'Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay' by Elena Ferrante (Review)

While Women in Translation Month is all about highlighting the overlooked, it's also nice to celebrate those female writers who have already managed to become well known in the Anglosphere.  Of course, if you're looking for big-name female writers in translation, nobody quite seems to have captured attention over the past year or so like Elena Ferrante, the elusive, reclusive Italian writer whose Neapolitan Novels have impressed so many readers.

With the third in the series about to be released, Ferrante's reputation seems set to keep rising, but does the latest instalment measure up to her earlier books?  Well, I'll let you know very soon, but be warned -  it's impossible to discuss this book without giving away details from My Brilliant Friend and The Story of a New Name.  If you'd prefer not to know, please look away now...

*****
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (translated by Ann Goldstein, e-copy supplied by Europa Editions) continues seamlessly from The Story of a New Name, with Lenù introducing her new novel at a bookshop.  When a middle-aged man is less than complimentary about her work, she's taken aback, so it's fortunate that a white knight appears to defend her - none other than Nino Sarratore, her childhood friend (and crush...).

While Nino disappears again soon after, his work as a university lecturer means that he's in the same field as Lenù's fiancé, Pietro, and it's inevitable that they will catch up again.  Lila, however, is back in Naples, and with little contact between the two old friends, it seems as if their friendship has finally run its course.  Little does Lenù know, though, that she's fated to return to her hometown again and again - it's not quite as easy to turn her back on Naples as she'd like...

Those Who leave..., the third book in the Neapolitan Novels series (the series was originally meant to be a trilogy, but it will now extend to four books), looks at the friends' adult years, with a focus on marriage, kids and work, as well as a generational shift.  The spotlight, though, is on Lenù, as we are shown her life in Florence after marriage.  Initially, she is overjoyed by her success as a writer, but this soon passes and her liking for her new family also turns sour:

"...what am I to the Airotas, a jewel in the crown of their broad-mindedness?.." 
p.50 (Europa Editions, 2014)

With the inevitable, premature addition of kids, the intelligent writer soon gets bogged down in the minutiae of domestic life, her plans of a glittering career slowly fading beneath a pile of nappies.  It's a bit of a dull life...

Outside Lenù's apartment, though, things are a little less sedate.  This is the late sixties, a time of unrest throughout Europe, and students are rioting in the hope of creating a new world order.  In these tempestuous times, especially in the universities, there is a real sense of danger, from which Pietro is certainly not exempt (he's not exactly a man of the new era...).  While her next book is a bit of a struggle, Lenù is able to dabble in journalism, tempted into becoming a voice of the people.

While her friend plays with theory in Florence, Lila is living the practice down south.  Nothing seems to get on top of her, and even in a exploitative factory, her intelligence shines through.  She soon becomes a focus for action against the management, and as the pressure builds, matters are always going to come to a head.  You see, in terms of violence, whatever the rest of Italy can do, Naples can always do better...

Those Who Leave... is an entertaining book, but, in truth, I don't quite rate it as highly as I did the first two; there's a sense of its being a bridging book, a continuation of The Story of a New Name and a set up for the final part of the series.  Part of the beauty of the first two books was the electric relationship between the two women, a tie which, while never broken, was often stretched or tangled:

"I simply listened, overwhelmed.  With her, there was no way to feel that things were settled; every fixed point of our relationship sooner or later turned out to be provisional; something shifted in her head that unbalanced her and unbalanced me." (p.222)

This is largely absent here as the two women go about their separate lives, and even when they do meet, it's usually in the presence of others, and the expected confrontation is avoided.  Several times the tension builds to what we think will be a dramatic scene, only for the emotions to ebb away without ever coming to the boil.

The focus here is much more on Lenù, and that isn't necessarily a good thing.  Her life in Florence, as mentioned, is a little dull, and she actually develops into a fairly unpleasant character over the course of the novel, particularly in the second half.  In My Brilliant Friend and The Story of a New Name, she is our voice, our eyes, and she always cut a fairly sympathetic figure, especially when Lila managed to bring her down with a sarcastic comment.  Not any more - at times, she's downright obnoxious...

Why?  Well, throughout the second half of the book, she shows herself to be selfish, lazy and aggressive, in addition to being annoyingly passive when she should be doing getting things done.  The story is basically setting up Nino's return, and this means that poor Pietro is in for some pretty shoddy treatment.  I actually thought that for much of this book, a view through the husband's eyes would have been much more interesting, looking at the friends and their families with the eyes of an outsider.  Perhaps we'd see Lenù then in a very different light.

Again, I hasten to assure you all that I did enjoy the book, and I do think it's worth reading.  However, it's not a book that can really be enjoyed without having read the previous two novels first, and I still believe that it doesn't quite match up to those.  Having said that, I suspect that my doubts will be set against a tidal wave of support for the book when other reviews start coming in.  One of the key ideas of the novel is the frustration Lenù feels at being stuck at home with the children, having to put her career on hold while she sacrifices herself for her family, and I suspect that this aspect of the story will be appreciated far more by other readers.

The reality, though, is that Those Who Leave... spends a lot of its pages building up to the final book in the series.  The lack of interaction between Lila and Lenù in this third volume is slightly frustrating - surely the final book has to bring their relationship to a head:

"Too many bad things, and some terrible, had happened over the years, and to regain our old intimacy we would have had to speak our secret thoughts, but I didn't have the strength to find the words and she, who perhaps had the strength, didn't have the desire, didn't see the use." (p.19)

I have a feeling the climax to the Neapolitan Novels will be a rather stormy one.  This is a relationship which needs to be examined further, and I'm hopeful that the two friends will finally get to the core of their friendship next time.  It's definitely time for a good, long talk, one in which those 'secret thoughts' are finally revealed...

'The Days of Abandonment' by Elena Ferrante (Review)

Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Trilogy has been getting rave reviews from just about everyone who has read the first two books (My Brilliant Friend and The Story of a New Name) - everyone, that is, apart from this year's IFFP judges, who didn't think the second book worthy of a place on their longlist.  Still, everyone else is keenly awaiting the third volume, out later this year, and while I'm itching to get my hands on it, I thought I'd scratch the itch by trying another of the elusive Ms. Ferrante's works...

*****
The Days of Abandonment (translated by Ann Goldstein, review copy courtesy of Europa Editions) is a shorter novel than the other two I've read, but it packs a lot into its 188 pages.  The story begins with a bombshell, when Olga, a Neapolitan living in Turin, is informed by her husband that he is leaving her.  With that, Mario walks out of the apartment, and his shattered wife is left to adjust to a life without him.

While she initially attempts to deal with events calmly and rationally, this facade soon crumbles, and her fiery southern nature comes through.  She becomes more aggressive and louder, taking her anger out on innocent bystanders.  However, it's only when she finds out the true reason behind Mario's departure that she really begins to unravel...

