E forse neanche una stellina meriterebbe - ma non metterne nessuna potrebbe far pensare che mi sia scordata la valutazione. Che invece è TOTALMENTE e cE forse neanche una stellina meriterebbe - ma non metterne nessuna potrebbe far pensare che mi sia scordata la valutazione. Che invece è TOTALMENTE e completamente negativa. Un libro presuntuoso, onanistico, senza trama, scritto con uno stile che dire presuntuoso è fare un complimento alla vanità - infarcito di riferimenti al greco antico come se piovessi e a classici di quella letteratura -come a dire "Eh, io ho fatto il classico"; in continuazione un ribadire come la "cultura" classica e letteraria sia nettamente superiore a quella, che so, scientifico matematica. Per poi invece cadere in errori grammaticali che neanche in un tema di prima media sarebbero accettabili - la virgola tra il soggetto e il verbo! - e di concetto (api che succhiano il polline! Ma prima del classico, la scrittrice le medie non le ha fatte???) Storia banale - una ragazzina mollata dal ragazzo del liceo, che se la riprende come amante trent'anno dopo per lasciarla (come merita) più volte a seguito della rabbia della moglie (Io comunque fossi stata la moglie glielo avrei lasciato! Oh come si meritavano l'un l'altra!); storia banale e comune fatta passare per il grande amore della vita (uno solo, si capisce!!! Ma i classici non le hanno insegnato nulla? Altro che Omero, questa sembra rimasta a Biancaneve, e manco alla versione dei Grimm, ma a quella edulcorata di Disney). A un certo punto, in tre pagine tre, ci mette anche uno stupro (giuro, uno stupro!) che lascia meno il segno traumatico dell'abbandono a 19 anni. Stupro commesso da...udite udite un "serial killer", come ebbero a dirle gli investigatori, che non furono però coinvolti non avendo avuto il coraggio di denunciare l'assalto. Un editing sarebbe stato come minimo necessario - ma capisco che poi doveva riscrivere il 99% del libro. Insomma, credo il peggiore libro che abbia letto in questi ultimi 10 anni. E leggendo molto, di robaccia ne raccatto varia......more
A really good book, if really complex to follow. It describes the life of a librarian (a translator?) in Beirut; woman, alone - for choice - and being A really good book, if really complex to follow. It describes the life of a librarian (a translator?) in Beirut; woman, alone - for choice - and being a woman alone in Beirut can't be easy. It describes the life of a friend of her, woman, alone for choice (in remembrance of a dream love, that as usual, was no real love, and when she realizes that she can't dope with life any longer... It describes the sisterhood of women in a flat building, who, even if witches, are the only ones you can count on... It describes the love for book, literature, novels...that only books can be a bearable reality when real life is so complicated to meet...
He left me sometime in 1971 because the traumatic events of Black September the previous fall forced him to reevaluate his priorities. The killings in Jordan probably convinced him that books would not open the door to his cell. In this world, a cause could—a cause could swing prison doors wide open. I mourned his loss.
Sex, like art, can unsettle a soul, can grind a heart in a mortar. Sex, like literature, can sneak the other within one’s walls, even if for only a moment, a moment before one immures oneself again.
“I always wondered how you spent so much time all by yourself during the war. Oh, wait. While the Lebanese were experiencing bloodlust, yours was booklust.� She emits a bubbling brook of laughter. When she realizes I’m not laughing, she adds, “You have to admit that was clever.�
I bet you believe in the redemptive power of art. I’m sure you do. I did. Such a romantic notion. Art will rescue the world, lift humanity above the horrible quagmire it’s stuck in. Art will save you. I used to think that art would make me a better human being. I believed in the foolish idea that listening to Kiri Te Kanawa or Victoria de Los Ángeles purified my soul. “Vissi d’arte� and all that. I lived for art, I lived for love, I never did harm to a living soul! Well, no, non vissi d’amore. I wasn’t that lucky. I also can’t say that I haven’t harmed a living soul. I sold books, after all.
When you write about the past, you lie with each letter, with every grapheme, including the goddamn comma. Memory, memoir, autobiography—lies, lies, all lies. Is it true that I didn’t think of a husband, wish for one, or has the image I have of myself, the way I like to think of myself, superimposed itself on what was happening then? Does that question make sense? Let me put it another way.Let me put it another way. It is quite possible that I, like every Beiruti girl, dreamed of getting married, had fantasies of what my future husband would look like, but that after growing up, after having had a sad and incomplete matrimonial experience, I reinvented myself, convincing myself that I hadn’t dreamed of such trivial matters. It is possible. I sincerely believe that I didn’t, but I also don’t see myself having had that much courage as a young girl. I keep the possibility open.
