Parole

Once Upon a Time wrap up

It’s over. Midsummer’s Night is over and the challenge is over, too. And I’ve almost completed it: I was almost there, and I missed out on Shakespeare.

First of all, I have to write that I had some issues with this challenge. The first is with Carl’s blog theme, all the black was hard on my eyes, so I’m afraid I did not participate, check out reviews or comment on them, and that was just because I couldn’t enjoy going on the challenge blog. Sorry.

Also, it was not easy to get the books. Fantasy seems to be a great hit or something, I kept going to the library but the books I wanted to read were always out on loan. Finally, I managd to finish thanks to a present received last Saturday, followed by a three-hour wait at the airport on Sunday and a small surgery on Tuesday, which gave me plenty of time for reading.

Here’s the books I read:

• Alessandro Baricco, An Iliad (Mythology)
• Ellen Kushner, Thomas the Rhymer (Folklore)
• Shannon Hale, Book of a Thousand Days (Fairy tale)
• Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere (Fantasy)
• Margaret Atwood, Penelopiad (Mythology)

And here’s the challenge(s):

• The Journey: at least read one book within the four categories — DONE
• Quest the First: read at least 5 books that fit the criteria — DONE
• Quest the Second: read at least one book from each of the four categories — DONE
• Quest the Third: complete one of the previous quests and top it off with a June reading of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream — NOT DONE

Unfortunately, Quest the Third was the one I originally committed to…

Wrapping up: I love reading fantasy, always did and always will, and this challenge allowed me to discover two great new (to me) authors. I’m now looking forward to reading more Gaiman and more Kushner. Atwood’s book was also quite good.

Now reading: Cornelia Funke, Inkheart and Inkspell

Up next:

• Rudyard Kipling, Puck of Pook’s Hill;
• Gregory Maguire, Wicked;
• Neil Gaiman, Stardust;
• and more…

Goodies from the library… and a new challenge

I’ve been struggling to get things from the library, of lately, as everything I asked for seemed to be out on loan and I wasn’t keen on putting books on hold. But things seem to start moving and in the last few days I got:

• Cornelia Funke, Inkheart
• Cornelia Funke, Inkspell
• Margaret Atwood, Penelopiad
• Rudyard Kipling, Puck of Pook’s Hill
• Frank Schaetzing, Nachrichten aus einem unbekannten Universum. Eine Zeitreise durch die Meere

and more are to come. This means, I’m able to finally take part in a new challenge, the Midsummer Night’s Challenge, hosted at A Chain of Letters.

This is a very simple challenge, just read Shakespeare’s play and one other book based on it or featuring its characters, by June 25th. My choice is, as I hope is clear from the above, Kipling’s Puck. And now to reading!

Review: Neverwhere

The book: Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman

The edition: author’s preferred text, as published by Headline Review. 372 pages plus exclusive second prologue, interview with the author and reading-group discussion questions.

Synopsis: what happens to people who fall through the cracks of life? They fall to an underworld of underground caves and sewers, populated by monsters and angels, knights and hunters, monks and vampires, a world that answers to different rules, where magic is at work and one’s life is in real danger every other minute. And if they go back to the World Above, they just go unnoticed (in that regard, I just loved this passage where Richard and Anaesthesia sit on the edges of a bench, and a couple sits in the middle and starts to “kiss each other, passionately”, “gradually becoming more horizontal”, despite Richard addressing them). When Richard Mayhew, a young London businessman, stops to help a bleeding girl, he is unsuspectingly brought to that London Under. He ends up in an underworld quest to help the girl, Door, to avenge her extermined family, a quest that may also help him to get his life back.

My thoughts: this was my first Gaiman, so please bear with me while I write this: GREAT! WONDERFUL! INCREDIBLE! WOW, WOW, WOW! I kept reading all the best about Gaiman, but I didn’t really know what to expect (also, I was planning to read Stardust, but this book arrived as a present — grazie, Ale! — so I started reading without even knowing what it was about).
I loved just about everything. A very nice story and very well constructed, so that it’s not only engrossing, but also full of sudden twists and turns. I loved the characters, the way they are built and described, the way they sound true to life even when they are so way far from the life we know. And Richard is just the perfect character to fall in love with (had I read the book some years ago he may have turned into a full book crush, although at the time I was probably unable to understand this kind of character). I mean, just read this:

The lift continued to descend. Richard was sweating, in a clammy cold sweat, and digging his fingernails deep into his palms. In the most conversational tones he could muster, he said, ‘Now would be a very bad time to discover that one was claustrophibic, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Door.
‘Then I wont,’ said Richard.

[And a few minutes later, when at the end of the lift ride they find that they have to cross a wooden ledge over a precipice of several thousands feet:]

‘And I suppose,’ he said, with a great deal less insouciance than he imagined, ‘this wouldn’t be a good time to point out that I’m really crap at heights.’

How could one not fall for him? But Gaiman is such a master that even the most horrible and terrifying of characters (such as Mr. Croup or Mr. Vandemar) are perfectly real and understandable in their evil. Rating: 8.5/10.

Reading note: this book counts towards the Once Upon a Time II Challenge, for the Fantasy area. I’ve put Stardust on hold at the library, and I plan to read anything else by Gaiman that I can put my hands on.

Review: Banker to the Poor

The book: Muhammad Yunus, Banker to the Poor

The edition: I read the Italian translation by Ester Dornetti, which was based on the French edition. It is a bit different from the English version that goes under the same title, in that it gathers together some texts that are not included in the English edition. 286 pages.

