Leviathan by Paul Auster

Leviathan by Paul Auster
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

For me the tale did not merit the lengthy narrative, the book within the book seemed contrived and interfered with the tension.  I felt it was too much blathering and was in need of editing.  Perhaps it's a case of not being able to latch on to either of the main male characters as sympathetic or interesting.  The female protagonists started out as more captivating particularly since I'd seen museum exhibits of Sophie Calle and immediately recognized her in Maria but they were reduced to pretty much sexual objects as the tale continued.  Is the narrator Peter Aaron the novelist Paul Auster and is it important to the story?  The book talks a great deal about identity and stories and whether Aaron's recreation of Sachs' life is true and how far does truth go when told by another in a memoir.  Did Sachs really die in Wisconsin?  Is Aaron a reliable reporter of his friend's motivations and life?  Is Auster?  Do I need to read Hobbes Leviathan to find out?  Other Auster books I liked better were Moon Palace, City of Glass.
Favorite quote:  Books are born out of ignorance and if they go on living after they are written, it's only to the degree that they cannot be understood. (Auster. Leviathan, p. 40)


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Left Handed Dreams: none by Francesca Duranti

Left Handed Dreams by Francesca Duranti
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Unusual first-person, philosophical book about an Italian professor now living and cooking (tasty-sounding recipes) in New York City who examines her life and particularly her dreams in terms of being retrained to be right-handed when she was a child in Italy and how that affected her.  While I found it fairly compelling and thoughtful, there is very little action.  The book was translated by the author.


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The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

** spoiler alert ** The Sense of an Ending was a beautifully written, compelling tale whose main character, Tony Webster, is an unreliable narrator, always a challenge to the reader. I have a problem recommending the book because I had difficulties with the plot which seemed unbelievable. The denouement was a surprise to me and I did not feel the key characters, the mother and Adrian, fit into this scenario. Did the woman flip off her marriage and daughter as casually as she did the broken egg? Was this our clue? And would this same woman have chosen the path she did with the child? Or remembered Tony in her will? Would the Adrian who went to the trouble of writing Tony that he was seeing his ex-girlfriend slip into a relationship with her mother? For any of this to offer a ring of truth, I would need a lot more information.

I appreciated Tony's comments on aging, life and memory. His goals of stereotypically English "peacebleness" countered his determination and email stalking of Veronica who remains a cipher. I too closed the book with a feeling of dissatisfaction.


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A Thousand Pardons by Jonathan Dee

A Thousand Pardons by Jonathan  Dee
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A Thousand Pardons is a beautifully written and engrossing story about marriage, divorce, celebrity and public relations with their companion wrinkles and tragedies and the ever present need for forgiveness.  The characters are not particularly affecting, perhaps too removed from the reader as well as from each other, but their stories are and Dee presents them with skill and insight .  The section involving the two men marooned together in the house was amusing and truthful.  The ending leaves me in doubt as to this family making the changes necessary to sustain their new lives. The teenage daughter is insufferable.  The husband is a cipher.  The celebrity actor and the wife were most appealing and their stories sustained my interest in the book.  I did read it quickly and eagerly.  If you are looking for a runaway read, I  recommend A Thousand Pardons for the writing and its modern story line.  If you are a fan of character development and psychological insight, perhaps you might prefer  Adam Haslett's Union Atlantic or Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruins or Jean Thompson's The Year We Left Home.


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The Believers by Zoë Heller

The Believers by Zoë Heller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

 An unsentimental and compelling family drama about a political lawyer, possibly modeled after William Kunstler, who has a stroke and how his family reacts in various ways, particularly intensely by his distressed and furious wife, Audrey.  I have friends who will say "but I didn't like the characters" to which the author replies in an interview in the October 1, 2008 issue of Time Out:
I read a review the other day that said, "Joel is the one charming character in the book, and we're left with this pain in the neck." And in one sense that exactly expresses what she's had to deal with all her life, being the less desirable companion to this charming, charismatic, fabulous man, who is also this gigantic egotist. It's quite hard work living with that kind of star. [...:] It's amazing how often, both giving readings in book shops or reading reviews on Amazon, or even reading supposedly sophisticated criticism, that charge arises: "You've written somebody that I don't like." And you want to say, well, how do you feel about Iago? I take umbrage at all that. [...:] I very strongly feel that the job of fiction is not to write admirable figures, but to imagine one's way into all sorts of people, often people who ostensibly at least are deeply unlikeable or unpleasant. The question is not whether you like them but whether you understand them.
—[11:]


