Halfway between a sweet classic tale of The Little Match Girl and a heartbreaking glimpse into contemporary life, Stargate is a book capable of striking all the right chords. How to describe it? How to talk about the power of Christmas magic? How to recount the delicate relationship between sisters? How to explain what it means to be forced to care for someone? How to talk about a burden so heavy that it weighs down...
“On a scale of one to ten, how much did your parents love you?” Jack and Elizabeth are the two human beings we’ll be dealing with for exactly 720 pages; two protagonists we’ll have to explore and discover, and at a certain point we’ll have to side with, or worse yet: confront. Wait, don’t let the page count intimidate you, because more than a mountain to climb, the text is a sea to navigate. It’s...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “‘I have always wanted to know something about you poets […] What do you do all day??“ Belfast and the 1990s. Two friends and a lot of bombs. Sarcasm and sweetness; so much anger; so much love. And a cat. We’re rereading this book after ten years: we didn’t remember it being so long, so full, and we did remember—yes, that—laughing a lot. What makes this novel so great? Because there’s grandeur in...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “They had expectations towards the other person, I only had expectations towards myself.” This book cannot be left unmentioned. To readers, non-readers, people who happen to pass by. In the Italian literary scene, it’s a mine that explodes, sparing no one. Without anything that could even remotely be mistaken for hypocrisy, without discounts, without winks. To discuss it, we must begin with the style: as another author—who is, first and foremost, a careful...
Written by Ernesto Florio This review is available only in the original language _______________________________ Lettura impegnativa, ma addolcita, come sempre, dalla magia coinvolgente di Murakami. Anche questa volta gli ingredienti del realismo magico orientale ci sono tutti: personaggi strani che compiono azioni inspiegabili, avvenimenti curiosi e privi di una qualsiasi spiegazione logica, i velati riferimenti alla società giapponese, i gatti e la musica jazz, l’amore adolescenziale, la nostalgia e il destino come motori essenziali dell’esistenza...
“Only that the doors often remain open when they should remain closed.” The story tells of Elisa, a very young girl who, after the death of her elderly aunt, her guardian, accepts the brief hospitality of her last surviving relative, her cousin Filippo. At Filippo’s home, she is welcomed by her sister-in-law Malvina, and a host of characters crowd their home during long evenings, where they discuss art, politics, society, and any topic on which...
“Some people think about it, some don’t. I’ve been thinking about it for thirty years. I try to prepare myself.” After reading, we found ourselves emotionally exhausted, perhaps still partly so. A book that sooner or later, in a form we cannot imagine, we will find ourselves writing. Each in their own way, each with the right amount of blank pages and unfinished sentences. How much do we really know our mother? Beyond her social...
“For us, there is no dialogue with death,” wrote Milo De Angelis.” There is only a cry. Death refuses to inhabit it. There is only this cry: a cry for help, of anger, of indignation, of amazement.” The theme of the farewell is the representation of the silence of a cry, which encompasses many things, above all loneliness, pain, and silence. A collection of verses that doesn’t lend itself to a quick read, but has...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “Things happen, they don’t need us.” It’s truly difficult to separate the author’s biographical details from the powerful sadness that permeates these pages—the same sadness that drives us to greedily absorb every single word, to reach the end without missing a single detail, a single vibration, a single gesture. Rio de Janeiro, 1970s. “The temperature of this novel is always above 31ºC.” Little Camilo, a pale bourgeois in a dusty, impoverished neighborhood, witnesses...
“I knew a secretary who only knew how to lick envelopes and stamps, yet she became indispensable […].” Approaching the text was not easy. The book calls to attention all potential and future readers; it forces them to patiently interpret, with a touch of wit and irony; and it condemns them to follow the protagonist’s ebb and flow of thoughts and reflections: we are in his head, and we must deal with this from the...