The Days of Abandonment is an extremely emotional novel, a story which is by turns intense, passionate and violent.  Olga is a woman completely thrown by an unexpected event, unable to comprehend why exactly her husband has left her.  She begins to blame herself and also deludes herself into believing he'll be back, despite knowing full well that the break is for good.

The break-up has a devastating effect on her, emotionally and mentally, as she begins a descent into madness, becoming a different person:

"I began to change.  In the course of a month I lost the habit of putting on makeup carefully.  I went from using a refined language, attentive to the feelings of others, to a sarcastic way of expressing myself, punctuated by coarse laughter.  Slowly, in spite of my resistance, I also gave in to obscenity."
p.26 (Europa Editions, 2013)

This complete change of character brings her to do things she normally never would, and what ensues is violence - and sudden, random sex...

The calm collected woman of the start of the novel can no longer think straight.  She is unable to remember the smallest detail, forgetting whether she turned off the stove or not.  The frustration she feels boils over, ans she lashes out at her kids (and the poor dog) as she, and her apartment, spiral into sickness and decay.  The broken phone, with random, intermittent hisses, is an apt metaphor for the break with the outside world.

Of course, this is all made worse by the fact Mario is happy without her, returning with a smile and a glow:

"Mario entered loaded with packages.  I hadn't seen him for exactly thirty-four days.  He seemed younger, better cared for in his appearance, even more rested, and my stomach contracted so painfully that I felt I was about to faint.  In his body, in his face, there was no trace of our absence.  While I bore - as soon as his startled gaze touched me I was certain of it - all the signs of suffering, he could not hide those of well-being, perhaps of happiness." (p.38)

Olga is resentful, and quite rightly so.  After years of love and sacrifice, moving around to support her husband in his career, she has been, quite simply - abandoned...

The writing is excellent, as is the translation, with Goldstein recreating Olga's internal monologue in English, an anguished, desperate cry for justice.  It's violent and breathtaking, and often intensely claustrophobic - at times we sympathise, at others we cringe.  It makes for extremely uncomfortable reading at times, but it's always compelling, driving the reader on towards the culmination of the tragedy.

Ferrante has certainly succeeded in creating a story of the woes of abandonment, but whose abandonment is it?  While it's true that Olga is abandoned, she, in turn, abandons everyone else in her life.  She's certainly not a character you can support without reservations.  The Days of Abandonment is a still a great tale, though, of the dangers of taking things for granted - and of refusing to accept the inevitable, no matter how hard it is to swallow...

'Ten' by Andrej Longo (Review - IFFP 2014, Number 14)

The winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize will be announced in a few weeks' time, and here at Tony's Reading List our trip around the world is also nearing its end.  The penultimate stop takes us to sunny Naples for a look at la vita when it's not quite so dolce.  We won't be seeing too much sun either - it's really more about the nightlife...

*****
Ten by Andrej Longo - Harvill Secker
(translated by Howard Curtis)
What's it all about?
The title is a clue for what lies within the covers as Longo's book is a collection of short stories set in southern Italy, each with a biblical twist.  You see, the ten stories are based on the ten commandments, and in lieu of a title, each story simply has a number plus the commandment at the start.  The stories don't follow the commandments exactly, but if you wait long enough, a connection usually appears.

As you would expect, several of the stories play on the role of organised crime in Naples, and there's often a mafioso lurking somewhere in the shadows.  The two stories which bookend the collection are the most obvious examples, portraying two differing encounters with the local heavies.  In the first, a local boy is trying to stay out of the way of the mafia, hoping to live an ordinary life.  Sadly, this is unlikely to happen in Naples, and events conspire to push him into the orbit of a local mafia leader.

The final story sees a more serious encounter though, as a group of teenage toughs discover that it's always worth thinking about your actions, especially when there are bigger, more dangerous people around.  A night of fun ends with serious consequences, with the book finishing on a pivotal note...

The city is an important backdrop to the action of the stories, with Longo casually sketching a picture of a squalid town, a place guaranteed to deaden any hopes the people may have:

"Under the stairs there were three junkies shooting up.  A mangy dog was wagging its tail behind a guy trying to sell a car radio.  An old man passed by, talking to himself out loud."
'Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery', p.79 (Harvill Secker, 2013)

It's unsurprising that a couple of the stories feature people who are trying to escape Naples, either by working in Rome or making plans to leave for good.  It's equally unsurprising that those plans don't really work out all that well.

The translation, by Howard Curtis, is an interesting one, in that it makes a deliberate choice to relocate Naples vocally to London.  The working-class accents and slang are deliberately reminiscent of the criminal underclass of the British capital.  For an English reader, echoes of the Kray twins (or, at a lower level, the Mitchell brothers from Eastenders!) are unavoidable.  I wonder if there's an American version floating around, with a Goodfellas vibe instead ;)

For me, though, the stories which feature the gangsters are less interesting than those where the disappointment is more subtle.  One of my favourite stories is one where nothing really happens - a dad just takes his son out to an amusement park for the day.  The problem is that the dad is obviously a man caught up in some heavy business, and every excursion into public is fraught with tension:

"I don't know how much a seven-year-old really understands.  He nodded and gave me a big hug.  And as he was hugging me, with his heart beating fast inside his chest, I could feel the cold gun pressing into my thighs, and I realised I couldn't do anything more for him.  My one hope was that he never became like me.  My only hope."
'Thou Shalt Not Kill (p.76)

It's a moving moment, where we begin to understand the wider implications of the bravado described in some of the other stories.

While Ten takes us on a trip around Naples, the visit is rather fleeting.  The book runs to 151 pages of very large print, and if you're in a hurry, you can easily knock it off in an hour.  What remains afterwards are a few confused impressions of the trip - fights, drugs, music, cars.  Oh, and an overwhelming feeling of relief that you've made it out in one piece.  It might be a nice place to visit, but...

Did it deserve to make the shortlist?
No.  I enjoyed this book, but the more I think about it, the less highly I rate it.  Some of the stories are rather obvious (particularly the mafia-heavy ones), and many of them blur into each other.  A few do stand out, but Ten is a little too light-weight to be considered for the main prize.  I waited five weeks for my library to get this to me - it wasn't really worth that much of a wait.

Why didn't it make the shortlist?
While there are several other slim books on the shortlist, this is one of the slightest, in terms of both volume and content.  I also feel that while there's nothing really wrong with the book (it's a great, quick read), it really suffers in comparison with Yoko Ogawa's Revenge.  Now *that's* how to write a series of nasty, interlinked stories ;)

*****
And, so, dear reader, we head off again on the last leg of our journey.  The final stop for 2014 will be in Poland, where we get to trudge through the snow to witness a rather tension-fraught meal.

I hope there's something for us to eat too - I'm starving...

