businessman, Antoine Lazenec. "We saw him sprout up like a mushroom at the foot of a tree," but in a quiet little town, lacking both ideas and jobs, > when someone like him arrives with such a determined expression on his face, (...) there is something about him that feels like an o

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus is condemned for eternity to push an enormous boulder up to the summit, only to watch it roll back down into the valley and then be forced to haul it to the top once again. For Albert Camus, the myth of Sisyphus shows us how > the struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. (...) At this subtle moment, when man turns back toward his life, a ne

The novel chronicles the investigation of a private detective following the murder of the Secretary of the Spanish Communist Party during a meeting of the Central Committee. The narrative unfolds slowly, blending markedly disparate styles and narrative content: a succession of continuous "parentheses" on life in Madrid and the tribulations of the leftist milieu, with a sentence structure reminisc

Following his separation from his wife, a modest painter of commissioned portraits undertakes a journey across Japan. In a motel, he comes close to strangling a girl whose name he does not even know. > Just pretend, she had told me. But would I be able to get away with so little, was I sure?. (...) Because it obeyed an inner impulse of my own...(...) That was what truly frightened me, in the dep

> How to accept remaining blind in order to be happy, how to turn one's back on oneself without facing one's own negation?... non does not restore grace to a rose by transplanting it into a pot, one denatures it; one believes one is embellishing the living room, yet in truth one does nothing but disfigure one's own garden . Amin, an Arab Israeli, is a brilliant surgeon, happily integrated into

The impetus to read Biamonti came to me from a poem by Montale: *Riviere*. In this masterpiece, the Ligurian landscape serves as the occasion for memories, for regret, and also for new dreams. And Pietrabruna, too—the village perched between mountains and sea to which the protagonist returns—evokes conflicting emotions: > the hills trembled in contact with the vault of the sky, shaken by a den

Mario Soldati was defined as “the first, great media-man of Italian culture” (Aldo Grasso in *Corriere della Sera*, 2016). Indeed, he was a novelist, journalist, screenwriter, film director, and television author. His numerous novels (reviews can be read on this site: *A cena con il Commendatore*, *Lo smeraldo*, and *El Paseo dei Gracia*) reflect his vast experience as a cinematic author, both in

John Williams wrote three widely acclaimed novels: *Butcher's Crossing* in 1960, *Stoner* in 1965, and this biography of Augustus in 1972 (with this entry, all of his books have now been reviewed on this site). Williams is an exceptionally talented writer who continually reinvents his style, adapting it to the story and the characters. In this case, the author constructs the plot through letters w

> Cipollino was the son of Cipollone and had seven brothers. (...) Decent folk, it must be said right away, though rather unlucky. What do you expect, when you are born an onion, tears come with the territory . Thus begins the book. In a few simple words, the author introduces the protagonist—Cipollino himself—the world of the novel, where the characters are fruit and vegetables, and the gent

The book collects three novels featuring Héctor Belascoarán as their protagonist. The first novel, *Days of Combat* (1986), recounts the protagonist’s life transformation: from a married engineer and corporate executive to a detective searching for clients and, on his own initiative, hunting down a serial strangler. In reality, the hunt for the strangler is a way to find himself, to escape a lif

As soon as one begins reading Collodi’s book, the mind immediately turns to a masterpiece: Gianni Rodari’s *The Adventures of Cipollino*. To our sensibilities, Pinocchio’s tale feels moralistic, with an underlying theme seemingly remote from us: > today (though too late!) I have had to convince myself that to earn an honest penny one must know how to make it, either through the work of one's ow

The novel, published under the pseudonym Guido Landucci, is an adaptation of one of the earliest Western-genre tales, written in 1837: *Nick of the Woods: A Tale of Kentucky* by Robert Montgomery Bird. Perhaps for this reason, the novel exhibits several unique traits compared to Salgari’s typical approach. The author’s traditional formula is as follows: a hero, often defrauded of his wealth and so

Kate lives in Dublin and is a middle-aged university lecturer. One day, she finds her husband dead in the bathroom and discovers herself buried in debt, hounded by creditors and banks. The man with whom she shared most of her life in an increasingly weary relationship was a scoundrel. > I wake up this morning with an awful headache, my new man had just left me a room and an empty bed . It is Be

The year is 1971, in China during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Two youths are sent for re-education to a remote mountain village. One is the narrator, while the other is his friend Luo. Unquestionably, a critique of the Communist regime runs through the entire novel—a critique mounted with irony and lightness, yet no less incisive for it. Were it confined to recounting how two charming and unfortuna

Nineteenth-century fiction holds an enduring fascination, often inviting modern reinterpretations. Such is the case with *The French Nursemaid*, which rewrites a great classic novel: Charlotte Brontë's *Jane Eyre*. Here, the protagonist is a young French girl. The novel falls essentially into two parts. The first is set in Paris. Sophie is an impoverished child who lost her father during the glo

All too often we forget the importance of places for our lives, for the shaping of our feelings, for the transmission of an individual and collective memory. As Paolo Casadio observes, walls, objects, and landscapes have the task of bearing witness to the past, of making it outlive ourselves, even if > walls know, but they can never say anything, only bear such a heavy burden in their mute immo

Gasparre lives on an island and is the son of a weigher. He excels at school, particularly in Latin, and moves to Turin with his mother to pursue his studies. At high school, he soon realizes that the teachers themselves demand conformity and integration, regarding him with apprehension as a student who is “too good.” Mediocrity is the hallmark of the school system, and Gasparre’s life is defin