Feminism in Lebanon hasn’t reached espadrilles or running shoes yet; sensible heels are where it’s at. The choice not to marry hasn’t entered the picture. It may be entering now, but I wouldn’t know. I don’t associate much with the young.
I consider it a shame that most contemporary American writing seems informed more by Hemingway, the hero of adolescent boys of all ages and genders, than by the sui generis genius of letters, Faulkner
Granted, being around my mother would unhinge most, and I wouldn’t wish her screaming on anyone, not Benjamin Netanyahu, not even Ian McEwan.
Like many nation-states, including its sister pygmy state Lebanon, Israel is an abomination. Israelis are Jews who have misplaced their sense of humor.
had little time for a god who had little time for me. As I matured, I had no use for one. Emmanuel Lévinas suggested that God left in 1941. Mine left in 1975. And in 1978, and in 1982, and in 1990.
“She’s not Shirley MacLaine,� Joumana says. “You are. You’re just as loud and inappropriate as she is. What happened to your manners?� “They aged,� Fadia says. “They grew old to keep me young.�
All three stop what they’re doing. If I’d said that I ride with the Valkyries every morning after breakfast, that I gave birth to a million jinn on the shores of the Red Sea on Sunday the twenty-second of June, that my secret lover is Zeus in the form of a shower of gold—anything but the fact that I’ve never owned a hair dryer—they would have been less surprised....more
Veramente un bel libro - che ti fa capire, fino dove possibile capire dall'esterno - la situazione della Turchia di oggi, con tutta la repressione cheVeramente un bel libro - che ti fa capire, fino dove possibile capire dall'esterno - la situazione della Turchia di oggi, con tutta la repressione che c'è. Ne aveva parlato una puntata di Globo, e sono molto contenta di avere seguito il loro consiglio! Oltretutto è di un poetico ai limiti del dolore...
«Io quei soldi li ho spesi non per la lampada, ma per la sua luce».
Di colpo diede una spinta con la mano sul muro e si abbandonò al vuoto. Cadde poco oltre le macchine della polizia. [...] “Se fosse partito ieri non l’avrebbero preso� pensai, “se fosse andato via anche solo ieri sera si sarebbe salvato�. Come mai non era partito prima? Di colpo compresi che anche se avesse cercato di partire prima non sarebbe cambiato nulla. Sapevano quando sarebbe andato via. Se avesse provato a partire il giorno prima sarebbero venuti il giorno prima ancora, se avesse tentato il giorno successivo sarebbero arrivati un giorno dopo. Volevano infrangere i suoi sogni, volevano distruggere la sua forza, probabilmente volevano anche prendersi gioco di lui.
Non riuscivo ad afferrare né le azioni delle persone né il silenzio della società, non ero in grado di comprendere appieno ciò che accadeva. Talvolta questo mi crucciava tanto da farmi pensare di essermi ammalato. Allora andavo in biblioteca e leggevo romanzi. Durante la lettura il mondo cambiava luce, le persone e gli avvenimenti acquisivano una nitidezza cristallina, potevo osservare ogni cosa e toccare i personaggi dei romanzi senza che nessuno mi vedesse o potesse toccarmi. Mi sentivo forte e al sicuro, e quella sensazione mi guariva. La vita mi sembrava provvisoria e artificiale, i romanzi invece mi apparivano duraturi e sinceri....more
A really complex book. Complex for its writing, its language; complex for its style. Complex for the hardness of the themes: immigration, aAlso ***1/2
A really complex book. Complex for its writing, its language; complex for its style. Complex for the hardness of the themes: immigration, addiction, addiction by medicinal drugs; war, PTSD from war and domestic violence, relationship with parents; gay relations. It is also a book on guilt, guilt for having survived, survived the lover who got lost in drugs, survived his mother, grandmother because of his culture, his studies, survived the shame of being Vietnamese in USA... What I've appreciated mostly is the poetry of the writing: sometimes is gorgeously beautiful!!!