'Bound in Venice' by Alessandro Marzo Magno (Review)

I'm very much a lover of novels, and there's not an awful lot of non-fiction on my reading list.  However, when Europa Editions sent me a copy of today's book, it piqued my interest immediately.  The main reason for this is that it has to do with publishing, and let's face it - I'm nothing if not interested in books ;)

*****
Bound in Venice - The Serene Republic and the Dawn of the Book (by Alessandro Marzo Magno, translated by Gregory Conti) is a look at a golden era, both for Venice and the fledgling art of publishing.  We find ourselves in the early 16th century, where the author paints a picture of a Venice which has become the world centre of the publishing trade, a city with books for everyone in a wide range of fields.

The aim of the book is clear from the start - Marzo Magno shows us life in the Serene Republic and explains why and how Venice became a publishing powerhouse.  Thanks to a mix of intellectuals and astute businessmen, available capital and a cosmopolitan clientele, all set against a background of relative liberty and (most importantly) no censorship, the scene was set for the birth of a major publishing industry, the New York or London of the day.

Of course it wasn't just in publishing that Venice was ahead of its time.  It was a fabulous city, a cosmopolitan metropolis with Armenians, Jews, Arabs, Germans and Greeks milling around the streets and piazzas.  There were:

"...books in foreign or remote languages, but spoken by many visitors to the city, which as a melting pot is perhaps rivaled only by present-day New York."
p.17 (Europa Editions, 2013)

In fact, Venice was not just a city, but a powerful empire, with lands in eastern Europe, all throughout the Mediterranean and even reaching far into mainland Italy.  Little wonder then that it became a centre of learning - and literature.

Chapter by chapter, Bound in Venice looks at a different area of the publishing industry, covering topics such as maps, music and medicine.  The recent voyages of discovery had led to a boom in the field of cartography, and maps of new lands were followed closely by newly-made maps of the human body.  Of course, in a volatile political environment, with the Ottoman Empire desperate to make Venice bleed, books on war are also rather popular...

The work is most interesting though when it focuses its gaze on a single topic.  The chapter on the Hebrew publishing industry looks at the creation of the first printed Talmud in the language, appearing (naturally) in the city with the first Jewish 'ghetto' (back when the word didn't quite have the same connotations as it does today...).  Venetian publishers didn't discriminate though; another section looks at the fairly recent discovery, by researcher Angela Nuovo, of a legendary lost Koran.  Printed in Arabic for the first time in Venice in the early 16th century, the book turns up unexpectedly in the library of San Michele monastery (uncovered in a delightful literary detective story!)

Marzo Magno also introduces some of the stars of the renaissance publishing era.  The first is Aldus Manutius, super publisher, father of the semi-colon and italics, as well as a man the writer credits with inventing the first paperbacks (or libelli portatiles).  Small in size, with no academic commentary, these were cheap, portable books allowing the masses to enjoy a hobby previously restricted to the rich:

"Aldus Romanus (as he was fond of signing his name to honor his Roman origins) is the first to conceive of the book as entertainment.  He is the inventor of reading for pleasure, and this invention brings about a bona fide intellectual revolution that transforms what was an instrument used for praying or learning into a pleasant pastime." (pp.43/4)

OK, everyone - say thanks to Uncle Aldus ;)

Renaissance Venice also saw the rise of Pietro Aretino, the first star writer.  He came to public attention with his Sonnetti Lussuriosi (Salacious Sonnets) in 1527 and became notorious as a scandalous writer, a man loved by the masses.  Aretino was also a master of self-promotion (nothing changes...), raising his profile above that of other writers.  Of course, he had the city to thank for his success:

"The symbiosis of writer and city is total.  In no other place in sixteenth century Europe could Pietro have become the Aretino, in almost no other place could he have written such things without landing in jail, in no other place could he have found a publishing network able to guarantee him the press-runs and distribution." (p.202)

As Marzo Magno makes clear on several occasions, Aretino's success was only possible in a free Venice...

There's a lot to like about Bound in Venice, but be warned - it is a bit dry at times.  This is particularly true of the long first chapter, which is full of 'interesting' statistics.  Despite the pictures painted of 16th-century bookshops, this section is rather dull and a poor introduction to what lies ahead.  Another aspect of the book which might split readers is the writer's style as his rambling, comma-filled sentences where tangents (and tense switches) abound may not be to all tastes.

So, will you like it?  Well, it's very much a book for book lovers.  If the hunt for a rare error-filled Koran in a monastery library has you nodding off, then no.  If, on the other hand, you can't wait to get on to Wikipedia and find out what Glagolitic script looks like, this might be one for you.  Come and visit the Serene Republic - and don't forget your reading glasses :)

'Cocaine' by Pitigrilli (Review)

Today I'm looking at another book from new indie publisher New Vessel Press, a recent addition to the world of translated fiction.  Last time, I reviewed some contemporary Argentine literature, but this time we're looking at an Italian classic - a rather controversial one...

*****
Cocaine (translated by Eric Mosbacher, review copy courtesy of the publisher) is a reissue of a novel by Pitigrilli, a writer whose work shocked staid authorities in the 1920s.  It's the biting, witty tale of Tito Arnaudi, a young man who runs off to seek fame, fortune and fun in Paris (well, where else?).

Tito is in the prime of his life, but averse to following other people's instructions, so he decides to make a living from a mixture of journalistic instincts and sheer cheek.  His first article, on the shadowy Parisian world of cocaine, makes him an instant hit and opens doors both professionally and socially.  This is his ticket to a world of pleasure, one centred on two lovers - and a lot of the white stuff...

While naughty and witty, Cocaine is not really explicit, but it's unsurprising that the novel was frowned upon by the church in Italy.  Sex and drugs and naked dancing may have been a fair reflection of the time, but it's unlikely to have amused the Vatican.  It's a fun book though, with jokes everywhere you look

Tito looked at him, puzzled.  Then he said: "You've had an unhappy love affair.  Has your mistress been deceiving you with her husband?"
p.138 (New Vessel Press, 2013)

And there are plenty more where that came from :)

In the early parts of the novel, the reader is treated to fantastic scenes of the hedonism of the time.  Forget Gatsby and his lame soirées - people really knew how to party in Paris.  The evening held by Kalantan, one of Tito's lovers, is astonishing in its open description of the way the upper classes spent their free time.  Strawberries and chloroform, butterflies flapping about helplessly, asphyxiated by the fumes of the mind-altering chemicals, naked dancing, cocaine aplenty, and guests openly injecting morphine.  While the orgiastic scenes that inevitably followed are veiled, it's still a rather powerful image.

It's the second girlfriend, Maud, that Tito really falls for though.  Initially a prim and proper Italian girl, she is ruined by the reformatory her parents send her to for her own protection.  Having disappeared from Tito's life, she reappears in Paris, a mid-grade celebrity, a high-priced 'girlfriend' and an enticing figure with a handbag-sized dog (eighty-odd years before Paris Hilton copied the style).  It's little wonder that our hero decides to pursue her.

