One of the most accomplished, masterful personality-portraits that were ever entrusted to the novelistic form. Süskind impossibly evokes a world that,One of the most accomplished, masterful personality-portraits that were ever entrusted to the novelistic form. Süskind impossibly evokes a world that, while it feels familiar insofar as it is ostensibly our own world, is experienced and described according to parameters that are not, in a strict sense, exactly human. Perfume is nothing less than a virtuoso, miraculous rendition of alienness in its most horrifying yet familiar, recognizable essence. Don't go into this looking for traditional realism, because Süskind is too good a raconteur to let himself be hindered by that (and to the reviewers who lamented the implausible conceit of the novel I say a good old-fashioned: No shit Sherlock). Look, instead, for the truth of character and the truth of fancy. It's scary, with Perfume, to let the book guide its own reading, because in this case the book and its world are entirely regulated and dominated by a depraved and morally-null personality; but that's just where the challenge and preciousness of the novel lie.
I started reading this book only a couple of weeks after it came out back in 2020; I reached the halfway mark in practically no time, then dropped it I started reading this book only a couple of weeks after it came out back in 2020; I reached the halfway mark in practically no time, then dropped it for no particular reason. The thing is, I felt I knew where things were going, having noticed a lot of the same patterns you find in the plots of the other books in this series, and also in the Century trilogy. But that didn't bother me much, mainly because I kind of knew that was to be expected, so that's not why I dropped the book. I think I simply forgot about it.
I picked it up again a couple of days ago, but this time around, the fact that I basically knew exactly what would happen to each character was a bit annoying. So I skimmed the rest of the book without paying too much attention (and indeed, I was met with absolutely no surprises).
The Evening and the Morning is not a bad book: it's a typically Follett book. If you've read the other major novels that he published (I'm still referring to the Kingsbridge and the Century series), you've basically read this one too. This is why I'm not giving it a rating: as always, Follett's novels are extremely enjoyable, and this is no exception at all. I just didn't feel particularly motivated reading it, for the reasons mentioned above, but it's not like the book itself deserves a low rating, and I wouldn't like to be unfair in that way. My recommendation for you is either to begin with this one, if you haven't read the rest of the Kingsbridge books, or to stick to the main trilogy....more
Basically reads like well-written fanfiction. I say this merely in a descriptive sense, with no disparaging intent at all, because this is literally wBasically reads like well-written fanfiction. I say this merely in a descriptive sense, with no disparaging intent at all, because this is literally what it is: a reimagining of the behind-the-scenes of The Time Machine and the The War of the Worlds, and H. G. Wells even appears as a character. I found it completely and utterly uninteresting, however, and the book displays none of the usual Priestian vertigo that is typical of his novels. It left me wondering what the whole point was....more
"Volete sapiri chi rapprisenta pi mia questa comerdia? Non rapprisenta nenti, questa comerdia è sulamenti una comerdia."
I will offer a rough translati"Volete sapiri chi rapprisenta pi mia questa comerdia? Non rapprisenta nenti, questa comerdia è sulamenti una comerdia."
I will offer a rough translation (to my knowledge, the book hasn't been published in English yet) because I want to make a short comment about this segment. This is Zosimo, our protagonist, speaking toward the end of the novel, at a crucial moment which I won't spoil for you here. "Do you want to know what this kite [comerdia] represents to me? It doesn't represent anything, this kite is just a kite." I think the phonetic association between comerdia (the word used by Zosimo, meaning kite, aquilone in Italian) and comedia, which I can assure you is a rather automatic association for an Italian, is not accidental here. The literal meaning of the word comedia is comedy, commedia in modern Italian, but this term, especially in this outdated form, actually carries heavy literary and, so to speak, serious or even tragic connotations. Dante's masterpiece, which in Il re di Girgenti is evoked explicitly several times, was originally titled simply La Comedia, the adjective "Divine" being added only later by Giovanni Boccaccio. At the same time, we also use commedia today to describe something that strikes the speaker as patently ridiculous. Where an Anglophone would say, "what a farce," an Italian would say, "che commedia." And so the word hovers between these two halves of itself, the existential and the farcical.
Maybe we're forever doomed to fill the novels we read (or more in general, the stories we experience) with the lives we're living and the thoughts we're having at the time when we read them. I've been reading a lot about literary hermeneutics and the problems of artistic interpretation lately, and serendipitously, here comes a book that plays so insistently with the boundaries between fiction and history, fantasy and fact, and that finally seems to embrace this blurring of lines by insisting that the tales we tell (to others, to ourselves) don't need to mean anything: they're simply comerdie, or maybe comedie, kites or maybe comedies, things that can take flight and with that flight take on a life on their own if you just wouldn't be so obstinate as to try and keep them down.
