A Grande Transformação, de Karl Polaniy

 

What a wonderful book, as relevant, or possibly even more relevant, now than when it was written. It completely demolishes the neo-liberal dogma of the supposed advantages and “naturalness” of unregulated free markets. It explains intelligently, clearly and common-sensically how economic policy is a choice, a political choice.

And that choice should respect human rights, namely the right to the pursuit of happiness; so economy policy should be directed to serve people’s interests and not the other way around.

This should be a mandatory reading for anyone interested in economics, politics and sociology. It’s always amazing and frustrating how we haven’t learnt anything from History.

Ensaios, de George Orwell

 

I love to read George Orwell's writings. He is the epitome of what a Leftist should be - caring about your fellow humans, and keeping a perfect balance about the individual and the common good. 

Intelligent, accurate, and up to the point, he always keeps his common sense and critical reasoning, as we all should do. 

The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer

 I had this book on my shelf for over 15 years; always put it off reading thinking it might be too difficult. But I was wrong - the translation into modern English is very easily readable, and I expect it reasonably keeps the original tone, at least the rhyming and the spirit. 

It's a wonderful book, witty and entertaining, and extremely informative regarding the life, humour and moeurs of the Middle Ages. It's not as good as the fabulous Decameron, but it's close. 

I'm glad I read the beautifully illustrated book from Folio, the medieval art is just stunning.

Les Années, de Annie Ernaux

 

What a wonderful book, I'm so happy I got to know Annie Ernaux thanks to Saleem Haddad (another great writer, btw). It is a wonderful history of he 20th century, told by a personal memoir by a keen observer. I felt so totally identified with her thoughts and memories from the times I lived through. 

Monter en ville, rêver, se faire jouir et attendre, résumé possible d'une adolescence en province.

Pourtant, ils n'auraient jamais vivre là. [...] Ils désiraient qu'il reste toujours dans le monde des pays sans progrès pour les transporter ainsi en arrière.

Sauver quelque chose du temps où l'on ne sera plus jamais. 

Yes, all our lives' experiences will fade away. But that's exactly why testimonies like this are so important. 

A short note about animals and humans

Recently, reading the book We Are All Completely beside ourselves, by Karen Joy Fowler, I was once more reminded of the question of animal treatment by humans. I always felt somewhat uncomfortable about the notion of animal rights; rights are a human creation and they are applied and thought of in human terms, and I never thought anthropomorphizing other animals is the right way to go. I was never against eating animals; animals do it all the time and we are also animals, even if more successful in the evolutionary scale. 

But I do care about human ethics, which implies I care about cruelty. Inflicting unnecessary suffering is wrong and demeaning to us humans. And we do that far too much. Lots of animal experimentation is utterly unnecessary – like for cosmetics and such. And the food industry is just appalling, it makes the blood boil every time I read about factory farms, slaughterhouses and such, especially because they’re so unneeded – humans could do perfectly with much less meat, and a lot of it just goes to waste. Every time I think about it, I consider the ethical thing to do would be to become vegetarian, but I never did. Partly out of self-indulgence (I like meat), partly because I know my attitude wouldn’t make much of a difference, partly because I don’t think eating animals it’s wrong in itself, it’s the suffering inflicted by the food industry I object. 

I tend nevertheless to eat much less meat than I used to, and to choose whenever possible products I think were more humanely treated. I know that’s probably not too coherent and maybe insufficient. 

And of course I’m opposed to hunting for pleasure, bullfights, cock fights and other such barbarities. Inflicting suffering is wrong, and we know other animals suffer just like us. 

Am I a snob?

 

Am I a snob? The short answer is yes. But since I am a snob, I will take advantage of my snobbish status and digress a little about my snobbishness, as snobs are supposed – or expected - to do.

Virginia Woolf’s definition in her excellent essay Am I a snob? Is:

The essence of snobbery is that you want to impress other people. The snob is a flutter-brained, hare-brained creature so little satisfied with his or her own standing that in order to consolidate it he or she is always flourishing a title or an honour in other people's faces so that they may believe, and help him to believe what he does not really believe - that he or she is somehow a person of importance.

As for myself, my snobbish has been mostly an intellectual snobbishness, not a social one – but I guess it could be considered also social, in the way everything we do is intended to affect our relation to others, so it has a social meaning, even if not related to class. Maybe it started because my parents were so intellectually brilliant so I, as their child, felt I had to prove my own intelligence to keep up to their standards. Also, being a skinny kid awful at sports and feeling awkward in an ugly and unattractive body, my intelligence and wit were my biggest assets. Anyway, my snobbishness helped me to cope.

