Category: Books

Crime novel, thriller

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The world of crime fiction has a thousand nuances and a thousand styles. The American novel of all life is not the same as its British cousin, nor the dark intrigues of northern Europe as the bright life of Italians. In this post I want to focus on the two subgenres that I frequent the most:

  • Nordic crime novel, what we call scandinoir .
  • Italian police, the well-known gialli (literally, yellow).

And I have a theory: both branches are very marked by the environment, both social and purely meteorological. I will base my explanation on the series I know.

The North: Scandinavian

The Scandinavian family is as dark as a winter night in Oslo, and the crimes tend to be bloodier and the motives more convoluted. The best example is Jo Nesbø's detective Harry Hole: a sad, tortured, alcoholic disaster who, nevertheless, knows how to be funny. Here are some examples of the books I liked the most by this author:

  • The Robin : It left me disoriented until the end.
  • Knife : a good deal of suffering (what a bad slob, this man).
  • Eclipse : It starts with Harry lying in a bar in California and leaves me with a slap in the face.
  • The Heir : the first of Nesbø's books without Harry that I liked.
  • Minnesota : a book that doesn't take place in Scandinavia and yet I liked it. Will this be the beginning of another series?

Next to him I put Sebastian Bergman, the Stockholm psychologist with zero empathy and a lot of son of a bitch who I follow, more than anything, to know which one will be the big one. Here the cast is more choral (Torkel, Ursula, Vanja, Billy...), but it doesn't delve too much into the personal lives of the patrol. I started the series with Imperfect Secrets , an almost perfect noir, while Expendable Deaths seemed more like an impasse , with a Sebastian who was too reformed.

I close the north with brief mentions of authors I haven't read that much:

  • Erika Falck, by Camilla Läckberg: more everyday, but with a "politically correct" tone that I don't expect in this type of book. It's the one that inspires me the least.
  • Arnaldur Indriðason and his Erlendur Sveinsson, from the Reykjavík police: I read Jar City ( Las marismas ) with zero expectations and I loved it. I guessed the murderer early, yes, but the reading is stimulating and everything is well connected, with Erlendur's personal dramas in the middle of the Icelandic cold.
  • Ragnar Jónasson: I've only tasted it, but it leaves that anxiety that won't let you get out of your chair. North of the North, in its purest form.

The South: gialli

Why do they call books of this genre gialli (yellow) in Italy? Well, because of the color of the covers: in 1929 the publishing house Mondadori released a collection of detective novels with yellow covers ("I Libri Gialli"), and yellow ended up christening the entire genre. The name already suggests that they are something else: the background is much brighter, the crimes are not usually so macabre and, above all, there is a lot of environment (friends, family and, most importantly, food).

The first major character is Salvo Montalbano , by Camilleri, who spends half his life praising the smell of things and fucking like a slob in an imaginary town in Sicily, by the sea. The town is called Vigata, and it is so well drawn that you feel at home there. He is, by far, the dean of Italian investigators, with a series of more than 25 books (not including the spin-offs ), which I have read in order.

Around him there is a gang that makes you love him: my favorite is Fazio, the one who brings order, and don't miss Catarella, all naivety, capable of getting emotional with an orphan cat.

Among all the cases/books, I highlight these two:

  • A Decisive Turn ( Il giro di boa ): a very tough investigation into child trafficking in which, incidentally, Montalbano realizes that he is getting older (and I really like the idea of ​​characters getting older).
  • The Dance of the Seagull ( La danza del gabbiano ): the one that struck me the most in the entire series. Here Camilleri dares to make Fazio disappear, and the whole team has to pull together to find him and, at the same time, solve the case behind it. A considerable high.

From the same school, but much more fringe, comes Rocco Schiavone, "son" of Antonio Manzini: a Roman policeman exiled to Aosta who hates the cold, says tacos like no one else and starts the day with a club in the office. He is one of the most unempathetic and at the same time tender characters in gialli and, with Camilleri out of action, I would say that Manzini has become the new king of the Italian detective novel.

