I'll spare you my renewed vows to revive this blog, and only mention that I realized that what I post to facebook after every book I finish would actually be enough for a blog post, which is to say, this really shouldn't be that hard. Then again, I just spent over an hour writing those last two posts, because once you get started, it's hard to stop. But whatever. More blog!
I do want to say though, that a big part of what finally got me to get back to work on this is Rebecca Hussey's wonderful substack, Reading Indie. Rebecca and I have been getting to know each other via twitter (she tweets under @OfBooksandBikes), and our reading tastes are eerily, like really uncannily, similar. Not just what we enjoy, but what we read — I don't understand how it happens, but we are consistently reading the same books or authors. Yes, this is in part because we both like reading literature in translation and books from small presses, but still, it's weird. Anyways, I have so enjoyed reading her thoughts on the things she's reading that the idea that some people might enjoy reading my thoughts on the things that I'm reading started to seem less improbable. My facebook friends seem to enjoy them, anyhow, and it's really high time to start divesting from that platform...
Yes, I know, blogs are quaint, get with the substack. I'm a dinosaur, sorry. I'm such a dinosaur that I still get dvds from Netflix! And I enjoy it!
I don't read that many substacks, because so much email, but I have been reading Mining the Dalkey Archive, which is a fascinating story of the Dalkey Archive Press, written by Chad Post (he also runs Open Letter Books). It reminds me of S-Town (I don't listen to many podcasts either, but I did like that one), in that there are just so many wildly improbable, strange, wondrous things going on — but in this case, they're all connected to avant-garde literature and the vagaries of publishing. So it's pure catnip for me.
Anyhow. I just finished Natalia Ginzburg's Valentino and Sagittarius, in an excellent translation by Avril Bardoni, published by NYRB. You'll rarely go wrong with a NYRB book,* and Ginzburg is always phenomenal. This is two novellas, and they are both wonderfully wry and blunt.
My brother was studying medicine and the expenses were never-ending: microscopes, books, fees...My father believed that he was destined to become a man of consequence. There was little enough reason to believe this, but he believed it all the same and had done ever since Valentino was a small boy and perhaps found it difficult to break the habit.
She's a great storyteller — her plots are full of unexpected swerves, not in a WOAH PLOT TWIST kind of way, more like a wait, what? But the real pleasure is the narrative voice. I inevitably find myself thinking of Elena Ferrante, but Ferrante never comes out ahead in the comparison. If you want it dark and anguished, yes, she's the place to go. Ginzburg explores some of those same dark places, but with less of the torment. If Ferrante is cranked up to a 12, Ginzburg is at a 7 or 8, and that's just right, if you ask me.
But I don't want to turn this into a competition (good news! we can enjoy BOTH!). The real point is, Ginzburg is delightful: she has a marvelously light touch, and a wonderful sense of comedy.
*It's a strange feature of NYRB books that they always take longer to read than you expect them to. They're not as short as they look! I don't know why, it's not like the font is small or the prose is dense, but somehow, you don't get that thrill of finishing a book quickly. I love a short book. I was super stoked about this list of great short books. More short books please!
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