Tito, obsessed, follows her across the seas to several continents in the hope of winning her heart.  However, Maud is a dancer who can't help feeling wanted; Tito can have her, but not exclusively.  In this impossible quest, and the globe-trotting, there are shades of a hedonistic Candide - in this, the best of all possible worlds, everything (even drug abuse) must be for the best...

Of course, a life lived at this pace has consequences, and Pitigrilli makes this abundantly clear, giving us warnings from the very start.  When Tito goes looking for cocaine for the first time, he encounters a group of female addicts, twitching and desperate for drugs:

"But the four harpies didn't calm down.  Panting, with dilated nostrils and flashing eyes, they clawed at the box of white powder, like shipwrecked persons struggling for a place in the lifeboat." (p.24)

It's a timely warning for our feckless friend...

Tito fails to heed these warnings though, and as his twin obsessions, sex and drugs, blend into one (he even starts calling Maud 'Cocaine'), his downward spiral accelerates:

"Tito's nights were restless.  In the evening he took strong doses of chloral to overcome the insomnia produced by the drug he could not give up.  The result of the incurable insomnia and the useless drug was a hallucinatory state; he spent long hours in a state of wakefulness in which he felt he was dreaming and in a state of sleep in which he felt he was awake." (p.153)

What goes up (the nose), must come down...

In the end, despite the wit and constant light touch, Cocaine is a sobering account of the dangers of drugs and sexual obsession.  Tito is quite obviously doomed to a sad ending, but you suspect that he's quite happy to trade in his twilight years for a brief moment of ecstasy.  It all makes for a thoroughly enjoyable story from a forgotten writer :)

*****
Cocaine has an added extra in the form of writer and journalist Alexander Stille's afterword, one which focuses more on the man than the story.  It's an intriguing, fifteen-page tale of a man who... well, wasn't very nice.  Fascist informer, selfish traitor, Dino Segre (Pitigrilli's real name) was a pretty nasty character all round, albeit a very interesting one.  Cocaine is a great read, but I'd definitely leave the real story until after you've finished the novel ;)

'The Story of a New Name' by Elena Ferrante (Review)

After reading the wonderful My Brilliant Friend a few months back, I was itching to get stuck into the sequel to Elena Ferante's novel of a Neapolitan childhood.  Luckily for me, Europa Editions have just published it - and it's another superb read.  A note of warning before we begin though - in reviewing the second book, I will (inevitably) be revealing some plot details from the first one.  *Please proceed with caution* ;)

*****
The Story of a New Name (translated by Ann Goldstein, review copy courtesy of the publisher) picks up where we left off, with the cliffhanger at Lila's wedding.  Her decision to wed to escape poverty appears misguided from the very start, with her husband having seemingly betrayed her to the people she hates most in the world.  As Lenù looks on (slightly distracted by the handsome figure of Nino Sarratore), she begins to feel that for once Lila has overplayed her hand...

Soon enough though, it is Lenù herself that starts to feel lost.  As Lila slowly adapts to life as a married woman, her friend struggles with her studies, always doubting her ability to truly fit in with the people around her.  Having deliberately distanced herself from her family and friends, Lenù now finds herself caught in a no-(wo)man's land, stranded between two social spheres, neither of which she really belongs to.

Again, the old competitiveness and jealousy raises its head, and Lenù tries to console herself that she is, at least, happier than Lila.  The new Signora Carracci, however, is a woman both enigmatic and fearless, and no matter what life throws at her, she is likely to get what she wants in the end.  Which is when Nino enters the story once more...

From the paragraphs above, you might be forgiven for thinking that I've decided to start reading romance fiction, but nothing could be further from the truth.  Taking up the themes of My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name is a twisting, caustic account of the life of women in mid-twentieth-century Naples, a feminist look at the struggles women faced in escaping from the poverty trap and a lifetime of subservience to men.

The first part of the book largely takes place in the neighbourhood, an oppressive, cramped world in itself, where a handful of families rule the roost, lending money and cheating customers at the grocery scales.  While Lila has ostensibly married into this 'ruling' class, she is a woman, with no real rights, and like all wives who hesitate to accept this 'truth', she will suffer for her obstinacy.  Lenù, our eyes and ears, is frightened by a sudden realisation of what happens to women when they become wives and mothers:

"That day, instead, I saw clearly the mothers of the old neighborhood.  They were nervous, they were acquiescent.  They were silent, with tight lips and stooping shoulders, or they yelled terrible insults at the children who harrassed them.  Extremely thin, with hollow eyes and cheeks, or with broad behinds, swollen ankles, heavy chests, they lugged shopping bags and small children who clung to their skirts and wanted to be picked up.  And, good God, they were ten, at most twenty years older than me."
p.102 (Europa Editions, 2013)

Lila is now one of these women, and her introduction to married life is brutal and upsetting.  It does not make for pleasant reading.

The new name of the book reflects Lila's new state as a married woman - Lila (or Lina) Cerullo has become Signora Carracci, and this change of name does bring some advantages.   She gains financially, moving into a large, modern apartment, and she never needs to worry about money, taking freely from the tills of her husband's businesses.  She has also risen in the world in terms of status, walking around the streets of the neighbourhood like a Neapolitan Jackie Onassis.  But at what cost?  Her freedom, her intellectual development and her self-respect...

The widening gulf between Lenù and Lila reflects the general division in the novel between the literate, intellectual characters and the rest of the neighbourhood.  Those wanting to further their minds are able to retreat to a place in their heads where their partners, friends or enemies are unable to reach them, and Lenù sees a need to keep away from her oldest friend, fearing that Lila's problems will drag her back down into the morass of the neighbourhood...

Part of the magic of Ferrante's work though is the way that the two women's lives are so inextricably entwined that there is never a chance of a complete break:

"But Lila knew how to draw me in.  And I was unable to resist: on the one hand I said that's enough, on the other I was depressed at the idea of not being part of her life, of the means by which she invented it for herself." (p.274)

Every time Lenù believes that their friendship is finally over, she can't resist going back to see her friend, looking for something she could never really explain - praise, redemption, a feeling of superiority?

Whatever it is, she's unlikely to leave satisfied - no matter how successful Lenù becomes, there's something about Lila, something innate, which allows her to effortlessly surpass her friend, to always be two steps ahead.  It's a tortured relationship at times:

"When I saw Lila again, I realized immediately that she felt bad and tended to make me feel bad, too.  We spent a morning at her house in an atmosphere that seemed to be playful.  In fact she insisted, with growing spitefulness, that I try on all her clothes, even thought they didn't fit me.  The game became torture." (p.97)

Ah, friends...

A further strong point of Ferrante's writing is her wonderful characterisation.  The two main women are strongly depicted, and can be very attractive, but there is no black and white here.  Lila is whimsical, changing her mind more often than is good for her (and the people around her), but she can also be perversely stubborn, often when giving in a little might actually benefit her.

