Adamo (@adz77) is the next man to make it to the end of That Awful Mess. Here are his thoughts on our tricky appetiser...
Ok, so, writing a book review is something I haven't done in about twenty years and I had absolutely no idea where to start. However, I shall endeavour to share my thoughts, for what they are worth on a book I probably wouldn't have selected myself, but love the idea of this club (being something of a self-confessed geek being in a book club seems very apt, no?).
I picked up a translated copy of the book and have to say, after about eight or nine pages I tossed it aside thinking 'I'll see what they choose next, it's not for me'.
Then Mauro's review of the Italian version was posted and I thought I'd give it another go, struggled some more before biting the bullet and picking up an original version and can only recommend if you can then do the same.
Suddenly a book that came across as pretentious and obtuse revealed itself to be a wonderfully layered and crafted novel, its characters as rich as the language Gadda uses to describe them to use. Not only this but, considering the date of its original publication, it is laced with an incredibly brave attack on fascism and a superb portrait of Rome as the author saw it.
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