Impressions: "What We Don't Know About Children" by Simona Vinci

This, without question, is a profoundly disturbing novel and it’s easy to see why it was so controversial when it was published in Italy in the early part of the decade. It will make you cringe but this is not to say that it’s a bad book. It isn’t. But Simona Vinci’s “What We Don’t Know About Children” will make you think for days after reading it. It is a searing indictment of how a society’s dark and disturbing aspects often leave childhood forever at risk.

The story is this: A group of kids, ranging from the ages 10-15, grow tired of the usual and typical games they are known to participate in. One day, one of the older kids introduces the group to a stack of new and strange magazines. In them are images they don’t quite understand nor have ever really seen before. So instead of playing their typical games, they begin to mimic what they see in the magazines. As time goes on, the new magazines become darker and more disturbing but they continue to mimic what they see in there, until one afternoon, something goes horribly wrong.

Disturbing, indeed. I don’t want to give away what happens but I can say that this is very risky territory for a novel; one that would probably never get past an editors desk much less published, not in this country anyway. This is not to imply that the writing in it is pornographic. It isn’t. Far from it. Vinci has a wonderful style, perfectly capturing the innocence of childhood, with all it’s questions and confusing aspects. But the subject matter of this novel is bound to make many a reader very uncomfortable, but that is precisely the point. It is a truly original take on “the loss of innocence” tale, albeit a very harsh and brutal take and definitely not for everyone; but at a short 140 pages, it doesn’t beat you over the head with it. It seems Vinci knew that traveling such a dark road certainly has its limits. A definite talent in the contemporary world of fiction. And a brave one at that.

Rating: * * * * *

Impressions: "The Solitude of Prime Numbers" by Paolo Giordano

Once in a while, for writers anyway, a book comes along that you wished you had written yourself. Paolo Giordano’s “The Solitude of Prime Numbers” is one of those books. This is Giordano’s first novel and at merely 27 years of age, he certainly has a stellar career ahead of him. The guy is supremely talented.

He’s yet another truly gifted writer coming out of Italy these days. He, along with his contemporary Niccolò Ammaniti, was the youngest novelist to ever receive Italy’s prestigious Premio Strega award. It’s not hard to see why after reading this amazing novel. Both these authors cover similar ground.

“The Solitude of Prime Numbers” follows the lives of Alice and Mattia, two misfits who seem destined to remain alone. Haunted by childhood memories, they each find it hard to relate to anyone else. They meet one another as teenagers and find kindred, damaged spirits in one another. As they grow into adulthood, each of their lives take a separate course. Mattia winds up somewhere in the north, presumably Sweden or Norway, and Alice remains in her home town, eventually marrying a man who she apparently didn’t really love. Somehow, even by distance, both Alice and Mattia’s lives seemed to be intertwined. It is a wonderful meditation on loneliness, love and the weight of childhood experience and Giordano’s prose is virtually flawless. You care about Alice and Mattia and where their lives are taking them. It one of those novels that will stick with you a very long time. Simply brilliant. It makes me very eager to see what else Giordano will offer in the future. Hopefully, it won’t be a long wait.

Rating: * * * * *

Impressions: "American Psycho" by Bret Easton Ellis

I tried. I really did but I just could not get into this book. Not that it was terrible, mind you, but it was just hard to maintain my interest throughout. There are strengths, of course, especially Ellis’s depiction of the 1980s and Yuppie culture (if you can call it “culture”). With that he was dead on, capturing every nuance, every iota of how these insipid beings actually were at the time. I should know. I used to work around them back in the early-mid 1980s.

“American Psycho” perfectly captures a time and place in American culture, a time when greed was king and selfishness ruled. It is a world inhabited by men and women who care only about labels, high end consumer goods, meticulous attention to appearance, so much so that they often mistake one another for someone else. It’s as if they don’t care enough about anything other than their own personal space that they have an inability to remember who another is. It is a world where even the quality of a business card is enough to have one seething with envy.

The writing style is not what I had a problem with. It was crisp, flowing, and his command of dialog is amazing. However, the weaknesses I found made it extremely hard to maintain my interest for very long. For example:

The excruciating minutia of what each and every character was wearing. This is ok if you want to establish a certain characters mindset and/or traits, but literally each and every one the protagonist came across, sometimes for a half page or longer, disrupting the narrative flow quite often. Ok. I get it. They’re Yuppies. That was established on page one. Perhaps Ellis was trying to make a larger point with this. If so, I didn’t get it.

The 4 page chapter on the rock band Genesis. Really? What purpose did that serve? It seemed as if he had written an article about the band for Rolling Stone magazine and decided to insert it into the novel. I couldn’t get my head around that. Again, maybe I just don’t get it.

The story itself wasn’t bad and the I like the idea that you don’t really know for sure if the protagonist is really a crazed psychopath or whether it’s all in his head, dark fantasies he has to help cope with the world he lives. At least that's how I interpreted it.

All in all, having heard so many great things about this book, I was disappointed. Perhaps if Ellis didn’t spend so much time on the trivial minutia of the Yuppie lifestyle, I would have enjoyed this more.

Rating: * * *