Lenù, despite being our conduit into Ferrante's world, is a coldly honest portrayal of a character the reader might be tempted to associate with.  Egotistical, immature and often self-serving, she is also somehow easily swayed and unable to keep her nose out of matters that don't concern her, even if she kids herself that she wants no part of life in the neighbourhood.  These flaws though, far from marring the two women, make them real, complete, people we can truly sympathise with.

Ferrante's novel reflects another time, another world, one in which, of the two paths the friends choose, Lila's housewife role seems the most likely route to success.  Sadly though, that's not really the case.  Even in twenty-first-century Australia, true equality is very far from being a reality...

After our recent Federal election, won comfortably by the conservative opposition, the new Prime Minister (a deeply religious and conservative politician) announced his new cabinet.  Of the eighteen ministers announced, only one was a woman, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop (Abbott himself decided to take on the women's affairs portfolio...).  A cartoon in the newspaper the next day had a worried-looking colleague asking Abbott if having one woman in the cabinet was a problem.  The cartoon PM replied by saying that it would all be good - she'd be overseas most of the time anyway...  Just a joke, right?  I'm not convinced...

In a climate like this, books like Ferrante's are a reminder of how far we've come, but also of how far we've yet to go - and it's another great read.  So, can I have the final book in the trilogy now, please? ;)

'70% Acrylic 30% Wool' by Viola Di Grado (Review)

Today's post is on another gem from Europa Editions that I missed out on the first time around, but it's a book that was well worth waiting for.  The writing is strange, and subtly disorientating, but the setting is very, very familiar...

*****
Viola Di Grado's 70% Acrylic 30% Wool (translated by Michael Reynolds, review copy courtesy of the publisher) is a wonderfully bizarre novel, one set in the English city of Leeds.  From the very start, the city plays a starring role in the story, mostly as a dark, depressing place, a town where it's always December and daylight is just a distant cultural memory.

Of course, we're not meant to take this literally (I think...) - this view of the city is an outward projection of the mental state of the main character, Camelia Mega.  Born in Italy and brought to Leeds at the age of seven, she is struggling to cope with the loss of her father (caught in flagrante with a lover - in a car crash) and her mother's retreat into an inner-world, one of denial and wordlessness.

Camelia seems set to follow her mother down the spiral when a chance encounter on the street with a young Chinese man, Wen, provides the impetus she needs to start living again.  In fact, Leeds even manages to get past December (eventually...).  A love story with a happy ending then?  You obviously don't know Viola Di Grado...

70% Acrylic 30% Wool is a fantastic book, a novel which defies simple clichéd explanations.  It gets its power from Di Grado's manipulation of language and the way in which she makes the ordinary bizarre, constantly leaving the reader grasping at thin air.  For me, this was a more personal reading than for most because I lived in Leeds for a few years, very close to the places Camelia describes; however, the Leeds of the novel is less that of my student years and more one of some post-apocalyptic nightmare.  As any self-respecting southerner will tell you, it's grim up north:

"It must have been seven in the morning but it was dark outside, like at any self-respecting hour of the day in Leeds.  They discriminate against daylight hours here, ghettoizing them behind curtains."
p.19 (Europa Editions, 2013)

I don't think the city's tourist board will be hiring Di Grado as an ambassador any time soon...

Things start to get better though, when Camelia meets Wen, the manager of a clothes shop, and starts taking private Chinese lessons (let's ignore the fact that they met after he recognised her clothes as something he'd thrown out in the rubbish...).  Camelia had been planning to study Chinese at university before her father's death, and she soon gets swept up both with her studies, and her growing passion for the young teacher.  However, when Wen (no pun intended) fails to respond adequately to her advances, things start to get very messy.  Occasionally literally.

As you might imagine from the mixed linguistic background of the story, languages and words (or the absence thereof) play a major role in the novel.  Camelia becomes obsessed with Chinese characters, painting them on pieces of paper, plastering them across the walls of her home and tracing them manically onto her arms and legs while watching television.  Everything she sees is decoded in the form of the radicals of the characters, transformed from real objects into inky-black depictions.

Her journey into language contrasts with her mother's retreat into silence (the silence, at times, threatening to infect Camelia, forcing her to vomit up words...).  Having said that, languages do not necessarily require verbalisation, and mother and daughter somehow communicate very well with glances.  And, of course, there's always music:

"She stood up there, so red at the top of the steep narrow stairs, stairs rotten with dust, like an upside-down Tower of Babel that instead of multiplying languages had destroyed them all.  And all this, the elision of all languages, just to get to this moment, to her standing there mute and breathtaking as she always was after playing her favorite piece." (p.157)

Camelia, though, most definitely prefers words - and action...

I still don't think I've managed to quite get the idea of the novel across adequately - this book is ever so slightly twisted (in a good way, of course).  As well as the above, there'll be blood, sex, betrayal, mutilation of defenceless clothes and flowers, and symbolic references to holes.  And Leeds.  Lots of walking about the centre and student areas of Leeds.

Which brings me to the only bad thing I have to say about 70% Acrylic 30% Wool...  Michael Reynold's translation is a good one, a very good one in fact, but it's written in American English, and for me that detracted from the finished article a little.  I was just too close to the setting of the book to be able to gloss over some of the vocabulary choices, even if the style of the language isn't noticeably American.  The place I used to go and buy crisps at late at night is not a 'gas station'; the thing I used to walk on to uni most days (OK, some days) is not a 'sidewalk'; wherever Camelia found the clothes, I'm pretty certain it wasn't a 'dumpster'; oh, and while Leeds can be pretty bleak at times, it's definitely not 'gray'...

Rant over :)  This is a great book, and I really hope that more of Wunderkind Di Grado's work is available in English soon (my Italian ain't all it could be).  It's not always easy to get your head around, and understanding Camelia's actions can be a nightmare at times, but you should definitely take 70% Acrylic 30% Wool for a spin.  Definitely not one for delicates though ;)

'My Brilliant Friend' by Elena Ferrante (Review)

While the photo to the left may suggest that I'm at the cutting edge of translated fiction, those with keen eyes may judge that the opposite is the case.  You see, while Europa Editions were kind enough to send me a copy of today's book, the only reason I got an uncorrected proof is that there were no reading copies left - because the book was published last year.  Yep, I've got my finger on the pulse all right ;)

Still, better late than never - and the book was definitely worth waiting for...

*****
Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend (translated by Ann Goldstein) is a wonderful novel, one I enjoyed from start to finish.  It tells the story of two girls growing up in 1950s Naples and is actually the first part of a trilogy.  The story is narrated by Elena, a bookish girl you suspect is an alter-ego of the writer, but the central figure of the novel is her best friend Lila, a character who defies description, both for the reader and Elena herself.