He doesn't work alone: ​​there's his squad from the police station and, above all, Lupa, the inseparable dog who steals many of his scenes. Like Camilleri, his books are published by Sellerio and, although I recommend them all, I highlight this couple:

  • Adam's Rib (La costola di Adamo) : Rocco investigates a supposed suicide (is it, or isn't it?), and along the way we see his friendship with Pierron deepen. I got over it in less than 48 hours.
  • ELP (Italian only): Manzini celebrates the character's 10th anniversary, with Rocco and his crew in top form. Plus, there's a slightly eccentric character who makes it really, really funny.

I close the Italians with three brief mentions:

  • Ernesto Maccadò, by Andrea Vitali: the only married man in the group, set in the mid-20th century near Lake Garda, with a beautiful historical reenactment and cases that don't always involve death. A cantare fu il cane and Olive comprese are good entry points.
  • Imma Tatarani, by Mariolina Venezia: Imma is a substitute prosecutor in Matera (Basilicata), short, with a peculiar sense of fashion and always in stiletto heels. She can be cute or the opposite, depending on the moment. I loved the first one in the series: Come piante tra sassi . 
  • Cristina Cassar Scalia: has two characters in two separate series, both set in Sicily. On the one hand, Vanina Guarrasi, a young and very current vice-questor in Catania (she already has three or four books, translated into Spanish); on the other, Scipione Macchiavelli, male protagonist of a historical series set in Sicily in the sixties. Maybe she is following in Camilleri's footsteps?

Where to start

My advice, as always, is to start with the first volume of each series and work your way up. But if you want a shortcut, here's mine:

  • Tortured North: The Robin (Harry Hole).
  • North Choral: Imperfect Secrets (Sebastian Bergman).
  • Frozen North: Jar City (Erlendur Sveinsson).
  • Bright South: The Voice of the Violin (Salvo Montalbano).
  • South with bad drool: La costola di Adamo (Rocco Schiavone).

In short, within the same label ("novel noir"), night and day fit together. What color do you want yours to be? Yellow or black? Have you read any books by these characters?

Stories from the suburbs: marginality and hope in Beijing

Where By sifuroIn 3 stars , Chinese character , BooksLeave a comment

Today I'm talking about a book called Historias del extrarradio , published by Automàtica Editorial. The author is Xu Zechen, a Chinese writer who has a younger and more current voice than the authors you usually find on this blog, such as Yu Hua or Yan Lianke .

I had already had my first contact with this author when I read Running through Beijing in English. I remember that reading it left me with a slightly strange feeling, perhaps because of the translation. I often find that translations from Chinese to English are not very flexible, a bit garbled, and on that occasion it made the text seem more like a documentary than a literary work. In that case, the story focused on characters who sold fake CDs and the language didn't really give me much. On the other hand, this Spanish edition of Historias del extrarradio has convinced me much more and has reconciled me with the author.

The struggle for survival in marginal Beijing

In this book, Xu Zechen tells the story of Mu Yu, a seventeen-year-old boy from a small village. Like so many other young Chinese, Mu Yu seeks to make a life for himself in the big city (in this case, Beijing), where in theory there are more opportunities. The problem is that in China, changing residence is highly regulated and moving from rural to urban to the wild means becoming, in practice, an illegal citizen.

So, Mu Yu settles in Beijing and lives in a small house with several companions who are also in a precarious situation. His work is curious and clandestine: putting up advertisements everywhere to promote his uncle's business, who is a document forger. The book is built through prints and stories that have Mu Yu as a common link and that are not independent stories, but must be read all of them to understand this choral chronicle about urban marginality.

I think one of the reasons I liked this book so much is the translation by Belén Cuadra Mora . It is so well done that it reads with total fluidity, as if it were the original text (yes, that's what they teach us in college, but it's not always achieved). Thanks to this rich and elaborate style, we enter a Beijing full of street vendors, characters on the margins of the system and dangerous situations that show the less friendly side of Chinese growth.

Conclusion

"Historias del extrarradio" is a very vivid portrait of the Chinese capital. If you are planning to go there or you like urban geography, I recommend reading it with Google Maps next to it, as the author mentions specific streets and neighborhoods that will help you situate yourself in the plot. In fact, it was like going back there!

In short, it is a highly recommended read to discover a young and powerful voice in current Chinese literature that knows how to explain social reality through quality fiction.

Essential Chinese Literature

Where By sifuroIn 5 stars , Chinese character , BooksLeave a comment

As you may already know, I'm a translator. Although I also translate from Italian and French, my "official" working languages ​​are English and Chinese (I don't translate much from the latter). That's why I'm very interested in all the literature that comes to us from this language.

