"La promessa del maresciallo" by Nino Genovese (Il Foglio Letterario, 2018)

Gianluca Mariangelo, a Sicilian living in the North, is dealing with the murder of a prostitute's daughter, a 15 y.o. whose pregnant body was found down a well. He regrets promising the mother that he'll find the killer - who isn't the father, or the step-father, or the boy friend. The motive of the killer and his supposed reason for how he disposed of the body, don't convince me.

"La vita bugiarda degli adulti" by Elena Ferrante (Edizioni e/o, 2019)

In the first sentence we're told that 2 years before he left home, the narrator's father said to her mother that the narrator's ugly. The first-person narrator, Giovanna, is nearly 13. Puberty isn't easy. Her parents (André and Nella) had her late. She's worried that she disrupted their lives - they seem sadder than other parents. Her father's sister Vittoria has a bad reputation in the house. He claims that he saved her from a relationship with Enzo, a married delinquent with 3 kids. She's been blacked out of photos.

They live in Naples, which feels like many cities rather than one. She doesn't like speaking Napolitano - her parents don't. She reads a lot. So does Angela, her friend. Angela has a younger sister Ida, who reads even more. She asks her friend if she's ugly, if puberty has made her more ugly. Angela's parents, Mariano and Costanza, are the best friends of Giovanna's parents.

Giovanna wants to visit her aunt because Giovanna thinks she's becoming like Vittoria. But when a meeting's arranged, Giovanna thinks Vittoria's beautiful despite her nasty personality. Vittoria still hasn't got over Enzo even after 16 years. She claims that Enzo's death was because André told Enzo's wife about the affair. And he wasn't a delinquent, he was a policeman, though he threatened André with a gun. Vittoria encourages Giovanna not to think of herself as the daughter of a narrow-minded intellectual, but as belonging to a wider family of non-intellectuals.

Who is Giovanna to believe? She's attracted by the strength of Vittoria's passions - at home she has to hide emotions. She starts lying to her parents, and lying to friends. She bunks off school for her second meeting with Vittoria, to visit Enzo's grave. Giovanna's never been to a cemetery before. At the grave-side Vittoria talks to Enzo, then is anatomically explicit about her relationship with Enzo.

Vittoria's very friendly with Enzo's widow Margherita and her 3 children - Tonino, Corrado and Giuliana. She takes Giovanna (Giannina) to visit them. Giovanna's friends are fascinated by her newly discovered relatives and want to meet them.

Giovanna thinks Mariano and her mother are having an affair. Before long her parents divorce. Apparently André and Costanza had been lovers since before Giovanna's birth. She has to re-take a year at school, but isn't supposed to tell anyone about it. Angela and Tonino get engaged. Giovanna and Corrado get friendly.

A bracelet that André's mother owned gains significance. Was it a gift from Vittorio to Giovanna? How did it get into Costanza's hands?

Giovanna, nearly 15, gets dressed to lose her virginity to Corrado, but she finds herself in church and falls in love at (nearly) first sight with the priest, Roberto, who's the fiancé of Giuliana. He was born in the area, trained in Milan, son of a well-known lawyer. He plans to return to Naples to repay some kind of moral debt, and marrying Giuliana is part of that repayment. But he doesn't send her the articles and papers he's had published

Vittoria is Giovanna's point of contact with Roberto, so she make friends with her again, and studies the bible. This commences the least believable phase of the book. She wants to be friends with Roberto, a high-flying (albeit unpretentious) intellectual 10 years her senior. She had been envious of Vittoria's everlasting love for Enzo, then was introduced to sex (she's growing fast), then she learned the power and politics of attraction. Having looked down on her father's intellectualism she now uses him to prepare for discussions with Roberto.

Tonino and Angela break up. Tonino leaves in a hurry, to Venice. Tonino was the chaperon for Roberto and Giuliana when Giuliana went to Milan. Giuliana's having doubts about Roberto. Giovanna offers to phone him, and later agrees to act as chaperon. She and Giuliana take the train. They're invited to a gathering with Roberto's colleagues. Giovanna notices how hard Giuliana tries to show Roberto that they're made for each other. She notices how his presence at the gathering is what holds the group together. That night (Giovanna's 16th birthday) Roberto and Giuliana sleep together - not for the first time. On their return journey they discover they've left the bracelet behind. Giovanna goes beck to collect it, hoping to sleep with Roberto - the ideal being to lose her virginity to. Yet when he invites her to his bed, she refuses.

Back in Naples she discovers that Ida has a failed her exams but doesn't care because she wants to spend all her time writing. Giovanna has a chance to compare herself again with Vittoria - her body and future - and is keen to lose her virginity to someone or other. At the end, as an educational exercise and on her terms, she choose Rosario.

A primary theme's Nature vs Nurture - how much upbringing and education affect outcomes. Loyalty to self needs to be balanced against loyalty to family and clan. Idealised Love loses out to pragmatic considerations. In the end, Giovanna turns out ok.

There were hints that the men who treat girls with dignity are gay. I expected more to come of it.

Why do the teenagers let Vittoria have so much control over their relationships?

Other reviews

• La Repubblica
• The Guardian

"La Bussola D'oro" by Philip Pullman (Salani, 1996)

I disliked the film, so never read the books. But I liked the HBO/BBC adaption, so I tackled the trilogy. It re-uses ideas from elsewhere and re-combines them. Not sure about those clockwork flying spies. The book sags with the Balloon trip and Gruman's magic at the end of book 2.

As in many other books, characters can read a great deal in the faces and glances of others when it suits the plot.

"Letture di mezzanotte" by Afrodita Nikolova (Versopolis 2016)

An A5 pamphlet in Russian (Macedonian?), Italian and English, available from Liberodiscrivere. I think the originals are in English, though it's not clear.

I often don't understand the imagery, or the reason for the choice of words. It's a style of surrealism that's never appealed to me, but I've other difficulties too. Here are some examples from the first 3 pages -

• "Why didn't I bottle it and throw it at the sea/ to recover it from a lighthouse distance?" (p.33) - at the sea? lighthouse distance? What does it mean overall?
• "the tomatoes on the vine reflect their barbed wire/ through the glass" (p.33) - I can see how vines can look like barbed wire, but have trouble with the idea of reflecting through glass.
• "red metronome-shoes" (p.34) - red dancing shoes whose heels are together while the toe ends are swung together then apart? So?
• "I feel the lightness of your reproach/ in my room as water in a vase - its sharp edges" (p.34)
• "quasi-antique shop" (p.35)
• "Heavy, like the ash folklore at the lid's edges" (p.35)
• "Charlie props Grandpa's feet and pushes him/ through the openings of the vintage radio speaker" (p.35) - Charlie is presumably the Sir Charles Spencer who appeared from nowhere in the previous stanza. Why? What does "props" mean?

The next poem, "A Leftish Union of Dolls in the System of Paediatric Anatomy" begins with

The dolls in my father's house are dead ends: their throats where ants are strings of praying pilgrims.

which is enough to make me turn to the next poem.