One of the ways my snobbishness is shown is in my literary snobbishness. I’ve always been a voracious reader, and of course I always loved to appreciate the right books, the classics and the cool contemporary books, and fortunately I have been able to get a great pleasure from reading them. But I also enjoyed reading cheap comics and corny books like my grandmother’s favorite The Redbreast of the Mill. They became a kind of guilty pleasures, like enjoying the musical Cats or a few soaps on television. But then, aren’t intelligent people allowed these harmless dalliances in popular culture? One feels comforted to read the Bruce Chatwin’s account when he visited Nadezhda Mandeltsam and brought some thrillers, and he said something like “I hope they’re not literary works, I want real trash!”

I’m writing about this on account of a recent clash with my literary snobbishness. A few years ago, a dear friend gave me a book by Maria Teresa Horta, a fictionalized biography of the Marquesa de Alorna, an 18^th century Portuguese poetess. Well, Maria Teresa Horta is someone I’ve always laughed off as the kind of feminist that would burn bras in the 60s, and whose writing was, as a friend of mine described it, “very feminine, very open-legged”.  So I shelved the book, and didn’t think about it until recently, bored and having nothing better to read, I took it from the shelf and started reading it.

And then, I’m actually enjoying it! Yes, the writing is often corny, using the same images again and again, too many descriptions of dresses and jewelry. But the subject is quite interesting, and the book seems reasonably well researched. So I’m enjoying reading a Maria Teresa Horta book; how is that for a snob?

Rimini, di Pier Vittorio Tondelli

I read Pier Vittorio Tondelli's Separate Chambers many years ago, and loved it; later I read Altri Libertini and Pao Pao in French translation, also very good. So now, that I can read Italian more or less fluently, I bought Rimini in Milan.

It's a very good book, it reminded me somehow of a Robert Altman movie (maybe that's why the author said it was supposed to be like Nashville?), a turn pager, about the touristic boom in the 80s in the Italian Riviera. Reading it it really brought me back to the 80s. 

 

Berättelser ur min levnad, av Vilhelm Moberg

 I read the Emigrants saga a few years ago, and loved it. Last year, I found this book in the street bookmarket at Drottningsgata, and bought it. I was glad I did it. The Swedish was not too hard to understand with my limited knowledge of the language, and the essays are truly interesting and a great read. I particularly liked the ones about the books he read - a most heartfelt depiction of the pleasure and importance of reading - and about the writing of the Emigrants series.

Att skriva är ett sätt att leva. 

Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe

 

This is a wonderful book, maybe the best I've read about the African meet with the colonial powers. Beautifully written, from the perspective of an African, it doesn't portray Africans as hopeless victims, but as people like we are, caught in a clash of cultures and power. This is how we must think of Africans - not better or worse than us, just like us, wanting the sae things - family, dignity, self value. 

The importance of touch

 

Sometimes, a momentary ordinary experience makes one wonder, sets one thinking about things. 

Yesterday, as I was leaving the clinic, I ran across this old lady, who used to be a patient of mine a few years ago and I had not met in a long time. Even with the mandatory face masks, we recognized each other, and I said something like "Mrs C! How are you?" And she grabbed my arm saying something like "Doctor, how are you? I missed you!" 

I felt literally a shock - being touched, after all these months of not touching! I was surprised, it felt so awkward, but it was so spontaneous, and it felt so right. I haven't touched people in the last months on account of the pandemic, especially patients; I have just hugged my mother and my children, and just a few times. So somehow this set me wondering about the importance and meaning of touch.

Since the pandemic began, we avoid touching people. So when we touch, something that was so normal before, it feels awkward. It happened to me before, in March I met an old friend at his hospital where I went to do exam jury duty. We met at the elevator, and we happily shook hands, instinctively, before we could think of the pandemic restrictions. It felt a little awkward, but we didn't even think much about it, not touching hadn't yet become entrenched in our habits.

Sixth months later, I spent a short holiday in Italy, staying at my niece's boyfriend's house. By then, not touching had become the norm, both in Portugal and Italy, so, even if we had a wonderful time talking, sightseeing and socializing, we never touched each other. Then when we left, saying farewell, my niece's boyfriend reached out his hands and we shook them warmly and friendly - such a common gesture before, but now it felt like a special sign of trust and of a truly coined friendship. 

