Premio Strega 2020: La Misura del Tempo - di Gianrico Carofiglio

“Qualcuno ha scritto che bisognerebbe essere capaci di morire giovani. Non nel senso di morire davvero.  Nel senso di smettere di fare quello che fai quando ti accorgi di avere raggiunto i confini del tuo talento, se ne possiedi uno. Tutto cio' che viene dopo quel confine e' ripetizione. Uno dovrebbe essere capace di morire giovane per rimanere vivo, ma non accade quasi mai.”

La misura del tempo di G. Carofiglio 
Einaudi Stile Libero Big

Guido Guerrieri, avvocato barese, ha superato i 50 anni ed è stanco. Stanco del lavoro, dei rituali che prevede. È insomma arrivato ad una stagione preautunnale della vita, una che inevitabilmente gli fornisce spunti per riflessioni sul tempo che passa. E proprio in mezzo a queste riflessioni, spunta una nuova cliente che si rivela essere stata la protagonista di una avventura sentimentale di ben 27 anni prima, quando l’avvocato era solo un praticante e lei, Lorenza, gia’ una donna, piu’ grande di lui, ambigua, misteriosa, bella e sfacciata.

Fin dall'inizio Lorenza conserva la sua ambiguità, reticenza a volte e anche attraverso i flashback narrativi non risulta mai un personaggio simpatico e trasparente, non suscita le simpatie del lettore. Il problema che presenta a Guerrieri e’ molto semplice, nella sua complessità. Il figlio Iacopo e’ in carcere per omicidio e il suo difensore e’ morto. Mancano sedici giorni all'appello e Lorenza cerca in Guerrieri un sostituto, con l’obiettivo di salvare il salvabile in un caso che sembra assolutamente perso.

Un legal thriller in piena regola: gran parte del giallo si svolge in tribunale, con spiegazioni affascinanti di quello che succede in un'aula - almeno per chi non conosce gran che di quella realtà, come me.

Ma la trama gialla non e' importante. E' solo un pretesto per parlare del tempo. Il tempo che passa, che confonde i ricordi, tanto più che la narrazione e' in prima persona - e chissà se e quanto è affidabile questa voce narrante. Una voce che ama le divagazioni (non a caso, Guerrieri sta leggendo Tristam Shandy del quale dice “un grandissimo romanzo di divagazioni, secondo me. Le divagazioni sono la mia passione, in tutti i campi, e quella lettura era un turbinoso piacere”), le note erudite sui filosofi, con qualche incursione nel mondo della vita degli scrittori e dell'editoria, delle librerie indipendenti. 

Intanto, però, il tempo personale è in contrapposizione con il tempo del tribunale. La tempistica delle azioni, in quel caso, è fondamentale, deve essere precisa, non può permettersi nebbie e dubbi. E sarà proprio il tempo (e ancora una volta, seppure in maniera diversa dal passato, Lorenza) a tradire l'avvocato...

Scritto con uno stile scorrevole, leggermente ma piacevolmente compiaciuto, si fa leggere senza battute di arresto, al di la’ di alcuni difetti - uno su tutti la staticità dei personaggi, un po’ bidimensionali. E’ il problema comune dei libri che in realtà appartengono ad una serie. Forse i cultori delle avventure di Guerrieri, forti dei precedenti episodi, non patiscono di questa scarsa connotazione dei personaggi.

Infine, La misura del tempo e' molto rappresentativo di una generazione di giallisti/noiristi che da tempo sono in testa alle classifiche di lettura e che evidentemente rispecchiano i gusti del pubblico italiano. Penso ai Carlotto, Manzini, Lucarelli - per non parlare di Camilleri. 

Se questo sia poi un ulteriore elemento utile a farlo entrare nella cinquina finale del Premio Strega, lo vedremo a breve. 

Cardiff, by the Sea - 4 novellas by Joyce Carol Oates

Cardiff, by the Sea - by Joyce Carol Oates - Grove Atlantic

Cardiff, by the Sea is a collection of four novellas by renowned author Joyce Carol Oates. She is actually considered one of the best American living authors - and one of the most prolific.

 

In Oates's world, there is often a definite separation between men and women. Women are often suffering victims - of men, of their families, of society. Men are most of the time deceivious beings, untrustworthy, driven by a homicidal and violent instinct.

In her world, reality and dreams (or nightmares) have no well-defined borders and characters keep floating from one into another creating an almost gothic - foggy - atmosphere. The result is often subtly disturbing.

So in the first novella - which gives the title to the entire collection - Clare is a 30-year old art historian, living her life in a sort of bubble, where human relationships are necessities to be handled with care and not too much involvement. Her attitute towards life has been shaped by her being adopted. She feels and acts like an outsider because the trouble with being adopted is that you are always provisional. No matter your age, you are at risk of being sent back.

Her philosophy and mental construction are shaken one day, when she receives a phone call on the landline and, even not knowing the identity of the caller, decides to answer. This decision, one in contrast with her usual policy, will trigger a series of events that will lead Clare - and the readers with her - into an almost nightmarish vortex. Will she wake up?