Our hands empty except for our hands
I came to know, in those afternoons, that madness can sometimes lead to discovery, that the mind, fractured and short-wired, is not entirely wrong. The room filled and refilled with our voices as the snow fell from her head, the hardwood around my knees whitening as the past unfolded around us.
As a girl, you watched, from a banana grove, your schoolhouse collapse after an American napalm raid. At five, you never stepped into a classroom again. Our mother tongue, then, is no mother at all—but an orphan. Our Vietnamese a time capsule, a mark of where your education ended, ashed. Ma, to speak in our mother tongue is to speak only partially in Vietnamese, but entirely in war.
Two languages cancel each other out, suggests Barthes, beckoning a third. Sometimes our words are few and far between, or simply ghosted
You gave me a look, leaned back, and sighed. “Everything good is always somewhere else,� you said after a while, and changed the channel.
The boy is standing in a tiny yellow kitchen in Hartford. Still a toddler, the boy laughs, believing they are dancing. He remembers this—because who can forget the first memory of their parents? It was not until the blood ran from his mother’s nose, turning her white shirt the color of Elmo he had seen on Sesame Street, that he started to scream. As in the Italian film "C'è ancora domani"
I had thought sex was to breach new ground, despite terror, that as long as the world did not see us, its rules did not apply. But I was wrong. The rules, they were already inside us.
The boy ran away from home one night. He ran with no plans. In his backpack were a bag of Cheerios taken out the box, a pair of socks, and two Goosebumps paperbacks. Although he could not read chapter books yet, he knew how far a story could take him, and holding these books meant there were at least two more worlds he could eventually step into
I said that, not because I was certain, but because I thought my saying it would help me believe it.
Once, at a writing conference, a white man asked me if destruction was necessary for art. His question was genuine. He leaned forward, his blue gaze twitching under his cap stitched gold with ’Nam Vet 4 Life, the oxygen tank connected to his nose hissing beside him. I regarded him the way I do every white veteran from that war, thinking he could be my grandfather, and I said no. “No, sir, destruction is not necessary for art.� I said that, not because I was certain, but because I thought my saying it would help me believe it.
In Vietnamese, the word for missing someone and remembering them is the same: nh�. Sometimes, when you ask me over the phone, Con nh� m� không? I flinch, thinking you meant, Do you remember me? I miss you more than I remember you....more
Grazioso, lascia tutte le porte aperte per futuri sviluppi!
Archer l’aveva vista in soffitta con i suoi paralumi, poi dama di compagnia di una nobildonGrazioso, lascia tutte le porte aperte per futuri sviluppi!
Archer l’aveva vista in soffitta con i suoi paralumi, poi dama di compagnia di una nobildonna per cui sarebbe stata assai indicata la ghigliottina. In quel frangente era ancora diversa, in assetto da giovane segretaria. Quante anime diverse convivevano in quell’unica creatura?...more
Emma glanced at the flowers in the distance. She was becoming rather tired of daffodils. Their Wordsworthian exuberance had been overdone, Loved it!!!
Emma glanced at the flowers in the distance. She was becoming rather tired of daffodils. Their Wordsworthian exuberance had been overdone, she felt, crammed into cottage gardens and now such poetic drifts of them in the park and woods
Monday was always a busy day at the surgery, a rather stark new building next to the village hall. ‘They� � the patients � had not on the whole been to church the previous day, but they atoned for this by a devout attendance at the place where they expected not so much to worship, though this did come into it for a few, as to receive advice and consolation. You might talk to the rector, some would admit doubtfully, but he couldn’t give you a prescription. There was nothing in churchgoing to equal that triumphant moment when you came out of the surgery clutching the ritual scrap of paper. [...[Going out of the surgery, clutching her bit of paper, a prescription for something, at least, Daphne felt that Martin, the ‘new doctor� as he was called in the village, had done her good. He had listened, he had been sympathetic and she felt decidedly better. Much better than she would have felt if she’d gone to Dr G. � he never even bothered to take your blood pressure.
‘And how do you find the village?� Beatrix asked Daphne. ‘In February it must seem bleak after Birmingham.� ‘Oh, there can be bleakness in Birmingham,� said Daphne. ‘I suppose February is a dreary month anywhere � except perhaps in warmer climes.� She used the deliberately stilted poetic phrase half jokingly, but it concealed her determination not to go to the cottage near Tintagel this summer but to have a holiday in Greece again....more
Un classico libro che definisco "Ruffiano": un libro che NON può non piacere a un bookworm come me. Anzi, è stato difficile fare orecchie da mercante Un classico libro che definisco "Ruffiano": un libro che NON può non piacere a un bookworm come me. Anzi, è stato difficile fare orecchie da mercante e segnare pochi libri qui nominati! Prima o poi un salto a vederla toccherà farcelo!!!