There are snippets that could I can make more sense of - "She doesn't know why the old are silent in church/ and pray out loud by their beds./ At daytime she wanders the streets/ feeding lost travellers// watching train toys on windowsills" (p.43); "in the gusts of wind no one is safe/ but the nights keep moving as if nothing is a secret" (p.46), etc - but seeking them out wasn't worth the effort.

"Storia di Ali" by Giovanni Mariotti (Marsilio, 2005)

Teenager Ali works at a filling station in a desert. He sleeps there too. The old boss Jack and his twenty-something daughter Emily live 100m away in a caravan. She's not allowed out and isn't allowed mirrors. Her knowledge of sex is limited to what she's learnt from her father's porn. She's watched Ali from a distance. One night she sneaks out and seduces Ali, saying she'll come again but only if he doesn't look at her face.

Ali, a Muslim, grew up in another desert. He left when he was 6 with an older boy, also called Ali. They separated when the older Ali became fundamentalist. Young Ali's more interested in football. He discovers that his new country (USA?) is at war with his old one (Iraq?). He imagines arriving in his home-village on a US tank. He wonders what wearing a suicide belt may be like.

Five Hells Angels arrive threateningly. Jack scares them off with a gun. They promise to return the next day. When they do, he shoots them. Jack's put in prison - he had terminal cancer anyway.

Emily has a facial disfigurement. She decides to get a burqa and call herself Fatima. Ali gets a phone call from a hospital - his uncle Ali who'd emigrated to the States years before is gravely ill. So Ali and Fatima catch a train to visit the uncle, who's become westernised - he has a carpet firm. After the visit, the couple pop into a sex shop, then the beach, which Emily/Fatima has never seen before.

Less than 120 pages. See also al Sahara.

"Chesil Beach" by Ian McEwan (Einaudi, 2007)

A newly married couple, Edward (historian, Chiltern) and Florence (musician, Oxford), are about to sleep together for the first time, in an era when youth was a condition of slight embarrassment for which marriage was the first stage of therapy. They're both 22. Edward has performance anxiety. Florence's worries are more to do with disgust at the physical act, at being "penetrated" (even by his tongue in her mouth), though she doesn't fear giving birth.

They're honeymooning in a hotel, finishing their evening meal. It's about 1962. They hear downstairs old people at the bar still in the shadow of the war. They hear a distant radio. The couple think it's time to move on; after all, the States have Kennedy. The UK's losing what influence it had. The empire's shrinking. The couple's conversation is awkward, with many silences - Edward's keen to go to bed, Florence is dreading it, hoping she won't be sick, but neither dare say what's going through their minds. He thinks about politics to distract himself from getting too excited.

We wind back to their first meeting, which only happened because of a succession of chance events. They'd both studied in London but never knowingly met. We learn that Florence has a younger sister, that her mother isn't physically expressive emotionally. Florence has sometimes gone on holidays just with her father. Edward was raised in respectable but poorer surroundings. His mother's a bit strange and arty. He has younger twin sisters. She wants to set up a string quartet. He doesn't get classical music, preferring Chuck Berry. He plans to write a series of books on forgotten historic figures.

Back at the action, there's progress. Each movement's recorded, as if in slo-mo. She admits to being a bit afraid - an understatement, but they're her first ever words on the subject. He replies that he is too. She has a physical sensation caused by Edward which might be the first sign of pleasure. He has a messy premature ejaculation. In horror she runs to the beach.

We then read about Edward's stays with Florence's parents - his tennis games with her father (a businessman), his political/history debates with her mother (a lecturer), his caution about winning or losing. He experiences many things there for the first time, not least stereo, and cheese that isn't cheddar. He tries to delay her visit to his parents' dirty cottage. She turns up unannounced and enjoys herself.

In the hotel he thinks that she's tricked him into marriage feeling no physical attraction for him. He finds her far along the shore. She doesn't have a vocabulary to describe what happened, let alone an explanation. He's angry. They argue about money. She admits her difficulties, says she knows of a couple of homosexuals who live together. She suggests that she and Edward could make up their own rules about how to live together. He says she's broken her marriage vows and that's she's frigid. She packs and sets off to her parents before he's returned to the hotel. They divorce. He becomes a rock music journalist, lives for 3 years in Paris with a french wife, doesn't really do anything with his life. He reads in 1968 a review of her successful string quartet group. Had they met a few years later they'd have been able to talk about things more openly. The book's carefully located in time so that the gulf between intellectual and emotional openness is at its greatest. An image that's mentioned at least twice is whether the storms really do sort the pebbles on the shore (whether strong emotion gives order to randomness).

It's about 130 pages long.

Other reviews

• Tim Adams (McEwan is word-perfect at handling the awkward comedy of this relationship and, as ever, turning it into something far more disturbing. ... McEwan's brilliance as a novelist lies in his ability to isolate discrete moments in a life and invest them with indelible significance)
• Goodreads

"La donna di scorta" by Diego de Silva (Monadori, 2002)

Livio (an antiques dealer) is married to Laura. They have a young daughter, Martina. Dorina's single, a translator/editor. She's oggled by Mario who runs a launderette. Dorina follows Livio in the street. Next thing we know they're in a steady relationship. He buys a toothbrush to keep at her place - a sign of commitment.

Livio's had a short (one afternoon) affair before. This is different. Dorina doesn't interfere with his life, make demands, or show curiosity about his family. This, instead of simplifying things for Livio, complicates them. She asks what the point is of knowing all about each other, but all the same invites him to ask questions if he wants. He has none.

He stays at her place for a weekend, telling his wife he's on a buying trip. When Dorina leaves the flat for a few hours he's excited, because he can discover more about her. All he finds is a dusty photo album with many photos removed.

After Xmas, there's excitement in the household because (as Martina repeatedly says) "Laura si laurea" - she's getting her degree. Livio takes Martina with him when he goes to Dorina's workplace to get Laura's thesis bound. When the family go together to a shoe shop Mario is there, grinning as he makes a nuisance of himself. But Mario survives.

Livio tells Dorina that Laura's pregnant, punching some glass and cutting himself in frustration. Later in the night she cuts her foot on glass. For days she tries to phone her at home and work but there's no reply. He and Laura collect her thesis from Dorina.

Laura tells Mario that she should show her gratitude to him more often. During the party to celebrate Laura's degree, Laura phones. The affair continues. He can't decide what to do. Then one day a parcel arrives. It's his toothbrush and tooth-paste.

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"Blues in sedici" by Stefano Benni (Feltrinelli, 2008)

First published in 2008. Inspired by an incident where a father in a videobar of low repute used himself as a human shield to save his son from a bullet. The poems are in two sections ("movements"), the 8 poem titles of the first section being re-used in the second in a different order and sometimes modified ("the blind soothsayer" is not longer blind, etc). In the second poem the father's in his kitchen - just a normal day. The killer walks to the videobar, passing a newsagents kiosk where newspapers are blown like dry leaves. The games feature death. He sees on another man his own face as it might be in 20 years time and shoots. In the final poem the father's looking back on his life, remembering playing football with his son, the shadow of a bicycle on the other side of the river.

