Lit in the Time of War: Ammaniti

Hello! Happy Tuesday. I’ve read one book this past week, and have reviewed it below for your reading enjoyment. I’ve also included a list of organizations you can donate to in order to support Ukrainians in need.

Me and You, by Niccoló Ammaniti, Translated by Kylee Doust

“And anyway, I hated endings. In endings things always have to be, for better or for worse, fixed up. I liked telling stories of fights for no reason between aliens and earthlings, of space journeys in search of nothing. And I liked wild animals that lived for no reason, that didn’t know they were dying. After I saw a film, it drove me crazy the way Dad and Mum always talked about the ending, like the whole story was in the ending and nothing else mattered. And so, in real life, is the ending the only important part? Grandma Laura’s life was worth nothing and only her death in that ugly clinic mattered?”

This is a book about a teenage boy named Lorenzo who’s officially diagnosed as a narcissist. He lies to his parents about being invited to a one-week ski-trip by the popular kids, but instead hides out in the family’s unused cellar, plays video games, and reads Stephen King. Then along comes Olivia, his estranged older sister, with secrets of her own, and the two have to confront each other and their pasts.

The book felt ridiculously short, even though it wasn’t. The characters were good, the story was good, but it felt much less impactful than Ammaniti’s I’m Not Scared (though it still was impactful). The characters’ developed a bit too fast for my liking without as much depth and thought behind it as there had been in I’m Not Scared.

Even so, I liked the story, and it definitely had stuff to say. If this is your first Ammaniti, however, I’d recommend starting with I’m Not Scared.

Have you read either of these books? What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments below!

Now as promised, here’s a list of organizations you can donate to in order to support Ukrainians in need:

Revived Soldiers Ukraine—Provides medical support to soldiers and civilians. Donate here: https://www.rsukraine.org/

Save the Children—Provides food, water, money, hygiene kits, and psychosocial support to children. Donate here: https://www.savethechildren.org/us/where-we-work/ukraine

World Central Kitchen—Feeds Ukrainian refugees as they cross into Poland. Donate here: https://wck.org/

UNCHR Refugee Agency—Provides refugees with food, water, health support, and assistance in rebuilding damaged houses. Donate here: https://give.unrefugees.org/

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Lit in the Time of War: Ammaniti, Bidpai, and Örkény

Hello! Happy Tuesday. I hope you’re healthy, safe, and warm (though for some reason it’s snowing outside where I am!) I’ve read three books this week, and have reviewed them below. They’re all wise in their own ways, and are all worth reading.

I’ve also included a list of organizations you can donate to in order to support Ukrainians in need.

I’m Not Scared, by Niccoló Amaniti, Translated by Jonathan Hunt

“I woke up during the night. I had had a nightmare. Jesus was telling Lazarus to rise and walk. But Lazarus didn’t rise. Rise and walk, Jesus repeated. Lazarus just wouldn’t come back to life. Jesus, who looked like Severino, the man who drove the water tanker, lost his temper. He was being made to look a fool. When Jesus tells you to rise and walk, you have to do it, especially if you’re dead. But Lazarus just lay there, stiff as a board. So Jesus started shaking him like a doll and Lazarus finally rose up and bit him in the throat. Leave the dead alone, he said with blood-smeared lips. I opened my eyes wide. I was covered in sweat.”

This is the story of a boy, Michele, who really really really wants a new bicycle. Then he explores a dilapidated hut and makes a harrowing discovery that implicates his whole community in a dark secret. Now he must use all his humanity (and maybe the new bike he finally gets) to save the day.

The book is much darker than I anticipated. I thought it would be some kind of coming-of-age romp through the Italian countryside with some fake horror thrown in to make the reader feel slightly scared.

This is not the case. This is a book filled with sharp observations about the worst sides of people. It has a lot of philosophical depth, too, but the book isn’t didactic about it, which makes it even better. It’s also wonderfully-paced, with a lot of suspense and intriguing revelations, and has a terrific ending that makes the book absolutely worth reading.

I highly recommend.

Kalilah and Dimnah (The Complete Version), by Bidpai,
Translated by Thomas Ballantine Irving

“The jackal said: ‘How old are you?’ The lioness [whose cubs had just been killed by a hunter] said: ‘One hundred years.’ He said: ‘What do you live off and eat?’ The lioness said: ‘The meat of wild animals.’ The jackal said: ‘Have these wild animals fathers and mothers?’ The lioness said: ‘Of course.’ So the jackal said: ‘Why then don’t we hear these fathers and mothers making the same racket and groaning and crying like we see you doing? That only happened because you look at consequences wrongly and fail to consider them. You were ignorant of how harm would return to you.’”