So if you're asking yourself what in Il re di Girgenti is true history and what is invented fiction, I suggest you keep this question for later and consider instead how this book lends itself (as all fiction, I would say) to be read as true fiction, or maybe invented history, which is after all the same. As for what that means for you, if it means anything at all, I think each of us has to find out for ourselves....more
I read Half of a Yellow Sun as a university assignment, and now for the rest of my life I'll wonder when, or even if, I would have gotten around to reI read Half of a Yellow Sun as a university assignment, and now for the rest of my life I'll wonder when, or even if, I would have gotten around to reading it if it hadn't been for this assignment. Even slight a delay seems unbearable to me now. I have nothing to say if not that Adichie truly produced a marvelous, marvelously complex text. Read it....more
This book is huge—for more reasons than just its length. I believe Dan Simmons to be an incredible writer, but he and I just don'“Unintelligible.”
This book is huge—for more reasons than just its length. I believe Dan Simmons to be an incredible writer, but he and I just don't connect, as Ilium exhaustively proved long before I found out about Drood or my obsession with anything Drood-related, (which I find very appropriate—those who have read Simmons's Drood will understand) manifested itself. I felt this novel to be too long, and not even because of the long biographical passages abut both Dickens and Collins, which I enjoyed and appreciated very much, considering I am writing my bachelor's thesis about these two authors. I guess it's simply Simmons that I find generally verbose, regardless of the topic he's tackling. And that's one fault I've never been, and never will be, able to condone. The story, however -by which I mean plot, rhythm, construction, and everything in between- is brilliant, and I'm glad I managed to make it through to the end....more
“Looking around, it seemed every character from every Dickens novel, aristocrat and common, pompous and inconspicuous, had come to life...”
The Las3.5
“Looking around, it seemed every character from every Dickens novel, aristocrat and common, pompous and inconspicuous, had come to life...”
The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl is an entertaining novel and a treat for Dickens fanatics such as myself. As much as I enjoyed myself, however, I think that I would have appreciated the book more if I hadn't already read and reread and loved The D. Case or The Truth About The Mystery Of Edwin Drood by Fruttero and Lucentini. The aims of these two works are not exactly one and the same, and as a result they unfold in two different directions in a beautiful parallelism, as one starts investigating the novel Drood and the other the manuscript Drood, and then they both proceed to cross and blur the boundaries between reality and fiction, and between fiction and criticism.
That book, now, The D. Case, is a real literary investigation that had me down on my knees in adoration; and I guess that the problem is that I expected once again something on that line. And truth be told, in part I got it: only a great scholar equipped with an exceptional and devoted imagination could think of spinning this story around Poe's Philosophy of Composition and make it believable, or at least not entirely absurd. Other plot devices I liked way less and found way less realistic, (view spoiler)[like Dickens leaving the missing half of the manuscript in America, an action that no reasons suffice to explain, as I see it (hide spoiler)]. The book also provided, under a thin fictional disguise, a lot of actual historical information on Dickens, the publishing industry, the opium trade and so forth, and for me that's only a bonus.
Long story short, I may not have loved the plot in itself, but pretty much everything else about The Last Dickens was a success for me. I could even be persuaded to raise my rating in the future, according to how the memory of the book will sediment. What is sure is that Matthew Pearl was able to inject new life in the deep fascination the Drood mystery (both fictional and real) holds for me....more
“Because.... because, I do not know, I live among people the world tells me are kind, pious, Christian people. And they seem to me crueller than the c“Because.... because, I do not know, I live among people the world tells me are kind, pious, Christian people. And they seem to me crueller than the cruellest heathens, stupider than the stupidest animals.”
The French Lieutenant's Woman is a baffling book. It baffled me and I have no doubt it has left a trail of baffled readers behind it. I wonder why no one has blurbed it with “The French Lieutenant's Woman, proudly baffling people since 1969” yet. It would be the most honest blurb in history for sure. Even stranger, I read it slowly, closely, eyes and ears and brain cells wide open, and yet I feel as if I have understood nothing, as if I haven't understood the book. Which is just as possible, as we've already established the book has long set itself the very specific goal of making you question your own wits.