The Italian's simple - it's a performance piece sometimes accompanied by music. The poems are in the poetrified voices of the titular protagonists - "I want a city that isn't only signs. I like the silence that separates words, not that which comes after sirens and shots" says Lisa (my translation)

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"Il giorno della civetta" by Leonardo Sciascia (Einaudi, 1962)

aka "The day of the owl". No chapters. About 110 pages.

It's 6.30am 16th January in the late 40s/early 50s. As the first bus to Palermo is about to leave "S.", Salvatore Colasberna appears, running. He's shot and dies. The police have trouble collecting witnesses. Nobody saw anything - the bus windows were misted up, etc.

The young "capitano" Bellodi and the "maresciallo" soon receive anonymous letters. They start by interviewing the Colasberna brothers - builders. The "capitano" knows that there's rivalry between builders, and that protection money is paid. Maybe the victim hadn't paid up? Some informers want to appear to be on the side of the law because they're smugglers, etc. They have trouble coping with the capitano (who's actually from Parma) because they can't read his intentions. Some of them say more than they mean to. There's an art to constructing lies. Sometimes they're designed to be seen through, because there's another layer of lies behind them. And the police are capable of telling clever lies too. By playing one suspect against another, the police begin to get some leads.

Bellodi has several problems, many arising from him being an outsider (from Parma) and an intellectual -

• The "maresciallo" sometimes has to translate dialect for him.
• Locals claim that outsiders are prejudiced against Sicily. In fact the mafia doesn't exist. Even if it does, it's like Freemasonry.
• Honour is more important than the law.
• Witnesses are scared to come forward
• In 1925 Mussolini sent Mori to Sicily to deal with the Mafia using all means necessary. Many of the Mafia moved away, the rest were suppressed. The innocent suffered too, but many felt that Facism was a good thing.
• In 1943 500,000 allied soldiers came to Sicily. It was disruptive for the police.

The powers that be in Rome (onerevole Livigni and ministro Mancuso) don't want the deceased to become a martyr, so they're keen on the killer being found and a non-political reason being discovered. They've heard of Bellodi - they think he's prejudiced - he sees the mafia everywhere.

Calogero Dibella (Parrinieddu), an informer, dies. Paolo Nicolosi has disappeared from "S." where he lived close to the incident. He's been gone 5 days. His wife is worried. She says he saw who ran from the shooting incident. He's discovered dead. Diego Marchia is the prime suspect. He and two others (Pizzuco and don Mariano Arena) are brought in for questioning. Marchia confesses to one murder, implicating Pizzuco, who's offended by the accusation. How high up the chain of mafia command can the police go? The politicians are worried that don Mariano Arena might break. National newspaper get wind of the story. The local papers suspect a crime of passion (Nicolosi's wife had a lover - il Passerello). Belloci thinks that in Sicily, "cherchez la femme" isn't a good strategy because you'll always find one even if that's not the cause. Sicilian crimes of passion don't begin from real passion, he thinks, but a type of intellectual passion, of formalism.

At the end Marchia has alibis - a doctor and some co-workers. The confessions are explained away. Bellodi takes a month's leave in Parma. From a distance he and his friends love Sicily.

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"Anni senza fine" by Clifford D. Simak (Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1953)

Originally published as "City". The fore-shadowing prologue and the introduction to each chapter are written by a dog - a historian. The rest of the book starts in 1990 when thanks to helicars, hydroculture and robots the need for cities and farms has gone. The book follows the fortunes of the Webster family and their domestic robot Jenkins. Without targets, nuclear weapons have lost their purpose, and atomic energy is cheap. Except for a few squatters and old people, populations have fled to the countryside. We know this because a character has told a group of people (who know it already) the history.

The dog writes that puppies have played with robots like those in the book for millennia. It's a surprise to the dogs that the now extinct humans had robots (and may even have invented them) because humans in other ways seemed primitive. Did man ever exist? Unlikely. The dogs are so tightly integrated to their robots (not least to benefit from the robots' dexterity) that it's hard to distinguish between dog and robot. The dogs don't understand how the robots work. They think that stars are luminous dots in the sky.

Chapter 2 jumps to 2117. Holodecks and hologram phones. The dog commentator thinks that the routine travel to Mars is sheer fantasy. In chapter 3 there's a talking dog (the result of experiments), and interstellar travel. There are still people (mostly men, it seems) who prefer to live with nature. There are mutant humans too (natural ones) who are telepathic, brilliant. They attribute their leap to the freedom from chains of society. They're selfish. The government let them live but see them as dangerous, keeping them under surveillance (dogs, not cameras, watch over them). In Chapter 4 we start on Jupiter. Rather than terraform it, people (and a dog too) are converted into a form that can survive on the planet - with a new body and senses, and mind-sharing. It's such a pleasant experience that the first people don't want to transform back into human form. The government fear that if the public knows this, everybody will want to change too. Meanwhile back on Earth the dogs get other animals to talk, each sort of intelligence offering new insights.

The humans who don't go to Jupiter choose The Sleep - centuries of suspended animation, dreaming. One of the remaining wood-dwellers invents a bow and arrow. After 7,000 years Earth becomes what we knew from the start it would become - a planet of servile robots and unambitious dogs. The dogs get Jenkins a new body for his 7,000th birthday. More mobile now, he visits the Mutants' base. He sees no mutants. They've developed stargates. "Shadows" are on the loose, killing animals. Jenkins decides to teach the remaining humans about farming and hunting.

Chapter 8, the final chapter, is 10,000 years in the future. The Mutants' base has been growing, but only because ants have taken it over and are using micro/nano-tech to infect other beings. They'll take over the world unless they're stopped. The venerable Jenkins discovers from the only Webster still alive how ants can be killed, then decides not to use insecticide, because killing is wrong.

The framing device and the unreliability of the supposedly ancient text means that we can perhaps excuse the huge plot-holes (some much easier to see with hindsight) and the at times creaky writing. Advances in technology are patchy, and I find it hard to believe in a near future where for 150 years nobody in the Solar System is murdered. Computers aren't pervasive - 2/3rds of the way through the book there's a press meeting for the "signori della stampa e della radio" (p.113) - radio! Networking/Web ideas are absent, and AI is never a threat.

After finishing the book I read that it was originally 8 short stories, and that the dog commentary (which I liked) was added later.

Other reviews

• Paul Weimer (A suite of stories that merges Simak’s love of dogs, his interest in rural settings and landscapes, use of religion and faith, and his interest in robots all in one package ... With an emphasis on the characters, the expanse of time, and the inevitable triumph, tragedy, and changes that Humanity and his successors will undergo, City remains as readable today to science fiction audiences as it did on its first publication.)
• "Aesop" and the Ambiguity of Clifford Simak's City (John Ower)

"L'amore a Londra e in altri luoghi" by Flavio Soriga (Bompiani, 2009)

The first story, "Aprile", is much the longest. In 45 pages in the first person a male describes his life episodically, developing themes - island vs city; poetic past vs prose present; his friend Claudio's life compared with his own; his mother, grandmother and religion; the father who left; forgiveness; and his niece. We're introduced to different kinds of love - religious, mother/son, life-long between males, carnal with a stranger, homosexual. He meets his father after a long time. As well as slipping between the threads, the fragments also go forwards and backwards in time. Each episode can be 4 or 5 lines, or a page or so. It's a structure I've often wanted to use. The length requirement deterred me from writing such a piece.