The origin of this entry is an Instagram post where I try, in very little space, to give four guidelines for anyone who wants to delve into Chinese literature. The lack of space complicates life, but it is also true that it has forced me to choose the books and authors that I consider truly essential to introduce oneself to this literature. It must also be said that, although it is a choice with which I suppose many experts in the field would agree, some aspects may be more personal (especially the comments I make about one author or another) because, in the end, reader tastes are a very subjective thing.

To facilitate the guide, I have created three large categories. I think they are three fairly clear divisions, designed to make it easier for the reader to choose. I have not gone into much detail in the explanations because on this same blog I already have entries about most writers and books, so I have preferred to provide you with links that will take you to the entries that interest you most and that way we do not load this article with redundant information. Let's go!

Great classics

Books from before the fall of the imperial regime in China, which have had a great influence on their culture and are quoted everywhere. The first two have been made into series and adaptations, and Journey to the West , specifically, is the origin of the Dragon Ball series (no joke: Son Goku = Sun Wukong). They are all great books with great translations into Spanish and, despite their age, they continue to be valid and interesting today:

Classics from the first half of the 20th century

From here we change perspective and refer to authors, not specific books: we enter times when writers diversify their production and we have several books to choose from in each case. We will therefore talk about three of the main authors of the first half of the 20th century. They experienced the change of regime in China and the renewal of literary genres, to the point that the first, Lu Xun, is considered the father of modern Chinese literature. All three have their own entry on this blog, so I leave you the link and some book suggestions:

  • Lu Xun : Diary of a Madman and Other Stories (1984 Editions)
  • Lao She : Cat Country (dystopian sci-fi), Mr. Ma and Son (neither is in Catalan or Spanish)
  • Ba Jin : Family , Cold Nights (both in Vienna Circle)

Essential contemporaries

The first two in this category have enough quality, variety and production to be noble: Yan Lianke is more formal (although she also writes stories that can reach the absurd), while Yu is more "hooligan" and has a great sense of humor. Yiyun Li is wonderful and writes in English from the diaspora (and I think she shines especially with her stories), while Bi Feiyu is a shame that she doesn't publish more and that she isn't translated much into Catalan or Spanish. I also include Can Xue, who has just landed on the literary market in our country: pure surrealism not suitable for all tastes. Finally, I close the list with the revelation of recent times in Catalan: Wu Ming-yi, representative of Taiwanese literature.

  • Yan Lianke : The Dream of the Ding People (The Other Herbs), Chronicle of an Explosion (@automatica_editorial)
  • Yu Hua : The Past and the Punishments (The Weeds), Brothers (Seix Barral)
  • Yiyun Li : Golden Boy, Emerald Girl (Bromera), In Nature Things Simply Grow (L'altra Editorial)
  • Bi Feiyu : Trois soeurs (I think in Spanish it would be Las feroces hermanas Wang , but it is not a direct translation from Chinese)
  • Can Xue : The Ballad of the Mountain Birds (Gata maula), Red Leaves (Aristas Martínez)
  • Wu Ming-yi : The Man with Compound Eyes , The Land of Bitter Rain (both with Chronos Publishing)

And that's it (for now)

As I said at the beginning, the list could be longer: this is just a small taste for anyone who wants to enter the wonderful world of Chinese and Sinophone literature. On the other hand, I am not an academic on the subject, so what is here is not going to mass either. Take it as a small personal contribution to the attempt to spread this literature in our country. If you are curious about a specific author, do not hesitate to put it in the comments (this way it helps us all) or send me a direct email (if you have more personal questions).

In nature things simply grow, with Yiyun Li

Where By sifuroIn 3 stars , Chinese character , Books2 comments

He's only 15 years old, and his fingers are already longer than mine. No, you can't see it in the photo, but he's almost a hand's breadth away from me. He has his own ideas, and his own way of dressing. And he has a brother five years older, who's already on screen and is at university. They both have to bend down to give me a hug. They're Jordi and Guillem, and they're not that different from James and Vincent, Yiyun Li's children. Or rather, they are different: my children continue with their lives while hers are no longer there. By their own decision, too.