Synopsis: Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world. A Bengali trained as an economist in Western universities, Yunus realized that economics theories were not able to help the poor — they were not even considering these people. The main problem seemed to be the bank system, which is only able to offer loans to bankable people, i.e. to people who already have money and who can offer something as guarantee of their refund, while the very poor could not get even the smallest amount.
Yunus realized that the total sum a whole village needed as a loan to free themselves from poverty was just 27$. His project started from there, by offering the 27$ loan himself, and then it grew to the whole of Bangladesh and the rest of the world. He developed a completely new trend in finance: microcredit. Because of the impact of this, Yunus was awarded the Nobel prize for peace in 2006.
In the book Yunus details briefly his life and education, and explains the Grameen Bank project, from seed to realization.

My thoughts: it may not be the best book ever written, it has to make do with repetitions and things like that, and it is clear that it brings together parts written at different times. But I strongly believe everybody should read it. If you don’t want to read the whole book, read chapter 4 and 5. If you don’t want to read even that, then read Yunus’ Nobel lecture, or listen to it. At least, read Wikipedia’s article on Microcredit. Please. It is important that the world know about this.

A passage from the Nobel lecture:

I believe that we can create a poverty-free world because poverty is not created by poor people. It has been created and sustained by the economic and social system that we have designed for ourselves; the institutions and concepts that make up that system; the policies that we pursue.
Poverty is created because we built our theoretical framework on assumptions which under-estimates human capacity, by designing concepts, which are too narrow (such as concept of business, credit- worthiness, entrepreneurship, employment) or developing institutions, which remain half-done (such as financial institutions, where poor are left out). Poverty is caused by the failure at the conceptual level, rather than any lack of capability on the part of people.
I firmly believe that we can create a poverty-free world if we collectively believe in it.

[…]

To me poor people are like bonsai trees. When you plant the best seed of the tallest tree in a flower-pot, you get a replica of the tallest tree, only inches tall. There is nothing wrong with the seed you planted, only the soil-base that is too inadequate. Poor people are bonsai people. There is nothing wrong in their seeds. Simply, society never gave them the base to grow on. All it needs to get the poor people out of poverty for us to create an enabling environment for them. Once the poor can unleash their energy and creativity, poverty will disappear very quickly.

Reasons for reading: apart wanting to know about Microcredit (see above), this counts towards NFF Challenge (book 1/5).

Review: Book of a Thousand Days

The book: Shannon Hale, Book of a Thousand Days

The edition: Bloomsbury Publishing, 308 pages. Very nice cover art.

Synopsis: when Lady Saren refuses to marry Lord Khasar, the man her father has chosen for her, she is shut up in a tower with her maid Dashti, as a form of punishment and to try and make her change her mind. Dashti is the one to tell us this story, through the entries of her ‘book of thoughts’. As days go by, we learn why Saren would choose to live walled up in a tower rather than marry Khasar. Far from being safe inside the tower’s walls, Dashti will have to go to great lengths — and difficult trials — to safe her lady’s, and her own, life.

My thoughts: didn’t like, sorry. It is finely written, but that’s just about the only good thing about it. Fairy tales are meant to be for children, right? I thought a retelling of a fairy tale in form of a novel would have the same taste, but more depth to it. Alas, it doesn’t. I didn’t find any big depth to characters, nor was the plot better developed or anything. The only things that didn’t fit a regular fairy tale were the magnified violence — Lord Khasar’s sadism and violence made me sick — and some erotic innuendos. Also, Hale’s style is good and the way she weaves the story makes you rush through the book, but it’s not really “unputdownable” and, what’s more, it doesn’t stick to you: I’m writing this review almost one month after reading the book, and I do remember how I felt about it, but it wouldn’t make any difference to me had I not read it — it is irrelevant, and that may be the worst thing I could say about a book. Rating: 4/10.

Other reviews: if you have a look around the blogosphere, it seems like everybody else enjoyed this book. So I’m linking here a few other reviews, in case you want to check out.

• Robin
• Valentina
• Darla
• Melissa

Forse c’è qualcosa che non va

Il sistema che abbiamo creato non riconosce le persone. Solo le carte di credito sono accettate. Solo le patenti sono accettate. Le persone no. Sembra che per le persone sia inutile avere una faccia. Ormai si guarda sempre la patente, la carta di credito, il codice sanitario o fiscale. Ma se un documento vale più di una faccia, mi chiedo, quest’ultima, perché ce l’abbiamo.
(Muhammad Yunus, Il banchiere dei poveri, trad. it. di Ester Dornetti)

Forse c’è qualcosa che non va.

Comincia ad accumulare

“Nella vita non mi è mai capitato niente.”
Di nuovo il silenzio.
“E ormai è troppo tardi.”
“Ti proibisco di parlare così,” la interrompe Ada con passione, “non è mai troppo tardi, hai capito? Mai! Guarda me, per esempio, che sto per pubblicare il mio primo romanzo, guarda Lola, da quanto tempo ha trovato l’amore della sua vita? Le cose davvero importanti ci stanno succedendo adesso!”
“Stanno succedendo a voi per quello che avete accumulato nel corso degli anni. Sai bene che a un certo punto della vita il caso non riveste più un ruolo prioritario.”
“E allora, Nieves, comincia ad accumulare.”
(Marcela Serrano, Arrivederci piccole donne, nella bellissima traduzione italiana di Michela Finassi Parolo)

È vero, bisogna accumulare. O iniziare a farlo.

Qualcuno sa come fare?