In "Islington" a couple meet again after 5 years. The woman is married and pregnant, the man is in a gay relationship. They think about getting together again because both are in compromised relationships. The woman says

forse i momenti più belli non sono, diciamo, gli incontri speciali, le prime volte, come si crede, forse sono solo i rincontri, le prime volti di nuovo, dopo anni (p.67)

"Libera i cani" is also set in London. The main character, Elias, may well have appeared in the previous story. It's also episodic and flips backwards and forwards in time, though in this case along a single narrative arc. Elias has sex with a relative (a theme picked up from the first story), but here it's a gay relationship. He has trouble coming out to his parents.

"Autunno" is 4 pages long. An aging, dying actor still thinks he's attractive to woman.

In "Il congiacente" Marco and Alice go to the wedding of a school friend of Alice having met 2 months before. There are flashbacks to when they first met, and to the problems Alice had splitting from her fiancé after she met Marco.

"Sud" is 3 pages long and contains this self-regarding section -

`È un tardo pomeriggio da cartolina', gli viene in mente mentre il telefono si decide a squillare; 'È un pomeriggio da città del Sud, sotto la luna che arriva i gabbiani cantano storie d'amore a chi vuole sentire'; se gli fosse venuta un'ora fa, una frase così, sarebbe finita nella storia che ha appena finito di scrivere, un vecchio attore malato e una cameriera bellissima dal nome fatale, e sabbia e palme, ma adesso è tardi, adesso le frasi sono per lui, per la vita vera (p.119)

Spanish words slip into "El Presidente" - an old president and his young mistress have to helicopter out of the palace - there's an uprising.

"Candele" is at the fairy-tale end of the magic realism spectrum.

In the end there was more variety than the early stories led me to expect.

Other reviews

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• Carlo Vaccari (la lunghezza molto (troppo!) diversa dei racconti rende difficile prendere il ritmo del libro)

"Ragazze Mancine" by Stefania Bertola (Einaudi, 2013)

I have trouble with large casts of characters, and in this book new characters keep arriving, so this write-up is partly to help me recall who's who.

Adele (32 years old, degree in literature, never had a job) wakes to find that her husband Franco has left a message saying that they're penniless (he's sold the house she's in) and he's gone off with a woman. He's left her with Zarina, the woman's dog. Ruggero, Franco's brother isn't much help. She stays for a while with her mother, then in a flat offered by a friend Eva (28 years old, 50kg), who has a toddler, Jezebel, whose father was in a rock band - Rovaniemi Cowboys. She's a drummer.

While Adele's out with Eva, Clotilde Castelli (a talk-show host, and also an expert on Serbian poetry) notices that the pendant around Eva's neck is the one she lost years ago. Clotilde's son Cristiano (36, father died when Cristiano was 26), has an agricultural company) endeavours to retrieve it, phoning Eva's brother.

Adele's brother has found her an ironing job with Marta Biancone - a divorce lawyer married to Umberto (useless, but attractive to women and he's a count). Marta's a friend of Clotilde. She asks Adele if she knows a driver because Umberto's license has been taken away again. Eva becomes Umberto's driver. Marta notices the pendant she's wearing. Eva invites him to Montezuma, where groups play - he's interested in meeting new types of women, and is excited by punk female singers. He gets fleeced.

Meanwhile, Manuel De Sisti (pianist and womaniser) is ending his stint in an Egyptian hotel. He heads for Torino, to surprise Clotilde who he's not seen for years. Adele decides that Cristiano would be a good 2nd husband for her, mainly because he's well off, she's broke, and she enjoys a life of leisure. They also both had a childhood love of Lego. Then she sees Tommaso (Cristiano's younger brother, though she doesn't know that), the most beautiful man in the world. Men see through Tommaso's charms quite quickly. Not so women. He's used up his share of the family's wealth, and has been imprisoned for theft. At his mother's behest he's changed his name to "Manuel De Sisti". His mother pays Tommaso to steal the pendant when Cristiano's attempts seem to be floundering.

Guenda Molteni joins the cast. She's Ruggero's wife. They have a company - "Say Sexy" - selling tacky goods.

Marta's colleague, Maria Consolata Greco, tells her that the Dany Delizia novels might no longer be written. Clotilde's secret passion are those trashy novels. Marta suggests to Clotilde that she was well qualified to be the next author of the Dany Delizia series - anonymously of course.

Marta has 2 sons who live in Australia.

Adele sleeps with the poor but cute "Manuel".

At Umberto's 60th, Tommaso plays the piano while Adele and Eva help with catering. Tommaso's identity becomes clear to all. Adele sees Umberto with Clotilde and realises they've been having an affair for years - information that's a useful bargaining tool.

Eventually, Adele decides she'll live with Tommaso (who she loves, but he's poor) rather than Cristiano. However, Tommaso likes Eva. Eva doesn't like him. Tommaso gets a copy of the pendant made so that both women should be happy. However, a number is stamped on it which isn't exactly copied. The number matters. Clotilde from her hospital bed tells Marta that the number open a safe with 200,000 euro that belongs to her sons, though they know nothing about it. Partly through revenge, and perhaps because it's fair, Marta helps the boys open the safe. Cristiano says he doesn't need the money. Tommaso takes it. Instead of driving away with Adele as planned to start a new life, he leaves alone. But Eva catches up with him, Adele becomes a servant in Marta and Umberto's house, and gets back with Cristiano.

It's part comedy, part fast-moving farce, though there are many allusions. For example, chapter headings usually include names, amongst which are some surprises - Diana Dors, Bob Wilson, Ellen Terry, Gramsci, etc., and little jokes along the way - e.g.

• "approfondire il rapporto fra poesia e make-up, due strade per eludere la banalità dell'essere" (p.21)
• "Quando Umberto parla di un «piccolo» problema, si tratta sempre di roba fastidiosa, prolungata, che s'insinuerà nelle sue giornate come un virus nei computer che non sono Mac" (p.40)

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"Ascolta la mia voce" by Susanna Tamaro (Rizzoli, 2006)

The narrator returns to the house where s/he grew up and to an initially unidentified "you" who s/he hates. It turns out to be the narrator's grandmother, whose daughter (the narrator's mother) died in a car-crash, leaving the grandmother to care for the 4 year-old. She's going a bit mad, seeing aliens and then having a persecution complex. An uprooted tree in the garden becomes an analogy for rootless people.

The grandmother (and dog) die on the same day. The narrator struggles to adjust, finds a diary written by her mother while she was at university in 1969. A lecturer got her pregnant and disappeared. She belonged to a woman's collective (so why did she so easily become infatuated by the lecturer?). She asked them to advise on what she should do. They agreed to look after the baby like lionesses if need be (because that's the natural way). She decided on an abortion, performed by the collective's contacts.

Later the narrator finds the bag that her mother had with her when she died. A photo of herself is in there, so are two letters. One is from the lecturer saying that he doesn't want kids (or a wife) and that love is deceptive - it's actually just a reproduction instinct. One can't love what one can't understand, and other people are too complex to be understood. He wants freedom. The narrator comes to realise that the lecturer is her estranged father. The second letter is a reply from her mother to the lecturer. She's 30 now. She says that she was pregnant by him before, but didn't tell him. Ah, so these letters concern the narrator while she was still a foetus.