How do you feel when, of the two children you had, you have none left? When all you have left are rooms full of memories? When the dog doesn't know where to go to find its owner?

Children die, parents continue to live.

It shouldn't be like that. The "law of life" is different. The author herself says it, which statistically is a very rare case, but the fact is that, six years apart, Yiyun Li's two sons committed suicide. And she wanted to write a book for each of them. I have the one she dedicated to Vincent at home, and I couldn't finish it. Maybe now that I've read the one she dedicated to James, I'll go back to reading it.

Knowing what the book was about, I have to say that I picked up In Nature Things Simply Grow with a pack of Kleenex in my hand. And no, I didn't have to use it much. Why? Well, because Yiyun Li is able to convey sadness, perplexity, suffering, and all kinds of sensations, without having to resort to easy tears. She has a delicious pen, with which she is able to portray the scenario she wants without going through a convoluted text, without having to fill the book with adjectives and complex expressions. With a plain writing, she is able to communicate without her production being of a low level. Not everyone can do that. 

On Instagram I often read statements like "it's a hard book but necessary" applied to books that, often, I consider not so hard. This time I'll be the one to say that it's a hard book. This one is, The Diary of Anne Frank is. Because they explain real events, things that you can put a day and a night on. Is it a necessary book? That's the million-dollar question. I think it's very necessary for the author, who writes with amazing simplicity and integrity about an extremely sad and, in some places, taboo subject: the suicide of two children (and her own attempts). In this sense, I find it very necessary as a vehicle so that she, the person who has suffered it, can get her message across to us, and this message is surely necessary, or useful, for people who have been in the same situation and who, possibly, don't know how to express it so well. Maybe it will make them feel accompanied and understood.

In any case, it's a good read for me to reposition myself and to be able to resume the book she dedicated to her eldest son, Vincent. And, now that I understand her better, I will be able to resume the reading path she has always guided me along with great success. For this reason, I am very grateful to L'altra editorial for sending it to me and, above all, for deciding to publish it.

If you are interested in this author and want to learn more about her, check out the talk about women writers we gave at the Confucius Institute a while ago (in 2018!!!). We talk about her starting at minute 56 (link in bio), and we touch on other authors like Sanmao, Amy Tan and others. Don't hesitate to read this or any other book by her, which you will find reviewed on this blog.

"One, Nobody and One Hundred Thousand" by Pirandello: reflections on identity

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One, Nobody and a Hundred Thousand , by Luigi Pirandello, is a very unique novel by the Italian author, and we can read it in Catalan thanks to editions of the ela geminada , with translation by Marina Laboreo. It is a philosophical novel that puts on the table a universal theme: identity and the perception that others have of us.

The starting point is surprisingly banal. The protagonist, Vitangelo Moscarda, realizes that he has a crooked nose. When his wife confirms it to him and, in passing, adds a whole list of defects that he had never seen, his life is turned upside down. He suddenly realizes that the image he has of himself does not coincide with that of others, and even more: each one sees him in a different way.

This discovery triggers a series of reflections on identity. Are we who we think we are, or are we what others project onto us? Can we be the same person to everyone? Or are we "one" to ourselves, "nobody" when we try to reconcile all the versions, and "a hundred thousand" because each look recreates us in a different way?

Pirandello: between narrative and theater

Reading One, Nobody and a Hundred Thousand is a peculiar experience. Although it is presented as a novel, at many moments it seems more like a theatrical monologue. Pirandello, who was also a playwright and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934, knows how to transfer to the text the rhythm and intensity of the spoken word on stage.

This can be disconcerting to the reader (it disconcerted me, wow). Rather than a plot full of dialogue and action, we find a long speech full of banter. But when you get into the game, the book has an indisputable strength.

A thought-provoking read

I must admit that at times it has confused me, but I have also been captivated by its ability to make me reflect. After all, it is a work that shakes the way we understand ourselves. What are we, really? Our own image? The reflection we project? Or a sum of all perceptions? The ending (don't worry, I won't spoil it for you) is coherent with this entire journey and gives meaning to the protagonist's trajectory.

One, Nobody and a Hundred Thousand is not an easy or quick read. If you are looking for a classic plot with action and characters, it may put you off. If, on the other hand, you are attracted to works that question identity and you like to be challenged by philosophy, this is a highly recommended read.