After reading the “free trial” version of Kalilah and Dimnah (as translated by Ramsay Wood), I’ve decided to delve into the complete version to see what new wisdoms this version had to offer.

This version is less-interestingly translated than the Wood version, but it did have some good stories. Like Wood’s version, it contains the titular story about the two jackals named Kalilah and Dimnah, their lion ruler, and his trusted bull adviser, and the story about the group of animals that are each others’ best friends. But this version also includes the story of the war between the owls and the crows, and how the two groups of warring birds finally reach peace (spoiler alert: not without violence!) There are also a series of various other stories about various other animals that are much less memorable.

The stories are also pretty sexist. Women apparently cause all sorts of mischief—though the stories never show any examples of this (and even show examples of women saving their husbands from their own stupidity), the narrator still makes a point of repeatedly telling you to “beware of women because they cause mischief.” If you can stomach these kinds of things, go ahead and read this book. If not, you might want to consider reading Ramsay Wood’s translation (and its sequel, which I would absolutely love to get my hands on sometime!)

Minuten-Novellen/One-Minute Stories, by István Örkény,
Translated by L.T. András, Carl R. Erickson, and Vera Thies

One Story:

“In Memoriam Professor G.H.K.

Professor G.H.K. was digging a hole in which to bury the carcass of a horse.

‘Hölderin ist ihnen unbekannt?’ he asked the German guard.

‘Who’s he?’

‘The author of Hyperion,’ explained the professor, who dearly loved to explain. ‘The greatest figure in German romanticism. How about Heine?’

‘Who are these guys?’ asked the guard.

‘Poets,’ said the professor. ‘Surely you’ve heard of Schiller.’

‘Sure I have,’ said the guard.

‘How about Rilke?’

‘Him too,’ said the guard. Reddening with rage, he shot the professor.”

If that story doesn’t convince you to read this outstanding collection, I don’t know what will. It’s one of the greatest short stories I’ve read, and THE greatest story I’ve read that’s under 100 words.

But seriously, more about this fascinating book. Its author, István Örkény, was a Jew from Hungary. He fought in WWII, survived forced labor in a gulag, and then went on to write very short stories he called “One-Minute Stories.” The rationale, according to him, was that a one-minute story could be read anywhere—whether while cooking a soft-boiled egg or while waiting for the operator to take you off hold. Not even depression and shattered nerves can get in the way of reading a one-minute story. Basically, they can be read in the rain, in the wind, on a boat or on a train.

As you might have noticed from the example story, Örkény knows how to write. The stories within are very much worth your minutes.

I’d strongly recommend.

Have you read any of these books? Do you want to? If so, let me know in the comments below!

Now, as promised, here’s a list of organizations you can donate to in order to support Ukrainians in need:

United Help Ukraine—Provides medical supplies to soldiers, and ships goods to Ukrainian refugees. Donate here: https://unitedhelpukraine.org/

Red Cross—Provides first aid, food, medicine, and evacuation help to Ukrainians. Donate here: https://www.redcross.org/donate/cm/abc.html/?subcode=abc-pub

Save the Children—Provides food, water, money, hygiene kits, and psychosocial support to children. Donate here: https://www.savethechildren.org/us/where-we-work/ukraine

Revived Soldiers Ukraine—Provides medical support to soldiers and civilians. Donate here: https://www.rsukraine.org/

Lit in the Time of War: Wiesel, Lahiri, and Erofeev

Hello! I hope you are all well. If you are in the US, I hope you are all voting!

I’ve read three books this week, and have reviewed them below. I have also included a list of organizations you can donate to in order to support Ukrainians in need. Please do so if you are able.

From The Kingdom of Memory: Reminiscences by Elie Wiesel,
By Elie Wiesel

“What lessons can be learned from this? Two men can be brothers and yet wish to kill each other, and also whoever kills, kills his brother. But we only learn these lessons too late. In time of war, whoever is not our brother is our enemy; we are forbidden to be compassionate or give in to our imagination. If the soldier were to imagine the suffering he is about to inflict, he would be less eager to wage war. If he were to consider the enemy a potential victim—and therefore capable of weeping, of despairing, of dying—the relationship between them would change. Every effort is made, therefore, to limit, even stifle, his imagination, his humanitarian impulses, and his capacity to experience a feeling of brotherhood toward his fellow man.”