Lila is a young woman who can't be pinned down.  A poor girl with a fierce intelligence and an undeniable charisma, she chooses Elena as a friend at a young age, and while Elena is never able to rid herself of the feeling of coming off second-best in every possible way (looks, intelligence, sexual allure, success), she feels proud that Lila has singled her out as the only person in her neighbourhood worthy of being her confidante.

The neighbourhood is itself a focus of My Brilliant Friend.  The two girls are growing up in a poor area of a poor city in the poorer part of Italy, and Elena acquaints the reader with a suburb used to violence:

"I feel no nostalgia for our childhood: it was full of violence.  Every sort of thing happened, at home and outside, every day, but I don't recall having ever thought that the life we had there was particularly bad.  Life was like that, that's all, we grew up with the duty to make it difficult for others before they made it difficult for us."
p.37 (Europa Editions, 2012)

Violence, actual or imminent, pervades the novel: husbands and wives brawl; fathers and sons injure each other in senseless quarrels; and on the streets, knives and guns are more common than you would expect...

The concept that drives the story along is that this is a place, and a life, to escape from, and while the two friends start off with the same idea, studying hard in the hope of some day becoming rich enough to escape, they eventually drift onto different paths.  While Lila is the genius, it is Elena who manages to stay on the academic straight-and-narrow, striving to be top of the class each term despite having no clear idea of what advantages might arise from her efforts.  Lila, on the other hand, decides that a long-delayed possible future success is not for her - instead, she thinks that marriage may well be the way to escape her fate.  Towards the end of the novel, flaws begin to appear in Lila's perfection though, and we begin to wonder which of the pair the 'brilliant friend' actually is...

There's a lot to like about My Brilliant Friend.  In its depiction of an unequal friendship, narrated by the less confident of the two friends, it reminds me of classic novels like Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes and Günter Grass' Cat and Mouse, and as in those novels, it becomes increasingly clear that the lot of the 'superior' friend is not always the happier one.  As a child, Lila is streets ahead of everyone else, but even she cannot extract herself completely from the social ties binding her, slowly pulling her down into the traditional fate reserved for Neapolitan women.  It appears that she has made her choices freely, but how free can she be in a man's world?

The book is also a stark, at times brutal, look at class differences, and the way your future can often be ordained at birth.  Most of the action takes place in Elena and Lila's neighbourhood, but the girls do venture further afield at times.  When they do, it can come as bit of a wake-up call, as is the case when they walk into a richer area of Naples:

"It was like crossing a border.  I remember a dense crowd and a sort of humiliating difference.  I looked not at the boys, but at the girls, the women: they were absolutely different from us.  They seemed to have breathed another air, to have eaten other food, to have dressed on some other planet, to have learned to walk on wisps of wind." (p.192)

The group of friends from the poor suburbs feel out of place among the well off.  The choice they have is to retreat to their part of town, or adapt and fit in.

This class difference is also shown linguistically.  The native language for most of the characters is dialect, and the switches between dialect and Italian usually represent class differences between characters and situations.  The more educated Elena becomes, the more she uses Italian, even if she still retains mastery of her first language.  It's tricky to balance these two sides of her character though - some areas (such as the mysteries of the Holy Trinity...) just can't seem to be discussed in dialect...

My Brilliant Friend is a book which makes for compelling, compulsive reading, one I sped through in a couple of days, and it's also a novel which makes you reflect long after the last page has been read.  While we are living the story through Elena, and following her slow progress towards an education, maturity and (possibly) future prosperity, we are also witness to the alternative path taken by Lila, wondering if she has miscalculated in her plan to escape a life of poverty and drudgery.

The book ends dramatically, and not in the way you expect.  Even if I hadn't known My Brilliant Friend was the first part of a trilogy, I would have been expecting a sequel - there are too many questions here left unanswered.  Luckily, we won't have to wait long, as Europa are publishing the second part, The Story of a New Name, in September.  Rest assured, I won't be leaving it as long to get around to Ferrante's work the second time around ;)

'The Last of the Vostyachs' by Diego Marani (Review - IFFP 2013, Number 15)

I have a thing for languages and linguistics, so I'm always happy to read books where language plays a leading role.  My final read for last year's IFFP Longlist, New Finnish Grammar, definitely fell into that category, meaning that I was especially happy when Diego Marani made it onto the longlist again this year.  The good news didn't end there. The Australian edition of his new book is about be released by Text Publishing, and I was lucky enough to get a review copy :)

*****
The Last of the Vostyachs by Diego Marani (translated by Judith Landry - from Dedalus Books, my review copy from Text Publishing)
What's it all about?
We begin in Siberia, where Ivan (a local youth) has just been released from a prison camp.  After the death of his father in captivity, he hasn't spoken for years - for he is the last of the Vostyachs, a tribe speaking a language long thought extinct.  One day, he ventures into a village to trade furs - and happens to meet Olga, a Russian linguist who instantly realises what she has in front of her...

She is shortly to head off to an important conference in Helsinki, so she immediately contacts the convenor Professor Aurtova, an old colleague and an expert on Finno-Ugric languages.  Olga has new evidence (Ivan) linking Finnish to native-American languages, and she is burning to present the evidence - and the man - at the conference.  The thing is, this could destroy Aurtova's life's work; and when it comes to matters linguistic, he's not a man to be crossed...

The Last of the Vostyachs is  a book which really shouldn't work.  It's part Tarzan, part linguistics lecture, part pulp fiction, and it's less than two-hundred pages long.  It's a story of language death, academic selfishness, and linguistic and personal relationships - and (naturally) it's a great read :)  Marani is an expert at taking an esoteric subject and making the reader accept it as an important part of the plot, even for those who couldn't imagine anything more painful than pages of arguments about language families.

In parts, it's also a story about nature and civilisation coming into conflict.  Ivan, the wild boy, is plucked from his natural environment and sent off to a big city to be paraded in front of intellectuals at a conference.  Surprisingly though, he does learn to adapt after his initial disasters; it probably helps that Helsinki in winter is pretty much home territory for a man from Siberia...

Olga, the Russian linguist, is an interesting woman, a social scientist who is focused on her life's work, but not so blinded by success that she fails to take Ivan's feelings into account.  In a letter to Professor Aurtova, she looks at the ethics of pursuing remnants of tribes to preserve languages, wondering who really benefits:

" For a moment, I thought that it would be better to leave Ivan Vostyach there where he was, in his own land; that introducing him to people so different from himself would cause him suffering, make him feel even more alone." p.30 (Text Publishing, 2013)

"All in all, it probably doesn't matter if he carries on living among the Nganasan and forgets his Vostyach.  One peaceful human life is surely more important than the survival of the lateral affricative with labiovelar overlay." (p.32)

Does the survival of the lateral affricative with labiovelar overlay really matter that much?