Until she was 9, the narrator used to think that her father had been a Turkish prince. He's a minor academic so she tracks him down, arranges a meeting using as pretext academic interest. When he comes on to her, she tells him she's his daughter. She meets him weekly for 3 months, tells him that her mother died when she (the narrator) was 4. He suspects suicide. He says that having no parents frees the child of conditioning. His mother died young and he hasn't seen his father for years.

She leaves on a cheap boat for Haifa - she thinks she has an uncle there. The journey sparks memories of her family history (memories of photos, mostly). She finds uncle Gionata in a kibbutz. He conveniently monologues about belief, heredity, music, and whether the past matters. He, like the narrator's father, is a non-believer but his attitude to others is very different. Reincarnation crops up as a topic again. Her uncle tells her about his Jewish parents experiences of the holocaust. When he asks her what she believes in, she spends a restless night thinking about it. She believes in pain. Increasingly, she thinks she's the result of a random coupling. I'm surprised that she doesn't mention existentialism. He tells her that he used to think that when he planted a tree he knew what would happen to it as long as he cared for it, but his children reached a stage where they had to make their own decisions. Love of analogies seems a family trait. He thinks each tree has a unique personality, like people. He plays a game with the narrator, wondering what type of tree various people would be.

She goes sightseeing for a day, overhears a tourist telling his son "These are your roots!" She wonders what the sightseers of religious sites believe in. Then she returns to Italy after receiving a call from the police saying that her father had died. A letter to her was in his pocket. Suicide? Probably a heart-attack, but the letter mentions a previous attempt. Apparently (and surprisingly) he'd missed her. The narrator meets Miriam, a holocaust survivor and yet another monologist who wonders why God (and men) let the Holocaust happen, and whether individuals have much control of our own future let alone that of the human race.

At the end of the book the narrator decides to get a dog and study forestry (yes, forestry) at university. She goes to her father's flat and finds an envelope for her. Inside is a notebook that he'd recently been writing in. She sits down and starts to read ...

The narrator continues referring to "you" throughout the book, even after her grandmother's death, and likes using elaborate analogies, some a paragraph long, often comparing human behaviour to that of animals (birds, sea-anemones, etc). The narrator points out that non-humans don't ask themselves "Who am I? What's the meaning of life?". The comparison of humans with trees is the abiding theme, too much so.

Other reviews

• Matthew Hoffman (Richness of description vies continually in this novel with the tendentious shallowness of the metaphysics. ... In truth, Tamaro's new novel is a mess)
• BCF book reviews
• Good reads

"Anna" by Niccolo Ammaniti (Einaudi, 2015)

We follow a girl, Anna, then a dog, getting their life stories. The girl's parents died when she was 9 with a 4 year-old brother, Astor. Their deceased mother left notes which are info-dumped on p.41 so we know that a disease wiped out all adults and will kill the children when they reach about 14. Their mother also left notes on what to do with her body - not the only macabre detail in the book. The dog was deliberately mistreated to make him aggressive.

The setting is Sicily. Drought and fire have added to the problems. Anna wanders, looking for food and batteries, finding corpses and, sometimes, children. One night (30th Oct, 2020) she stays out. On her return her brother's gone. She going looking for him. The dog she met and injured before follows her.

She gets inside the grounds of a hotel which is being used as a base by a group of kids. It's also rumoured to be the location of an old lady who can heal people with the disease. Inside she's found by Pietro, who she's met before. Otherwise level-headed, he thinks a particular type of sports shoe will save him.

They happen to be there at the "festa della Picciridduna" when a giant figurine made of bones with tractor wheels as eyes is set alight. They see Picciridduna, a deformed, sexless human. Anna finds Astor, but he doesn't want to go with her because she's told him lies. Pietro saves him. The 3 of them plus the dog get away and for a while spend an idyllic time by the coast. Anna has her first period. Pietro has an accident. We're told that he dies in three days, then we told about his last three days, and about his earlier life. We learn more about the disease, that it killed half the world's population in a month, and that Pietro was involved with mercy-killing.

Sister, brother and dog head for Messina, still 4 days away. They find a pedalo and reach the mainland. There they find the shoes, but only one pair, they wear one shoe each.

"The Road" meets "Lord of the Flies". I could have done without the sports shoes. The unlikely dog at times becomes a symbol of Good/Evil. On p.248 there's a bit of philosophical speculation - Anna decides there's no such thing as free-will. I liked the story-telling and especially the set-piece at the hotel.

Other reviews

• John Burnside (The inevitable comparison, here, is with Lord of the Flies ... We can all become tyrants, or thieves, if due pressure is exerted. In recognising this, and in avoiding the easy narrative tensions offered by moral simplification, Ammaniti sets a new standard in post-apocalyptic fiction, while creating a world that, populated by desperate innocents, proves far more frightening than any stock cannibals-in-monster-trucks scenario.)
• Bookmunch (engaging if somewhat episodic, the kind of book that could happily be shared between adults and teens)
• Tommaso Carlo Mascolo (This novel has all the characteristics of Ammaniti’s works: a realistic language, the use of a grotesque tone and strong characters.)

"al-Sahara" by Antonio D'Errico (Ananke, 2005)

Mohammed lives in Beni-Mellal in the middle of Morocco. He suddenly runs away from home, hitches to Casablanca. At the beach wondering where he'll spend the night, the sand making him homesick for the Saraha. Someone takes pity on him, gives him a meal ("Assaporo per la prima volta in bocca il piacere di qualcosa che non fosse couscous e tashin", p.41) lets him have a room and finds him a job as a waiter in a night club. There he meets a girl, but on their first date her brother attacks him.

He gets to talk to Johann, a client. He's changed his name. and one night gives Mohammed a talk about how to change one's life. He offers Mohammed a flight to Turin, accommodation, language lessons and training to be a higher standard of waiting. He has a few hours to decide before the flight leaves. He decides to go.

He stays with Yousseff, who has done what he's done. Yousseff teaches him about the job, (like Zen and the Art of laying a table). There's a detailed section on how Mohammed copes with a session - etiquette, psychology, etc. Everything's going ok, but then he realises that Yousseff is taking cocaine, which upsets him. Yousseff is sacked by the maitre (German, maybe a racist). Johann turns up to take him to a dependency clinic. Mohammed carries on, finds a girl who quickly seduces him. He rejects her when she takes cocaine at a party and dances with others. She begs him to reconsider.

At the end Yousseff returns to Morocco and Mohammed spends a page telling us that there's one God but many religions. He's thinking about going home.

148 pages, and a 2 page author's note explaining that he met a Yousseff in Morocco once, who told him the story of his life and let him use it. Though the story is from Mohammed's PoV, there's the odd sentence from Yousseff's PoV - e.g. on p.108 the news that the contessa's order never changes comes from inside Yousseff's head, and on p.126 we're told that he invents stories to entertain friends.

"la donna di Glasgow" by Denise Mina (TEADUE, 2002)

The original title was 'Garnethill'.