Elie Weisel is so wise. This book collects his wisest speeches and essays all in one place. In this book, he talks about his experiences during the Holocaust, literature’s power, the importance of remembering atrocities of the past instead of denying them, and his hopes for peace.

If you were to read only two books by Wiesel, I would recommend this book and Night. It’s hard to explain how important From The Kingdom of Memory is without reading it yourself, but I hope that you get a sense of it from the passage I have quoted, and that you are inspired to read it yourself.

In Other Words, by Jhumpa Lahiri, Translated by Ann Goldstein

“Credo che il mio nuovo linguaggio, piú limitato, piú acerbo, mi dia uno sguardo piú esteso, piú maturo. Ecco la ragione per cui continuo, per il momento, a scrivere in italiano.”

“I think that my new language, more limited, more immature, gives me a more extensive, more adult gaze. That’s the reason I continue, for now, to write in Italian.”

Once upon a time, the author Jhumpa Lahiri wrote in English. Then she moved to Italy and started writing only in Italian. This is a book about why she chose to write in Italian.

It has some interesting ideas about language and identity—Lahiri associated different languages with different emotions. She associated Bengali and English with insecurity and embarrassment, for instance, but associated Italian with escape and creating her own identity.

Given this focus, her book gave me a better understanding of language’s importance in creating identity. It also left me with a lot of questions. Why did Lahiri think that she could grow more as a writer in Italian than in English? She mentions that it gives her a new perspective, which makes sense, and how never really having a mastery of Italian would mean she’d always be growing in terms of language, but isn’t there much more to writing (like understanding other people) than perspective and language-mastery? Still, I admire her a lot for switching to Italian, and for writing this book in Italian after only a year or so in Italy.

Overall, if you’re curious about language and identity, I’d recommend this book.

Moscow to the End of the Line, by Venedikt Erofeev,
Translated by H.W. Tjalsma

“Now I’m almost in tears feeling sorry for myself [….]I’m sorry because I just calculated that from Chekhov Street to this hallway I drank up six rubles—but where and what and in what sequence, to good or evil purpose? This nobody knows and, now, nobody will ever know. Just as we don’t know to this day whether Tsar Boris killed the Tsarevich Dimitri or the other way around.”

“This [brew] is more than a beverage—it is the music of the spheres. What is the finest thing in the world? The struggle for the liberation of humanity. But even finer is this (write it down):
Zhiguli Beer: 100 g.
‘Sadko’ Shampoo: 30 g.
Dandruff Treatment: 70 g.
Athlete’s Foot Remedy: 30 g.
Small Bug Killer: 20 g.
The whole thing is steeped for a week in cigar tobacco and served at table.”

Moscow To The End of The Line stars a fictionalized version of Venedikt Erofeev as he drunkenly boards a train and tries to stay onboard long enough to reach the end of the line, his girlfriend, and his son. Along the way, he speaks (and drinks) with angels, sphinxes, devils, and ordinary passengers. He also makes a lot of references to Russian history, literature, and art, so if you know a lot of Russian history, have read a lot of Russian literature, and have seen a lot of Russian art, this is the book for you! If not, I would recommend holding off until you have done the above. The book is very funny already but it’s even funnier if you know what the author’s referencing.

Finally, I think that beyond the book’s humor, you could interpret it as saying a lot about how revolutions go awry—they can set off towards one destination only to wind up in a completely different place (like a drunken guy on a train).

So those are my thoughts about this terrific book. I would definitely recommend you read it sometime in your life, but you may want to read it sooner or later, depending on your knowledge of Erofeev’s references.

I’d love to hear your thoughts if you’ve read any of these books. Feel free to comment below!

Finally, as promised, here’s a list of organizations you can donate to in order to support Ukrainians in need:

Razom For Ukraine—Provides medical relief for soldiers and doctors on the front line. Donate here: https://razomforukraine.org/

Cash for Refugees—An organization founded by refugees for refugee. Gives cash to Ukrainian refugees so they can use the money for needs not covered by other humanitarian efforts (like SIM cards and clothes) and reclaim a sense of agency. Donate here: https://donorbox.org/cashforrefugees2

Mriya—An organization started by Boston University students to provide items like tourniquets and sleeping bags to Ukrainian soldiers. Donate here: https://mriya-ua.org/

Doctors Without Borders—Ships emergency supplies to Ukrainian hospitals. Donate here: https://donate.doctorswithoutborders.org/secure/donate