I'll admit it, I think we kicked the club off with a tough mountain to climb. A more gentle introduction might have been better. But I am hard-headed enough to rarely give up on a book I have sacrificed the time and energy to start.
That Awful Mess, for me, induced lengthy spells of feeling that I was reading it because I felt I ought to - rather than for actual enjoyment. Accessible, straightforward and action-packed, it is not. Its rhythms and subtleties often escaped me.
Part of this, I reckon, was down to the translation which had a dated or clunky feel. However, I think it's only fair to say anyone would have struggled with Gadda's prose. His playfulness with words in Italian is desperately difficult for anyone to wrestle with.
Maybe I should have got a copy in its original language but I'm not sure I would have been a lot more enthused. As both Mauro and Adam have pointed out, we really started the Giallo Club with a book which was essentially not a Giallo. It often felt more like a literary exercise colliding with social commentary. There were some lovely nuggets in there but, to me, no more than that.
What I enjoyed most was the insight into the machinations of life in Rome under the Fascist regime. There were some observational gems in there (my personal favourite when one of the characters exclaims: "Tuscans! They're a bunch of stinkers too..."). But overall, my ultimate feeling was one of relief rather than satisfaction when I turned the final page.
I did't finished the book yet. For me it's a fascinating and difficult reading at the same time. Difficult one because of my poor "Romano" knowledge. In the beginning I thought the same thing Adam (@Adz77) wrote: "it's not for me". Few days after I talked about "Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana" with Mauro (@mauropalermo) and we both wondered how the translation for our English speaching friends could characterize the characters. In the Italian version, Gadda was able to let the reader know a lot of things about a person due to a sentence he/she said. You can understand if the character is old, young, rich, well-off and so on, before the narrator begins to describe him/her, just seeing how kind of Italian the character speaks. After that chat I decided to continue it, in small doses, and enjoy it. Good choice this Giallo but Giallo.
ReplyDeleteMichelangelo @mkidj
I think you should next read Brunetti's Venice by Toni Sepeda which is part crime novel, part tourist guide. Then we can discuss its merits over a bowl of holy guacamole at the Cross and Flip Flop.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds good Sara, might take you up on that...
ReplyDelete