Books & Reviews Archive

It is the 1960s in a provincial American town. The Vietnam War and profound changes—cultural, social, and sexual—serve as the backdrop to the novel, whose central thread is aptly summarized by what the protagonist says at the end of the narrative: > confusion is just a local view of things working out in general . Can one remain oneself, as if nothing were wrong, in a “terrible period, of pro

This volume brings together Cesare Pavese’s short stories written between 1936 and 1946. Many of them had already been published, principally in the collection *Fiera dʼAgosto*, while others are unpublished, at times left unfinished. These are the years of the author’s imprisonment and internal exile, of the partisan war, and of the early postwar period. The earliest stories possess the structu

Kafka’s stories are generally brief writings, characterized by a paradoxical plot and cryptic, scarcely accessible content. Undoubtedly his most important story is *The Metamorphosis*, which can be regarded as a masterpiece both from a strictly literary perspective and in terms of its thematic substance. Gregor, a model employee, awakens transformed into a large insect, likely a cockroach. At f

We are in Wexford, a county located in the north-eastern part of Ireland and depicted by Billy Roche across numerous theatrical works. The setting common to all the stories is the Rainwater pond: > a dark and treacherous place. You could drop a coin in and watch it enter the murky water, go home, have your tea, go to the cinema, return home a second time, (...) and that coin was still sinking as

Jhumpa Lahiri is an Anglo-Bengali writer (see the review of *The Namesake* on this website); captivated by the Italian language, she has performed "a kind of reverse game" (as she writes in the foreword): translating an anthology of short stories from our literature into English, and subsequently presenting that same anthology to the Italian public. The authors, some renowned and others less so, a

In the short story *Casa Luminosa*, a young migrant family has arrived in Rome, believing they have found a home where they can live in peace; but the neighbors, incited by the "crow-women," insult and threaten the harmless married couple. The wife returns to her native country while the husband stays in Italy. He goes into a bar and watches a gentleman quietly sipping a chinotto. > I must say I

The novel is, in some ways, a continuation of the previous book. This time the protagonist is the girl, Lisbeth Salander. The opening is slow and leisurely. Lisbeth, now immensely wealthy, lives in the Caribbean and later returns to Sweden, where she resumes a relationship with an old friend and reconnects with her former guardian, hospitalized after a stroke. The journalist, on the other hand

In Japan, *konbini* are small convenience stores stocking everything; and it is here that a story unfolds, seemingly light and predictable, which instead confronts a crucial issue: as the protagonist observes following a conversation with her sister, people prefer someone who is > "normal," even if plagued with problems, to a sister who is quiet but "abnormal," from another planet. Keiko grew u

In a celebrated ballata, Guido Cavalcanti sings of the pains of love: “this (is) a desperate and fierce torment,/which consumes and aches and burns and embitters”. Love does not bring happiness, especially if > I can find none of whom to beg for pity,/thanks to that lord/who turns the fortune of grief . This state of mind is depicted with melancholic sweetness by Cassola, and he does so from th

It is chilling to read this novel in light of a recent news story, in which a boy stabbed his French teacher, unleashing upon her a hatred and violence one would never wish to see harbored in an adolescent. We are in the 1960s, in an “old and poor Milan,” yet already convulsed by traffic that was “unpleasant, irritating; drivers glared at one another with hatred, the traffic lights were always red

> It was hot, not with the heat of the scirocco or a scorching drought, but just hot. It was like a coat of paint brushed over the light breeze, over the yellowish walls of the *borgata*, over the fields, the carts, the buses with clusters of passengers hanging from the doors. A coat of paint that held all the joy and squalor of summer nights past and present. (...) And in the centers of the *b

It is difficult not to be swayed by the news of the severe depression that struck Cognetti (see the *Corriere della Sera* website, 20 December 2024). The long “mountain notebook” (the story’s subtitle) seems to herald that “bipolar syndrome with manic episodes” which required involuntary psychiatric treatment. Or rather, was leaving the city to go live in an isolated cabin the last illusory attemp

Defense attorney Guerrieri has just been left by his girlfriend when he is asked to represent on appeal a man named Paolicelli, who has already been convicted at first instance of international drug trafficking. From the name, Guerrieri recalls that he is a former fascist thug who took part in beating him during his student days. For this reason, he hesitates to take the case, but meeting the defe

> Words that outlive their author take on a life of their own. They shift, assume new forms, generate new meanings. And they always retain their intrinsic ambiguity . This reflection by Ibn Khaldun, who lived in the fourteenth century and is regarded as one of the greatest Arab philosophers, introduces the essence of this short tale. We are in 1980s Iraq, during the bloody war between Saddam

The book is structured in two parts. The first part recounts the adventure of Yanes, who sets out to rescue Tremal-Naik and his daughter Darma. The setting is Borneo, rich in strange fauna and an exotic atmosphere. Plot twists follow one after another, yet a certain artificiality and repetitiveness emerge, rendering the reading tedious. This section of the book closes with yet another surprise

A very fine book, especially the first chapter, in which the writer achieves a density of prose and depth of concept reminiscent of Nadine Gordimer. The book is structured around four periods in the writer's life: each is in some way symbolized by four great authors of literature in English: Nabokov with *Lolita*, Fitzgerald with *The Great Gatsby*, James, and Austen. The narrative does not foll

The novel is the continuation of *The Black Corsair*. The pirate is still in pursuit of the hated Duke Wan Gould, and the book unfolds across a series of combats and adventures, interspersed with long, captivating descriptions of the Caribbean forest. The Duke perishes with his ship, and in the end the pirate is reunited with his beloved Honorata, who has become queen of the cannibals. The book

The book picks up from the closing scene of Larsson’s previous volume: *The Girl Who Played with Fire*. Lisbeth Salander, after gravely wounding her father, has been rescued by her friend Mikael Blomkvist. She is, however, in critical condition, undergoing surgery and hospital confinement. Meanwhile, a special unit within the secret service attempts to have Lisbeth recommitted to a psychiatric

The first-person narrator is a young girl, then an adolescent, and finally a young woman, who recounts how she became the “cantora” of the history of her people (Ethiopia) and of the Italians, when the latter conquered her country. The book opens with the great-grandfather’s account of the birth of the girl’s grandmother during the resistance against the Italians and the violent death of her pare

The novel is set in Paris and recounts the strange parallel story of two homonymous families: a peculiar Mexican figure living in France in a secluded villa, and the young, unlikable son of a friend of the narrator. It is a surreal narrative that unfolds in a tedious and prolix manner. I was unable to finish the novel.

The novel revolves around the affairs of the human resources manager of a large company. An employee is killed in a terrorist attack, and the personnel director is tasked with overseeing the identification of the body and its transport to her native land: a nation of the former Soviet Union. Thus begins a journey that constitutes, in some sense, a path of purification and at the same time an esc

Here again, it is likely that I chose a minor novel by the author. I was unable to read it, why? The plot, the style...

The novel hinges on the daughter’s account of her parents’ story, of their love and how the latter dissolved into incommunicability. I did not finish the book because I found it tedious and difficult to understand. According to the Encyclopedia: > Madsen has centered his inquiry on literary experimentation and on the exacerbated problem of identity, incommunicability, and the futile pursuit of

> The ashes of the lost world spread across the desolate wasteland, (carried) hither and thither into the void by storm winds. Hauled and tossed and hauled again. Everything torn from its roots. Unsupported in the dusty air. Sustained by a breath, trembling and brief. If only my heart were stone . In a post-apocalyptic era (following an unspecified catastrophe) > all food stores had been exhaus