Maureen, the main character (a body was found in her flat), has a friend, Benny, who initially helps her make deductions from the clues, and her brother Liam is a drug-dealer who knows a bit about how the crime/police system works. She tries to solve the crime herself, following various leads.

She's a victim of incest and her mother's an alcoholic. She's had a mental breakdown.

My first hunch was that the killer was the neighbour, Jim Maliano. The more people accused Maureen of being the killer, the more I began to believe it. Then I thought that Douglas might have been running a call-girl service.

I like the incidental detail - gestures and body language; descriptions of rooms. Having smokers talking to each other helps the author to break up dialogue with descriptions of gestures. The light relief of the dentures in the "Columbo" chapter works well. The ending's not entirely convincing at a plot level, but it's tidy. Acid slips into the plot.

Sometimes we slip outside the point-of-view. In chapter 16 we're told that Maureen didn't notice she was being tailed, and other section end with the information that someone's being unknowingly tailed. In chapter 21 we enter Frank's mind for a few sentences. In chapter 27 the receptionist's PoV becomes visible. And Angus' hallucinations would only be known to Angus. It works ok.

On p.187 there's a typo - "mattta".

"Storia della bambina perduta" by Elena Ferrante (Edizione e/o, 2014)

The books starts with several pages of character biographies for readers like me who haven't read the earlier books. This one begins in 1978. Elena (the book's from her PoV) has left Pietro and their children. She's busy with book launches and a publicity tour. She has no fixed abode. Her new partner Nino claims to have cleanly split with his wife Eleonora and his children. Elena asks her children to live with her - "Bambine ... Voi volete venire con me o restare coi nonni?" Di quella domanda, ancora oggi mentre ne scrivo, mi vergono. Prima Dede, poi subito dopo Elsa risposero: "Coi nonni. Pero tu, quando puoi, torna e portaci dei regoli". (p.69) ("Children, do you want to come with me or stay with your grand-parents?" Even today as I write this I'm embarrassed by that question. First Dede, then straight after Elsa replied "With gran and grandad, but you can come and bring us presents whenever you like"). She doesn't seem to learn from that experience.

Years pass - Ci vollero piu di due anni pieni di gioie, tormenti, brutte sorprese e mediazioni sofferte, perche riuscissi a rimettere un po d'ordine nella mia vita (p.70) (It would take more than two years full of joy, torments, horrible surprises and mediation to acheive some order in my life). She walks into friend Franco's room, discovers he's committed suicide messily. Pietro finds a new, young partner. There's a renewed battle for custody of Elena's children. Nino and Elena find a house in Napoli. She gets the kids back from Genova/Milano. She finds out that Nino's been seeing the distressed Eleonora. Then she discovers that Eleonora's pregnant. Nino claims that it's to keep Eleonora calm. The birth of Lidia to Eleonora is reported upon only in passing, though I would have expected it to have had a psychological impact. Elena's still hoping that their unconventional situation is manageable. However, she realises that her return to Naples has affected her work prospects. Her children are unhappy at their new schools. And all because she wanted to start a new life with her lover who lied to her.

Elena's public statements about women's attitude to men don't match the way she lives - "Parlai di come avessi cercato da sempre, per impormi, di essere maschi nell'intelligenza - io mi sono sentita inventata dai maschi, colonizzata dalla loro immaginazione". (I spoke as if I'd always tried to have a masculine intelligence - I felt created by males, colonized by their imagination) And the political climate in Italian is volatile.

The culture of Naples doesn't figure for the first hundred or so pages but Elena eventually returns there - "Il rione per me, prima ancora che i miei parenti, era Lila" (p.105) (the neighbourhood for me meant, even more than my parents, Lila). Elena's doubtful about her old friend Lila, but leaves her children with her when suddenly Elena and Nino have a fortnight in the states - "Io, almeno, non sono mai stata piu cosi bene come in quei giorni" (p.121) (I had never felt so good as in those days). However, the trip's summarised in a paragraph. Elena and Lila are now pregnant, both worried about how to break the news to ex-husbands, lovers and children. Pietro and Nino both have political books out. Pietro's gets much more praise. Nino still spends half the week sleeping with his wife yet he's grumpy when Elena spends time socially with Pietro. Elena's sister has a baby. Elena's mother is diagnosed with cancer. All the events in this paragraph are rushed through in less than 15 pages. It sounds like the summary of a soap-opera where they couldn't afford to film abroad - or even outside. The Bologna bomb of 2 August 1980 gets the briefest of mentions.

Her mother's illness brings the two women together. From being the child her mother seems to most disliked, her mother admits that Elena's always been her favourite. Her mother thinks that Lila will put the neighbourhood to rights, using means fair and foul. Lila's business computing company, "Basic Sight", gives her access to compromising information. Elena comes to think that a lot's going on that she's not being told about. She thinks Lila knows something about Nino that she's not revealing. Elena takes advantage of Lila's fatigue to get the answers to some questions - e.g. Marcello (the partner of Elena's sister) is the neighbourhood's drug supplier. She knows that Mariarosa's a recreational user. But Lila tells her that a local boy overdosed recently. Elena thinks that some of her acquaintances might also be drug-takers.

The numerous comparisons between the pregnancies of Elena and Lila become irritating. Then, as if there aren't crises enough, there's an earthquake (23rd Nov, 1980). It upsets Lila sufficiently for her to have a bit of a melt-down, telling Elena about how she sees the world - her synaesthesia, etc. There's a lot of tell-not-show - "E ripeteva ossessivamente aggettivi e sostantivi del tutto incongrui con situazione in cui ci trovavamo, articolava frasi prive di senso e tutavia le pronunciava con convinzione, strattonandomi" (p.160) (And she obsessively repeated incongruous adjectives and adverbs in situations where we found ourselves, saying phrases that made no sense yet stated with conviction, pulling me). Elena has a baby girl, Imma. Elena's mother goes into a clinic. Elena learns where the money from to care for their mother. She learns more about the secrets of those she knows. It's hard for any 4 characters to be in the same room without a complex pattern of love, envy, secrecy and fear having to be dealt with. Elena's threatened, and told that Nino should stay away. Lila's life is at risk too. Lila has a baby girl, Tina, so again there's lots of compare/contrast.

Elena plans to write a novel - she needs the money because she has doubts about Nino's support. She thinks about how childhood friendships affect relationships with the same people later. She theorizes about the difference between male and female social interaction, particularly with respect to Nino, who seems to prefer female friends and thinks his friends cleverer than Elena's - [Nino:] "Be, la tua liberazione non deve significare per forza la perdita della mia libertá" Anche in frasi di questo tipo, pronunciate per gioco, riconobbi presto, con disagio, echi dei conflitti con Pietro (Well, your freedom doesn't mean I have to lose mine. In phrases like this, said for fun, I recognised with discomfort some echoes of conflict with Pietro). Then she catches Nino having sex with her (fat? uncultured? mature?) home-help. She learns that Nino has slept with many women she knows, including some that she's hosted meals for. She finally breaks up with him. She has intense sex with Antonio, an old flame, and others.