Mi piacciono i libri che ti fanno leggere altri libri. Una catena che non dovremmo mai interrompere. L’unica forma di eternità che possiamo sperimentare è qui sulla terra, diceva Pia. Il giardino è una forma dell’eternità.
La libreria è una scuola, una finestra su un mondo che pensiamo di conoscere e non è vero. La verità è che si deve leggere per conoscere davvero il mondo perché chi scrive lo fa sempre a partire da un particolare che non torna. E quando «il calcolo dei dadi piú non torna», come direbbe Montale, a scrittrici e scrittori non resta che accogliere la contraddizione, avventurarsi nelle buie strade dell’io, essere il buio stesso, non c’� altra soluzione
Del Prato Fiorito tra disegni delle elementari, foto e foto digitali, ho di sicuro piú di trentasei immagini. Noi ci amiamo, ci lasciamo, piangiamo, esultiamo e lui è lí, come sempre. Cambia ma non muta. Io non posso farne a meno. Sono qui davanti a lui e sono felice, incredibilmente felice. Buon compleanno papà.
Proponemmo a due persone stimate, entrambi ammirati docenti universitari, di fare dieci lezioni dedicate a dieci punte di diamante della narrativa italiana e della filosofia del Novecento. Arrivarono due proposte con dieci uomini su dieci. Niente Hannah Arendt, niente Simone Weil, niente María Zambrano, niente Elsa Morante, niente Natalia Ginzburg, niente Anna Maria Ortese. La cosa piú preoccupante era che le proposte venivano da due studiosi non certo di area conservatrice. Dunque il pilota automatico è ancora in assetto maschilista, questo è il punto. Ci devono pensare, altrimenti spontaneamente le donne non vengono a galla. Devono fare «mente locale»....more
Why not? A smart monk, solving riddles and murdes! And love triumphs in the end!!!
“No, I would not do so to him. I know better than that. All I can doWhy not? A smart monk, solving riddles and murdes! And love triumphs in the end!!!
“No, I would not do so to him. I know better than that. All I can do is watch, and keep silence.� The fate of women in a world of fighting men, he thought wryly, but for all that, it is not so passive a part as it sounds.
TO BE READ - today, tomorrow, for ever. Because not all citizen of Israel agrees with its rulers
When Aba returned from Gaza, a month after he left, heTO BE READ - today, tomorrow, for ever. Because not all citizen of Israel agrees with its rulers
When Aba returned from Gaza, a month after he left, he looked the same but acted different. He had the same sad, droopy bulldog eyes. He had the same nose, sharp as a cliff face, which arched down to his lips [...] He even had the same breath in the morning when he shook us awake, like burnt rubber. On the surface, everything was the same. Except he was different.
“Yes, this is my home. And you are the big bad wolf, coming to blow it all down.� Ziv grew up on stories of the big bad wolf from Lebanon, sending rockets to their villages in the north. They kept rebuilding and rebuilding, and now their homes were no longer made of straw, they were made of brick. They were defending themselves, pushing the PLO operatives back past the forty-kilometer line from the border, making sure they wouldn’t keep suffering attacks like the Coastal Road Massacre. At least that was what he was always told. Scheherazade must have grown up on different stories. He kept thinking of her father with a hole in his chest, and her sister reciting the information from the autopsy report, the width and depth of the bullet wound, over and over again, in a room full of turquoise tiles.
“Eight years later I knew exactly what he was feeling. I remember he had said, Every thought begins with no. No more coming home to you, no more talking to you, no more laughing with you. This is a war we have already lost. As a family.
One of the children in line, a small boy with a mischievous grin, sticks his tongue out at me. I wonder how long it will take for him to harden, become bitter and angry, how many more humiliating days spent waiting at the checkpoint, being strip-searched or interrogated, until he begins resisting with a group of other boys from his village, throwing rocks at passing settler vehicles, and confronting soldiers with riot gear and tear gas canisters and rubber bullets, until he’s hauled off to prison for throwing one stone too many.