And yet, it does it without malice. It doesn't take pleasure in your stupidity, it doesn't gloat over it. It doesn't even pity it, nor sympathize with it. No. It is simply indifferent to it. You wouldn't feel as stupid if it showed to care, and then it would amuse no one. Because The French Lieutenant's Woman is a microcosm on its own. It needs nothing and no one, and no matter how many times the God of this world will address you, reader, because the truth is that to it, to Him, you do not exist. You can be an Ideal Reader at best, but please leave yourself outside, thank you very much. There's only so much space in here.
“The rival you both share is myself.”
In my mind, in believe, this novel will always be two: the metafictional experiment and the human story. There is no hierarchy between the two, and I will always be able to relive the book adopting, in turn, one of these two perspectives. Both, if I feel like wearing my brains out. But at the end of the day, I find I don't care. As long as I can relive it, and reread it, and think about it, I don't care if it so cruelly escapes me still. I'll just take whatever little it is willing to give....more
“It’s an odd thing but when you tell someone the true facts of a mythical tale they are indignant not with the teller but with you.”
A modern detect4.5
“It’s an odd thing but when you tell someone the true facts of a mythical tale they are indignant not with the teller but with you.”
A modern detective investigates on Richard III and the murder of the Princes in the Tower... I swear, sometimes it's like there are books written for you and you alone. (But since I am a generous person, you must can read it too.)...more
“I hope that the epitaph of the human race when the world ends will be: Here perished a species which lived to tell stories.”
•Well, I was certainly no“I hope that the epitaph of the human race when the world ends will be: Here perished a species which lived to tell stories.”
•Well, I was certainly not expecting this. This ultimately, absorbingly, fiercely, lusciously phenomenal reimagining of one of the greatest and most influential classics of my life (and, incidentally, of English literature too, of course). The strength of Jane Steele is that it styles itself not as the story of an alternative Jane Eyre, but of a parallel one. In the book, Jane Steele actually reads Jane Eyre, creating a delicious meta-literary situation which only enhanced my literature freak enthusiasm and allowed me to notice the myriad of links, references and parallelisms, all handled so intelligently and sophisticatedly, that connect the two works. For this reason, I think you can very likely enjoy and even love Jane Steele even though you haven't read Jane Eyre, but reading it in the light of its hypotext must be, I believe, a completely different and more thorough experience.
•Many of these read threads are almost too exquisitely subtle and refined for me to be able to nail them down with precision: they are in the characterization, in the plot, in the care and attention and loving admiration the author put in describing a foreign culture –the Sikh culture– to which she then proceeded to assign such a pivotal role in the story. I was particularly moved by Faye's decision to make of the conflicts between the British and the Sikh a key element in the storyline; it seemed to me as a willingness on the author's part to make some adjustments to the centre of gravity of Jane Eyre, where Bertha's Jamaican (and therefore, foreign) upbringing could be grounds for even a brief discussion about the relationship between motherland and colony, but isn't, resulting in the reader completely forgetting that another part of the British Empire has even be mentioned. Now, in Jane Eyre I didn't perceive that as a shortcoming at all (basically, because that novel is my life), but kudos to Jane Steele for the astonishing results of its masterful indirect approach to righting this wrong.
•Jane's character gets into your heart and head so quickly, and then it just won't leave. I loved her, this "no bird" who is as soft as she is unbreakable.
“Shadows are curious entities; they are lightless and yet cast a shape into the world, just as I do.”
And of course, Charles Thornfield–
“There have already been multiple moments which cause me to suspect your true self a giant deliberately casting a small shadow.”
Did you hear that? That plop sound? My heart melting, ladies and gentlemen. But also all the others, Sahjara, Sardar, even Clarke –I loved them all. And Sam Quillfeather! Heavens, I adore that man. And the way his character emerges and changes, that is to say through Jane's point of view as she grows up, is so fascinating to watch and very, very clever.
•Lyndsay Faye's writing is the umpteenth surprise this book has in store for its readers. Let's see, how should I describe it–stunning, maybe? Absolutely unbelievable? It was like actually reading another version of Jane Eyre, it made the whole story sound so true and authentic. Just remembering it makes me indescribably happy.
➽ What else can I say, if not that I recommend Jane Steele with my whole heart? After all, you know how picky and generally difficult I am when it comes to retellings and fanfictions and reimaginings, so I think my love for this one should speak volumes. Provided that, as I said, those who already know Jane Eyre have more chances of appreciating it, I know it can appeal to and make fall in love just everyone. And if you choose to read this one first, maybe then you can read Jane Eyre as an anachronistic reimagining of Jane Steele... And now I want to cry because I never thought I would see the day when a retelling would make me say that. Thank you, Lyndsay Faye....more
•The premise is interesting. It is. I also enjoyed the first part; but after a while, the story started to drag on and on, and I started to not see2.5
•The premise is interesting. It is. I also enjoyed the first part; but after a while, the story started to drag on and on, and I started to not see the point of it anymore.