She soon moves with the children to a place above Lila, back in her neighbourhood. She manages to sell a novel that had been rejected years before, written while she was in Firenze but about her Naples neighbourhood. Lila's invited to read it first, but she doesn't. The book makes Elena more famous, but it causes trouble locally. "Cosa avevo fatto, come potevo essere stata così imprunte" (p.266)) she thinks. "Avevo scritto un romanzo" (p.267) (What have I done? How could I have been so thoughtless?), she claims, when (surprise, surprise) people treat it as documentary/autobiography. Lila and her see things differently - Elena thinks about principles and schools of thought but "A [Lila] interessavano solo le tristissime beghe locali" (Lila was only interested in local squabbles) (p.281).

Things take a turn for the worse. Carmen issues a legal complaint about the novel (an action paid for by Marcello). He made her do it by saying that he knew where Pasquale (her brother, who had killed Marcello's mother) might be in hiding. Alfonso (who works for Lila) is found dead. At the funeral Michele (brother of Marcello) punches Lila. Then Tina (aged 4) disappears.

A new part of the book, "Vecchiaia", begins. The narrative jumps 20 years. Elena's girls studied abroad (Boston and Paris). We learn that by 2003 Elena's published 13 novels. She publishes "Un'amicizia in 2007, about Tina. It revives her fame but she later regrets writing it. Then the events after the disappearance are recounted. Elena and her family stayed on after the tragedy, though Dede in particular was unkind to Lila, saying that she never wanted a third child anyway. People think Lila's repressed her feelings. Talking to Lila inspires Elena to write about her neighbourhood and the past. The Solari brothers are killed outside the church. Dede (Elena's daughter) goes out with Lila's older, workshy son. Under-age Elsa (Elena's daughter) runs off with him (with jewellery and money too). Next day Dede announces that she's moving to the States (can she even speak English?). Lila wants to sell her company. Pasquale's arrested. Enzo (Lila's partner) is held for questioning for a long time. Nino has become a parliamentary politician. Elena gets an interview with him, asking for his help with Pasquale. She thinks about Nino's past-romances, realises that they were often part of career tactics. She consequently worries that Lila's son isn't good for her daughters. Then Nino's disgraced politically.

This write-up makes the book sound as if it's just one damn thing after another, crisis piled upon crisis. But it's not hyper-realist disorder. Whenever the plot requires a trait, there's always a character at hand to add that trait to.

Lila ("appena scolarizzata", p.426, though she runs a software company) is writing about Naples without first telling Elena about it. She tells Imma though, who tells Elena - "Ebbi spesso l'impressione che Lila usasse il passato per normalizzare il presente burrascoso di Imma. Nelle cose napoletane che le raccontava c'era sempre all'origine qualcosa di brutto, di scomposto, che in seguito prendeva la forma di un bell'edificio, di una strada, di un monumento, per poi perdere memoria e senso, peggiorare, migliorare, peggiorare, secondo un flusso per sua natura imprevedibile, fatto tutto di onde " (p.418) (I often had the impression that Lila used to past to normalise Imma's confused present. In the Neopolitan events she talked about there was always an unpleasant cause that led eventually to the construction of a beautiful building, a road, a monument that lost its memory and purpose, got worse, improved, got worse again like an unpredictable flux made of waves). Lila mixes truth and legend. Elena thinks "Stavo per lasciare la città per la seconda volta, ... e tuttavia del luogo dov'ero nata non sapevo granché" (p.281) (I was again to leave the city for the second time ... and yet I didn't know much about my birthplace). She leaves by train for Torino in 1995, to work for a publishing company. She hopes to publish Lila's work as a book - she thinks it might be better, more enduring than her own books. Dede marries an Iranian (cue 9/11!) and has a child. At a family gathering, by a shelf of her books, Elena has a crisis. She evaluates her life - "Avevo calcato su certi temi: il lavoro, i conflitti di classe, il femminismo, gli emarginati" (p.436) (I've emphasised certain themes: work, class conflict, feminism, marginalisation). She thinks that "L'intera mia vita si sarebbe ridotta soltanto a una battaglia meschina per cambiare classe sociale" (p.437) (My entire life could be reduced to a petty battle to change class).

The section ends with Elena pondering why Lila cut her off after Elena's book came out - content or treatment? Well, Elena had promised not to write about the events, and the book had enhanced Elena's bank balance. In the book she pointed out that a doll that Lila had lost as a child was also called Tina.

In the 5-page epilogue Lila has disappeared. Her son doesn't seem to know where she is. Is she dead? Elena meets Nino at a funeral, asks him who took Tina, who killed the Solara brothers. Back home, a mysterious package appears - the dolls that Elena and Lila had lost in childhood.

There are contrasts drawn between her neigbourhood and elsewhere, between dialect and Italian, between literature and life, between rational and emotional. These contrasts are often personified by Elena and Lila -

• "Solo nei romanzi brutti la gente pensa sempre la cosa giusta, dice sempre la cosa guista, ogni effetto ha la sua causa, ci sono quelli simpatici e quelli antipatici, quelli buonii e quelli cattivi, tutto alla fini ti consola. Mormorò: può essere che Tina torni stasera e allora chi se ne frega di come è andata;" (p.429) (Only in bad novels do people always think the right things, every action has a cause, there are pleasant and unpleasnt people, good and bad, and a happy ending. She murmers: it could be that Tina returns this evening and then who cares how it happened).
• [Lila:] "Per scrivere bisogna desiderare che qualcosa ti sopravviva. Io invece non ho nemmeno la voglia di vivere" (p.433) (To write you have to want something to survive you. I however lack even the wish to live).
• [Lila:] "io non sono andata in giro per il mondo come hai fatto tu, pero, vedi, il mondo è venuto lui da me" (p.438) ... "[Lila] Non era mai salita su un treno, nemmeno per andare a Roma. Non aveva mai preso un aereo" (p.441). (I haven't gone round the world like you have, however, the world has come to me ... She'd never jumped on a train, not even to go to Rome. She'd never flown)
• "Sbaglio, mi [Elena] disse confusamente, a scrivere come ho fatto finora, registrando tutto quello che so. Dovrei scrivere come lei parla, lasciare voragini, construire ponti e non finirli, costringere il lettore a fissare la corrente" (p.155) (I've been wrong to write the way I have until now, recording all I know. I should have written as she spoke, left gaps, started connections but never ended them, made readers work out the flow)
• We're told that the dialogue switches between Italian and dialect, but there's little dialect in the book. Lina becomes Lila and Elena becomes Lenù. But the choice of language has a significance to Lila and Elena - "lei ricorreva all'italiano come a una barriera, io cercavo di spingerla verso il dialetto, la nostra lingua dell franchezza. " (p.344) (she resorts to Italian as a barrier, I tried to lead her into dialect, our language of honesty)

Events seem to contrived and schematic to me, without any compensations. Why does Elena bother with Nino? Why does she take so many chances bringing up her children? If she's that kind of person, why isn't she more aware of her tendencies? There's a lot of out-of-character behaviour by Elena and others. I don't see much point in the first 100 pages or so. But my Italian's not very good.