Adam would somberly shake his head and announce that the kitchen had run out of it. No pasta, no potatoes, no ice cream. I wanted to do the same thing when he turned eighteen, when the army came knocking on our door, I wanted to say, I’m sorry, we have no boys left for you.
The gate is shut. Adam was killed four years ago, and still I go to the checkpoint every week. Nothing has changed—things have only gotten worse. An endless cycle of violence. The Nation State Law, settler price-tag retaliations, the demolition of homes and the burning of Palestinian olive groves in the West Bank, every two years or so another war in Gaza.
The orchard was burning, the orchard was burning, and on the horizon, the ships were sailing away. I was a young soldier at the time, we were establishing a new country, a homeland for the Jewish people. I was throwing flaming rags onto the trees of the orange grove with the rest of the soldiers. I was obliterating the orchard I helped grow and cultivate for years. I wish I could finally confess, but I’m silent. I cannot say it. I want to say: I destroyed your family’s orchard, Lilah. I betrayed Khalil. I burned the orchard down. It was me, your grandfather’s childhood friend....more
As usual a guarantee; and as usual waiting for the next one!!!
And then he smiled at her. And as he did, the furrows deepened. And she was reminded thaAs usual a guarantee; and as usual waiting for the next one!!!
And then he smiled at her. And as he did, the furrows deepened. And she was reminded that while some of the lines down his face were certainly caused by pain and sorrow, stress and grief, by far the deepest impressions were made by just this. Smiling. Like lines on a map, these chartered the longitude and latitude, the journey of a man who had found happiness.
“Non. He’s a Dominican.� His smile was indulgent but not exactly warm. “Frère Sébastien agreed to become a Gilbertine. Though once a Hound of the Lord…� Again, the monk raised his hand. “What does that mean?� asked Beauvoir. “Dominican. Domini Canis,� said Simon. “Hound of the Lord. They were the Inquisition.� - and well we know that in Perugia, where the dominicans closed the door of their convent when the vatican soldiers shot the people parading for the Unity of Italy (not so the Benedectinesm 500 m further!)
“So,� Jean-Guy continued, “as I held him, Armand whispers, ‘Tell� � then he coughs � ‘that I love� � and he coughs again.� “Very dramatic,� said Gabri, with approval. “A great death scene, only you forgot to actually die.� “I blame the writer,�...more
Anche ***1/2 Un libro che descrive una realtà da favola per noi occidentali, posti che sognamo fin da bambini ascoltando la versione edulcorata delle MAnche ***1/2 Un libro che descrive una realtà da favola per noi occidentali, posti che sognamo fin da bambini ascoltando la versione edulcorata delle Mille e una notte. Una realtà che il storia, con la S minuscola purtroppo, ha ridotto in cenere. Una storia al femminile, in una cultura che si spaccia per maschilista all'ennesima potenza; a dimostrare che è ovviamente così, ma che la realtà ha sempre mille sfaccettature, bun più di quelle in bianco e nero che ci vogliono imporre...
“Chi sposa una siriana si gode una lunga nottata di sonno,� recita il detto arabo. Spesso, però, papà si divertiva ad aggiungere la parola mai: “Chi sposa una siriana mai si gode una lunga nottata di sonno�. Era stata una delle sue affermazioni più ripetute, una specie di mantra, durante i loro trentasei anni di matrimonio. Finché, nel 1978, il formaggio salato non li divise.
La baraonda mimetizzava la vera natura del convivio e mascherava il fatto che ogni raduno del venerdì creava ulteriori incomprensioni familiari, perpetuava antiche tensioni e finiva per impigliarsi nelle medesime dinamiche di famiglia
E perché no? La morte non è forse più importante del matrimonio? La perdita della vita non è forse più importante della perdita della libertà?...more
As usual, women are invisible (like black people, as Ralph Ellison in his Invisible Man clearly pointed out. And we still are...nothing changes, if notAs usual, women are invisible (like black people, as Ralph Ellison in his Invisible Man clearly pointed out. And we still are...nothing changes, if not in worse...
The world might be changing, but we women are still second-class citizens. And Black women. Well. You do the math....more
Scemo scemo, giallo improbabile e anche troppo intricato, ma si lascia leggere in un soffio - ci vogliono libri così per rimettere l'anima in pace conScemo scemo, giallo improbabile e anche troppo intricato, ma si lascia leggere in un soffio - ci vogliono libri così per rimettere l'anima in pace con il mondo!...more
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