•Some of the things that happen are completely -or almost- inconsequential. In addition, the story supposedly focuses on Sarah, one of the two housemaids of the Bennets' household. The thing is, sometimes the focus shifts, at length and in detail, to the Bennets themselves, which, I think, was rather useless if our concern is the below-stairs world. Long story short: the book could have been half of what it actually is. I was bored. I was uninterested.
•I found Sarah to be excruciatingly dull. I wanted to care about what happened to her, but I didn't. She gave me no reason to.
•Mrs Hill's secret left me speechless. I loved it, though I didn't love how it was handled because again, Baker's storytelling and I didn't exactly connect. When I started the book, knowing it was about the lives of the servant of Longbourn, I imagined something like this, I think, a plot like the one hidden in Mrs Hill's past. Not that I expected it and wouldn't have been happy with anything else, but it didn't surprise me that something of that sort was at work here. But again, the focus was wrong: it is treated almost as an incidental fact with little importance. I would have loved to dive deeper into Mrs Hill's mind, for example, or to know how James dealt with (view spoiler)[the secret of his birth (hide spoiler)] throughout his life.
➽ The potential was all there, as I see it; if only it had been written differently, it would have been a great book. But the way things are, I don't think I'd recommend it. ...more
I haven't read World Without End yet, but according what I've gathered from the reviews I've 4.5
“Sometimes Ned felt he lived in a rotten world.”
I haven't read World Without End yet, but according what I've gathered from the reviews I've seen and my experience with the wonderful The Pillars of the Earth,A Column of Fire seems to be significantly different from both its predecessors. The most heard complaints are, as far as I know, the weakness of the romance and the lack of depth when it comes to the characters, most likely due to A Column of Fire having a much wider scope than the first installments in the Kingsbridge series.
I believe both complaints to be incontrovertibly well-grounded. I challenge anyone to say Ned and Margery's story is as epic as Aliena and Jack's, or as dreamy, or as beautiful... or as unrealistic.
I'm not completely cold-hearted: I have cheered for Jack and Aliena them just like you all did. I even like them more than I like Ned and Margery, but only because I didn't connect with Margery as a character; if I must consider the romance alone, then I loved them both equally. Because Aliena and Jack make you dream, but Margery and Ned represent what would most likely happen, which means that they make it even easier for the reader to empathize with them. So I don't believe that in A Column of Fire the romance is actually weaker: I believe it is simply shaped on a different vision of love. And different doesn't necessarily means worse. Whether readers will be able to like it as much depends on what they're looking for and what they expect from a Follett book. I'm just saying it shouldn't be considered as an objective flaw just on principle.
As regards the wider scope, again, I completely agree, and again, it really depends on what you want from the book. The world depicted in A Column of Fire is much, much wider than the one of the first two books, more complex, more dangerous, and obviously, the focus must shift to accommodate this. In coming to terms with this change, I believe I was helped by my indestructible love for the other Follett historical series, The Century Trilogy, which I still like better than anything else I have read by him. The XX century is a terribly complex, composite period, and only true genius could make sense of it in such a fluid, gripping way of such a variety of people, countries, ideas, movements, conquests and atrocities; but Follett did it.
This is why I believe much of the experience of the writing of that trilogy went into the writing of A Column of Fire as well, and I also think this broader approach came into play in the Kingsbridge series just at the right time, as it probably (and very effectively, in my opinion) reflects the change that must have occurred in people's world view with the rediscovery and colonization of the Americas. It is true that in that trilogy, Follett generally does a better work with his characters than in A Column of Fire, but ultimately not so much as to annoy me; in fact, personally, I have no complaints at all.
Moreover, A Column of Fire roughly spans the year of the Europeans wars of religion, by which I am deeply and equally fascinated and repulsed. So it was kind of an easy win with me.
Long story short, you must be aware that you won't get from A Column of Fire what you got from The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End, because a lot of things happened in the years between the end of the latter and the beginning of A Column of Fire, and Ken Follett, according to my interpretation of the whole thing, chose to represent these changes with a narrative strategy he deemed fit. I am more than happy with his choice, which I find clever, thought-provoking and careful. The only thing I can suggest is, be unprejudiced and go for it....more
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