The main character, however, is Professor Aurtova, a sociopathic user who will go to any lengths, sexual or violent, to get his way.  He  sees languages as invading forces and wishes to defend the purity of the Finno-Ugric family group, to the death, if necessary.  Towards the end of the book, he gives an extraordinary speech at the conference, a bizarre, racist rant about linguistic purity:

"In the world of mass culture, where the weaker languages are threatened by a new linguistic colonialism which stifles minority cultures, only ignorance can protect us from extinction.  My call to the new generations, here as in the former Soviet republics of Finnish stock, is therefore this: cherish ignorance, do not study the language of the foreigner, but force him to learn your own!" (p.164)

Erm... let's move on, shall we?

The Last of the Vostyachs is a very different book to New Finnish Grammar.  It's a lot more of a page-turner (with some farcical humour), and it lacks a little of the subtlety of Marani's previous novel in English.  Nevertheless, it's a great read, and it manages to come up with a surprising ending which turns the idea of language death on its head.  What else can I say?  More Marani translations, please :)

Did it deserve to make the shortlist?
Although I enjoyed it, I'd have to say no - it's one which will finish just outside my top six.  A lighter book than New Finnish Grammar, it's still well worth reading, but I don't think it was up there with the top few books this year.

Why didn't it make the shortlist?
The panel obviously agreed with me.  A great read, but perhaps with not enough depth in a very strong year.  Having said that, there's at least one book on the shortlist that this one should have dislodged...

*****
One more stop to make on our IFFP travels, and (luckily enough) my virtual Hungarian visa has just arrived.  It's time to head off to the woods...

Accabadora - Not Such a Magic Word

My most recent surprise package from MacLehose Press was a paperback edition of Accabadora, a recent prize-winning novel by Italian writer Michela Murgia (translated by Silvester Mazzarella).  Despite reviews from several familiar bloggers, it's a book that had flown under my radar, and I decided to start it right away, knocking it off in less than a day.  A good thing or a bad thing?  Let's see...

*****
Accabdora is set on Sardinia a few decades back.  As we start the book, we are introduced to an old lady, Bonaria Urrai, who has decided to informally adopt Maria Listru, the superfluous and little-regarded youngest daughter of a poverty-stricken villager.  Maria has no regrets about her change of scenery, quickly coming to treat her new guardian with love and respect, and the ever-nosy villagers eventually lose interest in the event.

However, the older Maria becomes, the more she wonders about Bonaria.  While she ostensibly earns her keep as a seamstress, her standing in society is much higher than that.  Why does she always wear black?  Why do people speak to her in hushed tones?  And why does she sometimes go out in the middle of the night...

Murgia's debut novel starts out wonderfully, painting a picture of a society which, due to its place away from the larger centres of civilisation, still retains strong links to its traditional values.  The reader is drawn into the story by the description of local customs, and while there are plenty of questions left unanswered, we (like Maria) are more than happy to wait for the right time:

"Maria had not understood anything at all but nodded all the same, because you cannot always expect to understand everything you hear the minute you hear it.  In any case, she was still under the impression that Tzia Bonaria worked as a seamstress"
p.20 (MacLehose Press, 2012)

The question, of course, is whether Maria will be as happy when she finds out exactly what Bonaria actually does...

I won't go into exactly what the role of an accabadora is (although there are plenty of reviews out there that do), but it's safe to say that it's a complex role and one that involves some serious ethical dilemmas.  About half-way through the novel, Bonaria is confronted with such a dilemma when a young man, whose leg was shot and then amputated, asks her for help she is unwilling to provide.  At which point...

...unfortunately, the story rapidly goes downhill.  You see, once we reach the dramatic turning point in Accabadora, it's as if the writer's spark is suddenly extinguished.  Where the first half of the novel is fascinating, pulling the reader along, what follows is dull, clichéd and, at times, ill conceived.  The inevitable revelation of Bonaria's identity (known to everyone - including the reader - but Maria for some time) and the subsequent breach it causes are lacking in any kind of emotion - curious for what was surely the whole point of the set up.

Murgia then sends Maria away into an entirely unrelated sub-plot in Turin, which adds very little to the story, before dragging her back to the island to finish the book off as quickly as possible.  It's as if the first part of the story almost wrote itself, but the rest just wouldn't come out right.  I couldn't help thinking that the book should either have been left as a novella, ending with Maria's departure, or a much longer novel with the episode in Turin expanded and more closely related to the rest of the book.

In the end, I was disappointed with Accabadora, not because of my expectations (I didn't have any) or because it is a bad book, but because the first half of the novel promised a lot which the second half failed to deliver.  In flicking through other reviews of the book (which, lest we forget, has won numerous prizes), I saw overwhelmingly-positive write-ups, but I did come across a few with similar reservations to my own.  A different reader may enjoy the way Murgia has structured Accabadora - sadly, I didn't...

The Last Chronicle of IFFP 2012

As some of you may recall, I took part (not so long ago) in a rather audacious venture entitled the Shadow IFFP in which yours truly and a bunch of intrepid bloggers attempted to read all fifteen longlisted titles for the 2012 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and second guess the opinions of the real panel - something we proved to be very bad at.  But isn't that all over, I hear you cry, past tense?  Well, not quite...

You see, I did my best to get through all of the fifteen titles, but in the end I was only able to notch up fourteen, my library, which had been amazing up to this point, failing to get my purchase request back to me on time.  Luckily, they didn't give up - and neither did I.  This post is review number fifteen; so, have I saved the best for last?

*****
What's it all about?
New Finnish Grammar by Diego Marani (translated by Judith Landry) was shortlisted for the real prize, beaten to the award by some book I don't particularly wish to talk about now.  The story is set during the Second World War, but the plot actually has little to do with the war.  We are presented with a journal of sorts, written in Finnish, with an introduction and frequent commentaries from a navy medic, Doctor Friari.  The main writer is Sampo Karjalainen, a Finnish sailor (and amnesiac) found in Trieste after having been attacked and left for dead.

When the good doctor, a native Finn, sees the name sewn inside the sailor's coat, he realises that he must be a countryman and promptly decides to nurse him back to health - and teach him a little of the native language he appears to have forgotten.  Once back in Helsinki, Sampo sets about mastering the notoriously tricky Finnish vernacular, hopeful of recovering his memory and his past.  That depends of course on whether he has one - and whether Doctor Friari's assumption was correct..

I loved this book, but considering the subject matter that's not a huge surprise.  My background is in linguistics and intercultural communication, and the vital connection between language and culture is the cornerstone of the novel.  Poor Sampo is adrift in a strange world, bereft of his early experiences, and he clings to the language he has been told is his, desperately trying to master in the space of a few months what would normally take an adult a lifetime.

