Read this one back in May, but I want to shuffle it off to the second-hand bookshop, so I thought I’d do a small review just so I remember that I read it.

(Gee, I hope the author doesn’t Google himself and read that! I still feel uncomfortable writing things about living authors (the dead are fair game!), but I do try to be polite unless it’s a real stinker and they seriously have it coming.)

Anyhow, I’m sorry, Mr. Parks, but I didn’t care for it.

Sometimes, being a downer is mistaken for realism or honesty. But sometimes, a person is just standing there staring at the dog poo in the gutter. Life is too short for hanging out with people like this — in life or literature. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not espousing sacharine, feel good rubbish. All I’m saying is that if your going to drag me through bleakness, it better be worth the ride. (see Dostoevsky)

I’ll grant that he does a good job of describing the place — but what a place! Who packs up their kit and moves to a run down suburb in a dumpy town, down wind from some chemical plants? Someone who likes to be depressed, that’s who. The whole thing just reeks of bleakness. Now, I have no problem with reality — I too loathe Peter Mayle — but this is swinging a bit too wildly to the opposite end of the spectrum. And to what purpose?

The author condescends, quirk hunts, has a patronizing attitude and is not very interesting. And I’m definitely not asking him to pet sit for me. (There’s a bizarrely long, drawn-out toying with the idea of poisoning the neighbour’s dog that I could have happily lived without.)

I found this book depressing and not very interesting, there weren’t (m)any insights and the company wasn’t engaging. Won’t read another by this author. Especially when there are so many other wonderful books about Italy. (i.e. Goethe’s Travels in Italy, H.V. Morton, Axel Munthe, etc…)

Have a look at this interview. Why is she so nasty? If she doesn’t like interviews (as she claims) then don’t do them. Ah, but she does like doing them — she likes being mean and pompous and trying to make other people feel small and look foolish. The interviewer had some very interesting points about Atwood’s writing which Atwood blew off and tried to twist into something trite. Have a look, what do you think?

Beware the distractions of the internet! I sat down two hours ago to write this review and promptly discovered Pandora which is an impressive tool from the Music Genome Project. It’s downright eerie how well it guesses what I’ll like. Sadly, they don’t have any classical or “world” music and I was just about to give up when started finding some great old jazz. Hurray! Adding Leonard Cohen and Josh Ritter has produced some interesting results and I’ve actually discovered some great new music. This thing really works!

Then, I happened upon this entertaining article in the Globe called “No books? The terrorists have won” ( Need a password ? )

Then, I started rooting around in one of my favorite sources for fabulous articles: mirabilis. There went another hour spent in wonderfully interesting reads.

Okay, I’m back and I will write this.

I seem to have a bit of a thing for Norwegian writers and now I can add Hamsun to the list. I read this on vacation, which I heartily recommend. It’s not a book I could read dashing between jobs on public transit. And that, to me, is only right: the book draws you into a world so utterly different from ours. There are a lot of differences, but the biggest is how people move through time. This is a slow, thoughtful, eerily beautiful book that you can’t stop reading.

Details of Knut Hamsun’s life are variously reported. The Encyclopædia Britannica claims he began writing “at the age of 19, when he was a shoemaker’s apprentice”. Other sources (i.e.: the Nobel Prize people!) say he was “an apprentice to a ropemaker” which I admit I prefer — talk about a lost art! And of course, the internet has its share of gossip, claiming that “Following a meeting with Joseph Goebbels in 1943, he [Hamsun] sent Goebbels his Nobel Prize medal as a gift.” Britannica is ominously silent on this one and I don’t have access to a library, so I can’t tell you if there’s anything to it. But it’s the old argument of the artist vs. the man. So, on to the artist.

Here’s an excerpt from an article of his:

“Language must resound with all the harmonies of music. The writer must always, at all times, find the tremulous word which captures the thing and is able to draw a sob from my soul by its very rightness. A word can be transformed into a colour, light, a smell. It is the writer’s task to use it in such a way that it serves, never fails, can never be ignored. The writer must be able to revel and roll in the abundance of words. He must know not only the direct but also the secret power of a word. There are overtones and undertones to a word, and lateral echoes, too.”

I wish I could read him in the original, but his writing comes through as utterly unique even in translation. If you want to read more about him, here’s an excellent article from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

I’m certainly looking forward to reading more by him.

Here’s another one to skip! It will put you off the man and the island.

I’d previously read a few essays by Graham Greene and found them interesting enough, but he comes off as such a monumental jerk in this book, I can’t imagine wanting to read anything by him ever again.

As for Capri, thankfully, I’ve already been there a few times myself and so have my own impressions and memories. Went for some lovely walks, had delicious lemon ices (yum) and visited Tiberius’ villa — which I heartily recommend.

The reason I picked up this book is because I love Italy. The reason I kept this book even after I read and disliked it so much, was because of the cover painting. The rocks there have a very special look to them, which is partially due to the colouring (pinkish-grey-green rock any geologists out there that can explain what this means?) and the scrubby little bushes that cling on to nothing. The cover painting does a not-too-bad job of capturing it.

I really don’t know what all the fuss is about. Everyone seems to like and recommend this book. It’s not well written: the timeline is unclear, the dialogue is idealized and stagey, and Capri, although it’s in the title, receives only a passing mention — you certainly get no feeling for it whatsoever.