Stanlio
Stanlio

Michail Bulgakov — Cuore di cane | DeRank™: 0,00

« Uuuuhhh!!!
Look at me, I'm dying.
The storm howls the de profundis at the door and I howl along with it.
It's done, I'm done for!
A delinquent in a dirty cap, the cook from the staff canteen at the Central Council of National Economy, dumped boiling water on me and burned my left side.
What a scoundrel!
And he’s a proletarian too! »
(Chapter I) more
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"The Devil is the most striking character in Bulgakov's great posthumous novel. He appears one morning before two citizens, one of whom is enumerating the proofs of God's existence. The newcomer doesn’t share this opinion... But there’s much more: he was also present at the second interrogation of Jesus by Pontius Pilate and provides a detailed account in a chapter that is perhaps the most astonishing in the book... Shortly thereafter, the demon performs at the Variety Theatre in front of a huge audience... A novel-poem, or if you will, a show in which many characters intervene, a book where an almost cruel realism merges or mixes with the highest of possible themes: that of the Passion." Eugenio Montale more
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It features a thirty-something lawyer and the chorus of friends who accompany him "on stage": from the public courtrooms to private orgies in the houses of the respectable bourgeoisie, from legal assistance to the new rich of the North-East to wild, drunken nights in trendy nightclubs. Until an external and disturbing element appears within the group - the young Englishwoman Sabine - whom the protagonist falls in love with, entering into conflict with his surroundings, his wife Laura, and his profession, to the point of plunging into a progressive, inescapable hell. more
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Emily Brontë — Cime tempestose | DeRank™: 0,00

In the lonely and wild moors of Yorkshire, a tumultuous and destructive love affair unfolds. All the tormented contrasts that ignite between the inhabitants of a comfortable dwelling in the valley and those of a farm on a windy hill converge in the figure of the foundling Heathcliff. The contradictory and poisonous human passions intertwine love with suffering and cruel revenge. The exploration of conflicting affections and extreme emotions does not undermine the adaptable precision of a style that "shatters all parameters of knowledge of human beings, only to breathe such a life into those unrecognizable transparencies as to make them transcend reality" Virginia Woolf. more
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Ray Bradbury — Cronache Marziane | DeRank™: 0,00

... the ending of the novel has an optimistic side: if the Earthlings learn to respect their new planet, as seen in the final scene, they could become the Martians themselves.
Of course, this interpretation can be flipped: the final scene could also be viewed as the last mockery of the destroyed civilization of the Martians, whereby the conquerors will define themselves as "Martians," just as the descendants of the exterminators of the Indians define themselves as "Americans."
The value of this book, one of the masterpieces of science fiction of all time, lies precisely in the ambiguity of some key scenes that lead the reader to question fundamental facts of the history of the United States, but more generally the relationships between European civilization and others on the planet... (quote from wiki) more
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Stanlio

Ray Bradbury — L'estate incantata | DeRank™: 0,00

- Dandelion Wine (in the original title) is a novel set during the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois, based on the city of Waukegan, Illinois, where Bradbury grew up.
- The original title refers to a wine made from dandelion petals and other ingredients, commonly citrus. In the story, this wine, prepared by the protagonist's grandfather, is a metaphor that gathers all the joys of summer into a single bottle. The protagonist of the story is Douglas Spaulding, a 12-year-old boy who is vaguely autobiographical. (source: wiki) more
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Ray Bradbury — Fahrenheit 451 | DeRank™: 0,00