Marani is a master linguist, and his evocation of an adult learner's struggles with a new language is a delight, the bewildered seaman adrift on a sea of rounded vowels and nouns with fifteen declensions, grasping onto any recognisable sound emerging from a speaker's lips as if it were a lifebelt or a sturdy piece of flotsam.  Sampo listens and listens, enjoying the sound of the words even if he does not quite grasp the meaning, storing up vocabulary in his mind for later perusal.  However, despite his passion for the language, he can't help wondering whether Friari has made a mistake, one which will doom Sampo to failure; for as Friari himself remarks:

"A learnt language is just a mask, a form of borrowed identity; it should be approached with appropriate aloofness, and its speaker should never yield to the lure of mimicry, renouncing the sounds of his own language to imitate those of another.  Anyone who gives in to this temptation is in danger of losing their memory, their past, without receiving another in exchange." Dedalus Books, 2011 (p.52)

As much as the story is about Sampo and his struggles though, it is also about those characters who attempt to help him, unable to avoid the temptation of scribbling on the tabula rasa of his amnesiac personality.  Doctor Friari, a Finn forced to leave his homeland after the civil war, sees what he wants to see when he stumbles across poor Sampo, desperate to redeem himself and his family in the eyes of a fellow Finn.

When Sampo arrives in Helsinki, he finds himself under the wing of Pastor Olof Koskela, a charismatic, patriotic Lutheran minister, a man with a passionate knowledge of Finnish myths, determined to teach Sampo his forgotten heritage.  Where Koskela attempts to fill in linguistic and historical gaps, a nurse, Ilma Koivisto, tries to help him in a more emotional way.  Sadly, none of Sampo's benefactors are able to convince him that he really is Finnish.  The more time passes, the more doubts arise:

"I had a distinct suspicion that I was running headlong down the wrong road.  In the innermost recesses of my unconscious I was plagued by the feeling that, within my brain, another brain was beating, buried alive." p.77

This feeling of uncertainty pervades the novel until its climax; when we discover the truth, it is as shattering to the reader as it is to poor Sampo...

Did it deserve to make the shortlist?

Absolutely.  New Finnish Grammar is a wonderful book, and easily finished up on my shortlist.  If you're not as interested in linguistics as I am (and that's a distinct possibility!), I can see how the constant language analysis might grate.  For me though, this book was an intelligent, thought-provoking study of the importance of language and culture to our mental well-being.  I wouldn't have minded at all if it had taken out the main prize :)

*****

And that's it!  Our trip to Helsinki means that the journey has finally come to an end, albeit a rather belated one.  I've thoroughly enjoyed my trip around the world, courtesy of the IFFP, but now it's back to the daily grind...

...of reviewing more translated fiction :)

Shadow IFFP 2012 - Round-Up Number Four

So far in our Independent Foreign Fiction Prize magical mystery tour, we've been to a parallel Japan, Germany, South Korea, provincial China and seventeenth-century Iceland - and today we're going back in time again, this time to nineteenth-century Italy and France.  Who needs a holiday with books like these?  I spoil you all, I really do...

*****

The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco (translated by Richard Dixon)

What's it all about?

We begin in Paris, as an unnamed narrator guides us through dirty, disreputable streets until we enter a shop and peer over the shoulder of an old man.  Simone Simonini, an Italian resident for many years in the French capital, is beginning a diary of sorts in order to trawl through the depths of his memory and fill in some puzzling and worrying gaps in his recent history.  The reader is informed of Simonini's past by virtue of reading the pages of this diary; however, it's not quite as simple as that.  You see, Simonini is not the only person using the book to write down his thoughts...

The Prague Cemetery then is a conundrum of a novel, a story told by the unknown narrator, Simonini himself and the mysterious Abbé Dalla Piccola.  It's a dazzling creation, a tale drawing threads from all kind of real-life events and authentic literature to flesh out the existence of our Italian friend.  As the trio unfold daring intrigues and devious plots, leading Simonini from the combustible Italian states to a hardly more stable French republic, we begin to suspect that the three people may actually be one and the same person.

In terms of story, The Prague Cemetery is simply about how Simonini, a nerveless forger, a  murdering gourmet, a sexless sociopath, becomes caught up in some of the most explosive political and social events of nineteenth-century Europe.  Largely owing to his skills as a master forger, he is courted by the secret services of most of the major powers of the time, becoming a spy whose main talent lies in providing people with the information they need - all of it fabricated. The more he lies, the more his reputation grows, as the various services he works for have no real interest in the truth.  They are far more concerned with justifying the steps they take against various power groups - the Jesuits, the Masons and (of course) the Jews...

However, if that is not enough, the real concern of Eco's novel is Simonini and his identity.  Early in the novel, we learn of a casual acquaintance, a certain Doctor "Froïde", and the quest for the truth behind the unholy trinity of voices is definitely a Freudian one.  It is clear that a traumatic event has caused the partial amnesia experienced by both Simonini and the Abbé; we're just not quite sure what it could be.  Is it related to Simonini's forgeries?  To the various masonic lodges and cults he becomes involved with?  Well, you'll just have to read it to find out ;)

As well as reflecting actual historical events, the book also contains a plethora of meta-fictional aspects, referring to many books which, after further research, I found were all actually real.  One of the central pillars of the plot is Simonini's story of 'The Prague Cemetery', a fictional meeting of the Jewish leaders of the world, which several writers then adapt (or steal!) to both entertain an incredibly trusting audience and justify actions taken by various governments against the Jewish people.  There's definitely no such thing as an original idea in this context, but Simonini shows that original ideas are overrated, especially in an era where communication was not quite as advanced as it is today...

Do you think it deserves to make the shortlist?

Let me get back to you on that...  The Prague Cemetery is an excellent book, and the translation is a wonderful one, making it a pleasure to read, but the novel is not perfect.  At times, it all feels a little too clever, as if Eco is writing more to show his intelligence than to advance the story.  The plot can occasionally flag, especially towards the middle, and there is always the danger, when characters have continual anti-semitic rants, that the author's intention of condemning these views becomes almost overshadowed by his character's beliefs.

It's also a little ironic that in a book which pokes fun at crowd-pleasing, salacious pulp fiction, Eco's own story actually takes a turn in that direction towards the end of the novel, reminding the reader of nothing more than Victorian 'sensation' fiction.  Of course, knowing Eco, this was almost certainly intentional ;)

On first finishing the novel, I wasn't quite convinced, but a few days of unconscious reflection have raised the book in my estimation, so I'll say that it does deserve to make the shortlist.  I don't think it'll be a winner though...

Will it make the shortlist?

I'll stick my neck out and say no, which may be surprising given what I said above!  Despite its undoubted excellence, the accomplished translation and Eco's stature, I have a sneaking suspicion that this may be one which is enjoyed by a minority, even among regular readers of literary fiction.  It'll have adherents who will defend it to the bitter end, but it may also leave a lot of readers cold.

I hope I'm wrong though ;)

*****

One more done and dusted.  Stay tuned for the next stop on my virtual tour, when I'll be heading north again to spend the holidays with a lonely friend - see you then!