From the opening page of this simply narrated story, author Hiromi Kawakami establishes characters who, in their disarming complexity and iconoclastic behavior, behave differently from the expectations that many American readers of Japanese novels may have come to expect. Tsukiko Omachi, a single businesswoman of thirty-eight, introduces herself as the narrator of the novel by describing her meeting with Mr. Harutsuna Matsumoto at a crowded bar after she finishes work. Tsukiko is not a traditional Japanese woman, and the man she meets is not a contemporary trying to pick her up. She is aggressive, accustomed to living her own life without interference from anyone else, Matsumoto, a man about thirty years older than she, has recognized her from the past – she was a student in one of his Japanese classes in high school, years ago. After two years of casual (non-exclusive) meetings, Tsukiko begins to be able to predict what Sensei will say under various circumstances, and when she takes walks alone she begins to wonder what Sensei is doing. Though some readers may become frustrated by the excruciatingly slow pace at which the relationship between Tsukiko and Sensei develops, with long months often elapsing between some of the key events, the author’s ability to show the subtle changes which occur between these two strong and independent people will delight lovers of precise writing and careful development.
Read Full Post »
The adult characters in My Brilliant Friend share their lives in an economically depressed community on the fringes of Naples in the early 1950s, people who are still traumatized by the war and the disasters, both personal and financial, that have resulted from it. Like their children, they live in the moment – passionately, emotionally, and often violently. They have intermarried over the years, and their children play together and will also, in all likelihood, marry each other. The bulk of the novel details Elena Greco’s relationship with Lila Cerullo from the time they are six years old in the early 1950s. Elena is a conscientious student and works hard, but Lila, who is incorrigible in her behavior, is an instinctive student who taught herself how to read when she was three. Between the beginning and the end of this novel, when the two friends are sixteen, author Elena Ferrante creates a vivid picture of Neapolitan life from the early 1950s to the early 1960s as times change and people must either change, too, or be left behind. Both women are aware from the outset that it is the men of the family who determine one’s social class and who control virtually every aspect of family life. The competition for “appropriate” suitors within their small neighborhood, as the girls in the neighborhood reach puberty, becomes fierce. This well-developed family saga is the first of a trilogy, which continues up to the present. Well done narrative with wide appeal.
Read Full Post »
With its quick narrative pacing, its unusual story lines filled with ironies, its wounded characters (appealing in their vulnerability), and the novel’s inherent charm, this newly reprinted novel from 1975 may be the perfect answer for lovers of literary fiction looking for a great book to read on a hot summer day. Russell Hoban is in fine fettle here, creating a novel which raises big questions while focusing on two quiet characters whose lives are about to change in significant ways. The “ends” they have been seeking have been present in their “beginnings,” as the review’s opening sentence (from T. S. Eliot) indicates, though until now these characters have not recognized this, spending their middle age dreaming and second-guessing – and ruing the fact that they have missed their chances for happier, more satisfying lives. In their separate narratives, William G. and Neaera H. share their lives and their thoughts. William G., the divorced father of two, now works in a bookshop and lives in a small room. As the novel opens, he is at the zoo, but he concludes, petulantly, that “I don’t want to go to the Zoo anymore.” Neaera H., a writer of children’s stories, is sick of writing about Gillian Vole and birthday parties, and has been contemplating using a predator as her next character. As her first commentary opens, she has just purchased a home aquarium, not for fish, but for a Great Water-beetle, which she has ordered by mail. Eventually, both speakers come together in a plan to release the sea turtles into the ocean, an event which changes their lives. A great book for a book club.
Read Full Post »
Maurizio de Giovanni’s newest novel, The Crocodile, is not part of the Commissario Ricciardi series, though the book is dedicated to “Luigi Alfredo Ricciardi, and the souls in darkness,” and frankly, I wondered how the author would ever succeed in creating a new “hero” to rival Ricciardi, one of the most intriguing and imaginative “heroes” in noir fiction. I wondered, too, if a setting in contemporary Naples could possibly be as atmospheric as that of Naples in the 1930s. I should have had more faith. Without even a backward glance, de Giovanni has created yet another brilliantly realized protagonist, Inspector Giuseppe Lojacono – equally lonely, equally wounded by life, equally sympathetic, and at least as intriguing as Ricciardi, though from a very different background. Lojacono, from Sicily, is fully familiar with the workings of organized crime there, and he has recently become a victim of its machinations. A low level crook in Sicily turned state’s witness and identified the innocent Lojacono as an informant for organized crime. Instantly Lojacono became a pariah in the police department. Sicily shipped him off the island to Naples, which took him in but did not want him. The author succeeds in making this as much of a character novel as it is a novel of dark and violent crime. Ultimately, readers who are already familiar with Maurizio de Giovanni’s work will be thrilled to see the author branching out and taking new chances, even as they thrill with the information that the fourth book of the year will be the third installment of the brilliant Commissario Ricciardi tetralogy.
Read Full Post »