The second novella, Miao Dao, relates the difficult adolescent life of 13-year-old Mia. Parents divorcing and remarrying, boys noticing her for her changing body at school and bullying her, her stepdad not turning out as good as it seemed. Her only pleasure comes from a colony of feral cats that, to her dismay, is eradicated by the department for public health. She rescues though a small kitten, baptizing her Miao Dao, for which she develops an intimate attachment made of (mutual) protection. So intimate that, even when it escapes, it keeps coming back, visiting her in her sleep, protecting her - or is it just her dreams? 

Mia is suffering as a teenager, her mother is suffering as an adult woman. They both need to adapt to changes in their lives, and they find different ways to cope with it - be it alcohol or ...cats. Relying on men is never the answer. Men are insensitive beings at the best (Mia's father), violent at the worst (Mia's stepfather). And they are essentially so from the start. The guys in school are little bullies. The stepdad is just their adult version.

In Phantomwise, Alyce is just nineteen and falls for the wrong man (is there a right one, though?). The game Oates plays between reality and dream/nightmare is even more explicit here with the continuous reference to Alice in Wonderland. Ghosts get more real than in the previous two novellas, preparing the field for the last one, The surviving child, where a house is actually haunted. In this novella, Elizabeth marries a widower, only to found out that dark secrets are hidden in  the house they live in. Again, no surprise, evil is hidden under the surface of an apparently perfect husband. 

 

All four pieces have female characters as protagonists, all sharing an intense mental activity - they think and brood more than they speak. They drift in and out of sleep; what happens in their lives might belong to this world or to a parallel reality. This state of constant chaos and uncertainty is quite disturbing, just as disturbing are the often bloody secrets hidden under the surface.

 

Oates has fun building a constant internal dialogue between the narrator and the protagonist, through the use of brackets - leaving always floating the doubt that one of them is not fully reliable.

 

If you like "disturbing", this collection is definitely for you.

(This book will be published in October, 2020 - I got an ARC through Edelweiss)

Tony&Susan a.k.a. Nocturnal Animals - by Austin Wright

When reading a book, readers often ask themselves questions that will remain unanswered unless you are in a position to ask the writer. This might be easier now, with all this Twitter, Instagram and so on and so forth. But it was not an easy option when Wright wrote this book. And it is not an option now that Wright is dead. Questions like "Who are Tony and Susan? Real persons or book characters?" will remain unanswered. But most of all, how important are these questions or their answers?

Tony&Susan by Austin Wright (1993)

Tony is the main character of the unpublished novel "Nocturnal Animals", sent by Edward to his ex-wife Susan, who reads it in just three frantic days, after waiting months. She also asks questions to herself. Is Tony Edward? Or is he, maybe, a mirror image of Susan? And what would Arnold, her second husband, say? - was he made to read the book. These questions will remain unanswered. But, most of all, how important are these questions or their answers?

From the start, "Tony&Susan" gives a sense of urgency, carried on in the fast pace of Edward's "Nocturnal Animals", in deep contrast with Tony's remissive attitude, almost incapable of any reaction whatsoever. But the story of these characters or the hunting down of the thugs are not the core of the novel. Its core is the relationship reader-book-writer. The story is just an excuse (a well plotted one, though), with a clear intention stated right at the beginning:
Books always resist her at the start, because they commit so much time. They can bury what she was thinking, sometimes forever. She could be a different person by the time she's through.

And indeed, the Susan that comes out after the reading is not the same Susan that has started reading the novel. But she is still a reader, one of us.
She had a suspicion she could write just as well, if she wanted to - who has never had such a thought, at least once - raise your hands, if you dare, readers!

And Edward, who only appears in Susan's words, is the writer, the puppet master, the one manoeuvring his characters - leaving us to ask the whys and hows, without ever coming to the bottom of the truth. He is the one writing out of necessity. Just like we read out of necessity. And the writer can't exist without the reader.
If Edward couldn't live without writing, she couldn't live without reading. And without me, Edward, she says, you'd have no reason to exist - so much so that Edward-writer cannot exist without Susan-reader - who wouldn't exist without Austin Wright-writer who wouldn't exist without me-reader.

It gets a reader to understand one. Because out there, there are also the non readers, like second husband Arnold:
She wanted to punish Arnold too, but the only thing she could think of was to make him read the book. He would do that if she insisted, but she doubted he would see anything.

This book is a great example of metanovel and, leaving aside some imperfections in the pace, deserves reading. And, in my opinion,  its movie version "Nocturnal Animals" is a good movie - quite a rarity, when both book and movie turn out so good, isn't it?

Nocturnal Animals by Tom Ford (2016)

CasomaiAdesso - concorso di poesia

Ai tempi del coronavirus, c'e' chi ha avuto il blocco dello scrittore e chi invece si e' probabilmente trovato a scrivere di piu'. O, piu' semplicemente, a scrivere.
Per chi si dedica ai versi, e desidera uscire dall'anonimato e vedere l'effetto che quelle parole hanno sugli altri, ecco un concorso promosso da Inter Amnia - 两河之间 - Between the rivers.