- In novel form, it was first published in 1953 in the emerging magazine Playboy, in the second, third, and fourth issues.
- Set in an unspecified future after 1960, it describes a dystopian society where reading or owning books is considered a crime, for which a special firemen's corps has been established, dedicated to burning every type of volume.
- In 1966, the book was adapted into a film of the same name directed by François Truffaut.
- «Listen to me, Montag: in all our careers, we all get a curiosity about what's in those books; it strikes us like a kind of itch, right? Well, trust me, Montag, there's nothing in there, books have nothing to say!»
(cit. wiki) more
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- The story unfolds over a span of about three hours in the year 1962. Hans Schnier is a young clown living in Bonn, the city where the action described in the novel takes place. After yet another unsuccessful performance, back in his lodgings, Hans indulges in a long self-pitying monologue about himself and what torments him most: the abandonment by the woman he lived with, Maria.
- Post-Nazi Germany faced a long period of economic and social misery before initiating the reconstruction process. - The clown's lengthy lament provides the author with an opportunity to describe the conventions of that conservative bourgeoisie which was initially supportive of, or at least not hostile to, Nazism and, once Germany returned to democracy, was ready to reintroduce its rituals and prejudices within the new social framework.
(cit. Einaudi) more
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A trial against Johann and Georg Gruhl is entrusted to Magistrate Stollfuss; it is his last case. They are accused of setting fire to an army truck at the end of a service trip. Numerous witnesses were present at the event because the two burned the vehicle in a field after dousing it in gasoline, and they did so openly: in fact, witnesses report that they sang to the rhythm of the crackling gasoline drums... Georg Gruhl's service trip involved driving aimlessly around in a truck... to the embarrassment of the prosecution and the judge, the Gruhls will be sentenced to damages and to six weeks in prison, which they have already served during pre-trial detention, during which young Gruhl also managed to impregnate the young waitress who brought him meals in his cell... (cit. Einaudi) more
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- The novel reflects the issues faced by many couples in the post-war period.
- The title comes from the fact that in the fourth chapter, Käte listens to a song on the radio And he never said a mumbling word.
- Böll somewhat compares Käte to Jesus Christ: just as Christ endured many humiliations without saying a word, she too endures everything without rebelling.
(quoted from Einaudi) more
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- ... tells the story of Leni Gruyten, a forty-eight-year-old German woman who "no longer understands the world and doubts she ever did." Leni lives on the fringes of post-war Germany's consumerist society, opposing the values of capitalism with her own world made of minimal but deeply felt and authentic values... (from wiki)
- Heinrich Böll takes on the role of a chronicler, following in the footsteps of all those who knew her: from the poet brother who destroys himself to escape the abjection of Nazism to Sister Rahel, from the businessman Polzer to the prostitute Margret.
Through photos, letters, personal objects... (cit. Einaudi) more
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- The facts, from which we might do well to begin, are brutal: on Wednesday, February 20, 1974, the eve of the Women's Carnival, a twenty-seven-year-old woman leaves her city home around 6:45 PM to attend a private dance party. (cit. Einaudi)
- In a preface to the story, Böll states: "The characters and the action of this story are completely fictional. In the event that certain journalistic practices are found to resemble those of the Bild-Zeitung, these similarities are neither intended nor coincidental, but rather inevitable." The author, who had firsthand experience of how media power can overlap with private life, distorting and deforming it... (cit. wiki) more
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Set during World War II, it follows Andreas, a young German soldier traveling on a military train to reach Przemysl and fight on the Eastern front. During the journey, Andreas befriends a homosexual comrade and a betrayed husband. Upon arrival, the soldiers decide to spend the night, before heading to the front, in a brothel. There, Andreas meets Olina, a Polish prostitute...
(cit. Einaudi) more
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"The greatness and significance of Sand Creature lie precisely in the way the descriptions of Maghreb civilization become a mystery, a dreamlike interplay of perspectives, a merging of successive truths..." (Pier Vittorio Tondelli) more
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Tahar Ben Jelloun — L'hammam | DeRank™: 0,00

"Inside me, there’s something dead that I can’t expel."
- The protagonist of this story is a Moroccan pianist famous in his homeland and across Europe...
- He is convinced he has an illness: he believes he smells unbearably.
- Where affection and science cannot reach, perhaps the call of childhood, of forgotten habits…
- Here he reestablishes contact with a masseur-philosopher, the old Bilal, who knows good and evil.
- … further rites of passage will be necessary and the encounter with Haj Benbrahim, a cultured and religious man whose wisdom is more powerful than sorcery. What occurs between the two is a confrontation between men, between cultures, between lifestyles, but also between books used as talismans. (source: wiki) more
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Confined to Tangier, "the city of the Strait where the wind, idleness, and ingratitude reign," a family man, a master of ineptitude in an endless struggle with himself and others, narrates his life while chasing a mirage, and his gaze is softened by dreams...
(quoted Einaudi) more
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A chair at the Faculty of Arts, a wife who has become a stranger, two children studying abroad, and fifty years weighed down by the invisible burden of nothingness. Against the backdrop of a Moroccan society "lacking daring and madness," the profile of a small, prudent, and judicious bourgeois... Departing for Naples... the writer loses himself in the undergrounds of the Albergo dei Poveri, the monumental hospice built by Charles III of Bourbon to hide the annoying spectacle of human misery, and meets the Old Woman, a strange and fascinating character, an immense body, corrupted by time and the harsh trials of life. She is the memory of Naples, the keeper of all stories of passion without return. And it is she, the queen of that court of miracles, who moves within the vast Asylum of Human Waste... (cit. Einaudi) more
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Samuel Beckett — Murphy | DeRank™: 0,00

- The plot revolves around the eponymous “depressed solipsist” Murphy who, urged by his lover Celia Kelly to find a job, starts working as a nurse at the Magdalen Mental Mercyseat and discovers that the madness of the patients is an alluring alternative to conscious existence.
- Murphy is an example of Beckett's great interest in the artistic and metaphorical possibilities of chess.
- Among the thinkers who influence Murphy's mind-body debate are Spinoza, Descartes... (cit. wiki) more
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Samuel Beckett — Molloy | DeRank™: 0,00

- Molloy is an old man without both legs. He is in the house of his deceased mother and recounts his pointless odyssey to reach her. He digresses, tells blatant lies. He is devoid of memory, but that doesn’t matter: what counts is not to stop telling the story because in storytelling lies the only chance of being alive.
- It is a fact that Molloy’s tale is sprinkled with humorous moments that arise precisely from the ridicule of important philosophical and ideological principles in our culture; but also from the mockery of basic topos of Western literature, such as that of romantic love. (From the afterword by Paolo Bertinetti) more
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Samuel Beckett — Watt | DeRank™: 0,00

Written during the war, in a small village in the Alps where Beckett had taken refuge to escape the Gestapo, Watt is noted for treating the unknowable home of Mr. Knott (and the mutable, silent, intangible Mr. Knott) like a logical positivist who, with his trusty grids of thought, bumps his nose against the mutability of being. But his paradoxical logocentric will, in the general absence of motivations for every occurrence, for every apparent choice, for every moment of life, will soon transform into an authentic "cognizione del dolore". (cit. Einaudi) more
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