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Final Roman Days

We have "done" the Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica all of which almost "did" us in but each is, of course, a splendid one-in-a-lifetime vision and we were grateful to see them.  The place was lousy with tourists and I cannot fathom what summer must be like for at least we have temperate weather in October.  I did not even bring a coat to Italy.  As William Beckford (1760-1844) wrote we spent today "prating from fragment to fragment" with a visit to the beautiful Etruscan Museum Giulia in the Village Borghese park to see the dreamy
smiling bridge and groom on their sarcophagus and oodles of red-figured urns as well as drop-dead jewelry but none to purchase.  We then dropped in to the Pantheon, the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world, where the loudspeaker serially in Italian, English, German, Spanish and a few other languages exhorted the jam of people to be silent because it is a "holy place, a church."  M reminded no one in particular that is was not a church, it was the Pantheon.


St. Ignatius Church was lovely and made more so by a young organist practicing Bach.  A quick turn at the Trevi Fountain assured our return although I had to throw my coin over so many heads,  I was afraid I'd miss my one shot.  Lunch at Maccheroni's ranked in our top five, jammed with locals, they serve heavenly tonnarelli pasta with cheese and black pepper (cacio e pepe).
And we continued feasting with almost our last dinner in Rome at Sora Lella on an island in the Tiber River.  The long confusing walk home hopefully ate some of those calories.

Contrary to expectations, I hardly shopped at all in Rome and our last day was Sunday when the shops actually are closed.  I did get the short boots I saw in the window of wonder-of-wonders Louis' Big Shoes and M found a giant kitchen knife to bring home.

While we look forward to seeing Leo and hearth and home, our coins will bring us back to Rome, hopefully soon.

Arrivederci

Ciao Roma

We are 2 blocks from the Colisseum in a very comfortable B&B (only 4 units) called "Downtown Accomodations" which is run by a helpful couple from China.  Last night's restaurant recommendation from our host was superb, the 313 Via Cavour Enoteca where we ate carpaccio, white beans plus spinach-pear-ricotta salad.  Our first day we ate at a place on Mark's list in Camp di Fiori, enjoying pasta with artichokes and fab soft cheese and afterward we bought a refugee bag for 15e to pack foodstuffs and other treasures for our return.

Galleria Borghese left us awed by the marble walls, mosaic floors, muralled ceilings plus the contents, the paintings of Caravaggio and others, the Bernini sculptures, the 1st Century racing Greek steed.  I wanted to read the Cambridge Ancient and the Greek classics by Virgil and Ovid with tales of Daphne and Apollo [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_and_Daphne_(Bernini)} and Pluto and  Proserpina [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_Proserpina] to say nothing of a much-needed Bible history.  But will I do so in this lifetime?

Why does Italy have the best food and drink in the world and the lousiest orange juice?  Every breakfast, we are confronted by a Tang-like reddish-colored beverage better suited to dyeing cloth.  Once in Siracusa, we were able to buy fresh-squeezed but never again.  Ah ha, finally found a $5 glass here in Rome.  And who needs juice at these very low prices for tasty wine?

We have climbed the Palatine Hill for the museum, stadium and domestic remnants of royal life and view of St. Peter's.  We have combed the Forum, guidebook in hand, captivated by the House of the Vestal Virgins, the arches remaining, the stones in the road, caught a quick Mass at nearby church Santa Maria del Soccorso al Monte di Pieta, one of the richest small baroque church interiors in the city,  and now we lay prostrate in our room.  Friday we've scheduled the Vatican Museums and fallen-away M has agreed to accompany me.

For those who recall my delight in finding an "uber grossen" shoe store in Berlin, the equivalent in Rome is 5 doors down from our hotel.  Tomorrow I too will have Italian boots but for now tennis shoes are my friends.  Tromp, tromp, tromp through the marble wonders of the (other) City of Seven Hills.