Other reviews

• Joanna Biggs (LRB) (the Neapolitan quartet also has an almost deranging narrative pleasure, delivered in a style that’s more of an admission that the author cares too much about the truth to bother with style. ... Ferrante is like a writer of genre rather than literary fiction in her handling of time; she has said she employs ‘all the strategies I know to capture the reader’s attention, stimulate curiosity’ – acknowledging rather than excusing the soapy twists of the last volume of the quartet. ... How is it that a book written by Lenù can so entirely capture Lila’s experience? Ferrante’s direct, almost naive style is greedy, willing to adopt the habits of other genres – the thriller’s cliffhangers, the romance’s love triangles, the mystery’s plot twists – and to absorb voices other than its narrator’s.)
• Alex Clark (The Guardian) (That ambiguity is stitched into the novels, emblematised by the pair’s variant names (Lenuccia, Lenù, Raffaella, Lina), by the tension between Italian and dialect, and by the terrifying, recurrent episodes of dissociation that Lila suffers, and calls “dissolving boundaries”)
• Michiko Kakutani (New York Times) (Indeed, Ms. Ferrante’s writing — lucid and direct, but with a cyclonic undertow — is very much a mirror of both her heroines. Elena has a decidedly linear approach to life, and, as a narrator, she often takes a matter-of-fact tone, but that appearance of control belies the roiling, chaotic, Lila-like emotions beneath. This constant pull between detachment and turmoil (or, to put it in terms of the classics that the author loves, between Apollonian rationality and Dionysian ferocity) creates a kind of alternating electrical current that lends these novels a compelling narrative tension.)
• Joan Acocella (New Yorker) (She has two subjects, basically. The first is women. This is the most thoroughgoing feminist novel I have ever read. ... Ferrante’s other subject is language. ... Much of the thrill of the four books lies just in this elastic back and forth between realism and hallucination.)
• Jennifer Kurdyla (Harvard Review)
• Eileen Battersby (Irish Times) (Ferrante is so exhausting to read in one go not because of her intensity but because of her lack of humour. ... Elena’s career as writer within the novel is at best hastily outlined and never that convincing, ... Elena’s weakness, and possibly that of the entire novel, is Nino Sarratore. ... Ferrante’s vision is candid and fraught. She does not shape beautiful sentences; she articulates painful sensations and exposes nerve endings.)
• Suzanne Joinson (Independent) (Ferrante has achieved is a perfect marriage of immense storytelling with chillingly effective literary artistry. ... The emotional devastation is so intimately rendered that at times, as I read, I couldn’t breathe. I felt I was trapped in the inevitability of pain brought on by the circumstances of her social and biological destiny. ... I loved these Neapolitan novels in a way I haven’t enjoyed reading for a long time, owing to the immersion in another world ... Lila’s obsession with the architecture and history of Naples does not ring as true as earlier depictions of her complex, manipulative character. It’s a little contrived (a fact on which Elena comments), as is the return to a significant event from the very beginning. But this neatly sewn-up ending to what has felt unnervingly true provides us with welcome relief.)

"Come Donna Innamorata" di Marco Santagata (Ugo Guanda, 2015)

This short novel has Dante as its main character (3rd person). It begins with a cast list. The first section, "Bice", is set 4 years after the death of Bice, the inspiration for Beatrice, but much of the time is spent describing the days just after her death. He discovers that she had a sad marriage (her husband wanted an heir, and refused to believe he was sterile), and that everyone except him seemed to know it. Just as Homer was blind, so he was blind to her suffering. He's told that the moment she was born (9 months after him) he had his first epileptic attack, and "9" appeared at other significant moments. He thinks her presence provoked his fits throughout her life - he can feel their onset as tremors, then a fit, then fainting. After, he feels weak and sad. He marries a woman from a better family but receives no dowry. He writes about Beatrice at the kitchen table.

The second section, "Guido", happens years later, mostly when he's in exile, caught up in Firenze's civil war. He's a better poet than politician. When Dante was 18 he met Guido Cavalcanti, who was then 28 and an influential poet. Guido thought that real love was bad for poetry. Dante disagreed. They argued too about the language to write poetry in, but they stayed friends. Dante alluded to him in his poetry. Later Dante's unsure which of them is John the Baptist to the other's Messiah. Dante's called upon to defend Guido but is aware of the danger to himself. The way the vote goes might have hastened Guido's death.

I'm wary of historical novels where the unknown reasons for known facts are provided, but this doesn't dwell on info-dumps. We learn about street-life around the churches, and the feuds between families are illustrated by behaviour rather than described.

Other reviews

• Giuseppe Fantasia
• Michele Lauro
• GMGhioni
• Giovanna Giraudi

"Tutto Torna" by Giulia Carcasi (Feltrinelli, 2010)

Spoiler alert

The author was studying medicine in 2005 when her first book was published (from the front it was narrated by Alice; from the back the narrator's Carlo). This 2010 novel (which has about 110 spacious pages) has an episodic, at times consciously poetic style. The main character, Diego, is a lecturer who's revising a dictionary. We get a few definitions. He lives with his mother who's going senile. She often calls him Roberto. I don't think we ever find out why. She's cared for by Yvona.

His mother is confused about time, which concerns other characters too. The chapter headings have locations and dates, a few having 2 dates - one chapter begins "I'm 3 and 38". There's much jumping around in time. His classroom clock doesn't correspond with the time on his watch. Are people playing tricks? Diego falls in love with Antonia, who's good with his mother and lives in a mental care home. She can be mysterious at times.

Yvona has a distant boyfriend. She and Antonia wonder about what's required to keep such relationships going. Security? Imagination? Do the lovers need to be poets? Towards the end Yvona harms his mother, and Antonia turns out to be a patient rather than a doctor. Diego reasons that if he enjoys a story not caring whether it's true or not, why shouldn't he love a woman who deceives him?

Snowball fights, photographs, and definitions are all introduced as material for analogies as much as for their own merit. Passages like the following show how the main character thinks - "Outside it's raining and the rain flows into the Arno, water in water, diluting or concentrating? Both maybe, and anyway what does it matter. Outside it's raining and you are the person with whom I want to look outside when outside it's raining." (p.59). Images recur. He reads that after 30 years the black storks have returned to the Adda. They're shy creatures who shun humans. The chapter ends "From the margins of the newspaper the black storks in the room leave no feathers" (p.12). On p.61 is a 7-line chapter, headed "Rome, 5 October 2008" - "Long feathers of metallic reflections are scattered on the floor of my floor. They must have fallen after a lively beating of wings, a flight that must have hurt. ... The black storks have shattered the margins of the newspaper.

(my translations)

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"Poesia 301 (Febbraio 2015)"

Poesia is an 80-page monthly Italian poetry magazine, somewhere between A4 and A5. Glossy. Color. It's available in bigger Italian newsagents for 5 euros.

This issue has roughly 7 pages of reviews, 2 pages of world news, 1 page of Italian news, 30 pages about foreign poets with dual-language poems (Jacques Reda, Paula Meehan, Helmut Seethaler, Debora Greger), 12 pages about dead poets (French and Italian), and 25 pages about current Italian poetry.

There's nothing like it in the UK. The preponderance of non-Italy poetry is especially striking.