In October, a dear friend from Sweden visited Lisbon, we met foe diner and spent a good time together, but we didn't touch - now Swedes have this lovely habit of hugging (kram is the Swedish word), and I missed it. But covid-19 times oblige. 

So, how sad is it that I can count with the fingers of one hand the times I touched people in the last 9 months? Ours is a social species, that's how we evolved, and touching is an important part of it. So, on top of the economic losses, the disturbed health care, the interruption of socializing between friends and family, the loss of touching is another of the big losses we're enduring. Is it worthy? Should we really, on the excuse of sparing lives, give up on most things that make life worth living? And are we really sparing lives this way? 

Sad times indeed. 

Utopia for Realists - and how we can get there, by Ruger Bregman

 

This is a really good book. It makes a case for the universal income, the fifteen hour workweek and the abolishing of borders, in a most intelligent way. I think this is the way the left should go, solidarity. That's what we need, that's what's being leftist is all about.

A Guerra das Salamandras, de Karel Capek

 

I don't know how I had never heard about this book - it's excellent, a classic in its genre. Witty and cruelly funny, it satirizes capitalism, colonialism and human nature in a most implacable way. It's a timeless subject, and superbly dealt with. I highly recommend it.

A Fairly Honorable Defeat, by Iris Murdoch

 

This is a very good book, the second I read by Iris Murdoch (after The Sea, The Sea). It's most engaging from the beginning, so full of dialogue that it sounds almost like a play. But what superb dialogue! One cannot stop reading, feeling fascinated by the characters and their actions, and all the mind manipulations; even if sometimes farfetched, they always come as plausible. It's really a master's work. 

La Testa Perduta di Damasceno Monteiro, de Antonio Tabucchi

 I like Antonio Tabucchi's books, especially Afirma Pereira. This is another very good book, and I was happy to be able to read it in italian, in just 2 days. It was funny to read a book whose action is set in Portugal in italian, and it's a really good read. 

Passeggiate Africane, by Alberto Moravia

 

A very good travel book, beautifully written by a keen observer of nature and history. I particularly liked his non judgemental attitude, his depiction of Africa is engaging, respectful and witty. It made me remember issues like the apartheid, and it made me wishing to be in  Africa, to know it better, something I always wished but postponed. 

Black Boy, by Richard Wright

 

This is such a powerful book, it is often painful to read it. The story is a terrible account of what was like being black in the Jim Crow South, and the author writes beautifully and implacably. One can understand how racism is so embedded in the US culture, especially in the South, because this kind of values don't disappear in decades. 

Diaries, volume 1, 1939-1960, by Christopher Isherwood

 

After hearing and reading about him for so many years, I only recently actually read something by Christopher Isherwood - The Berlin Stories, which is such a wonderful book it made me want to read more of his work. Being related to Bloomsbury and the American post-WWII scene, I was curious to read his diaries. 

And I liked it; he led an interesting life and was friends with lots of interesting people, from Auden and Greta Garbo to Aldous Huxley and Ivan Moffatt. But I was hoping for more, somehow it feels like he's too restrained, he records his life somewhat shallowly, maybe because he repeatedly says he's keeping the journal as a form of discipline. Then there is his attitude concerning religion, which as a stark atheist I cannot relate to, even if his stand is the one I can accept - never proselizing, and not denying life's pleasures or complexities. Guess it was a way to deal with his inner demons and depressions, and if it worked for him one cannot really criticise it, but still. 

Anyway, it's beautifully written, and it's a great depiction of the life in Hollywood in the post war years. And I still want to read more of Isherwood, I think his novels will be more engaging than his diaries. 

Gli Amori Difficili, by Italo Calvino

This is such a wonderful book I don't think I can write a proper review. I always loved Calvino's books, and this was the first one I read in Italian - thanks to Matteo B. Bianchi's books not being translated, I started reading Italian, which has been a source of immense joy. Such a beautiful language! There were a lot of words whose meaning I didn't know, but I knew enough - and I'm learning - to read it fluently.

It's a collection of short stories, and they're so good one wishes they would never end so one could keep the pleasure of reading them forever. Not many authors are able to write such good short stories - Maupassant and Chekhov are a few of them. Calvino manages to describe feelings and situations so perfectly, and one can read a number of layered meanings. La Formica Argentina, for instance, is just perfect. But all the stories are excellent. They made me want to reread the Calvino books I loved.

Marco, by Saleem Haddad

Marco is a wonderfully beautiful short film by Saleem Haddad, the author of the excellent boo <i>Guapa. It's moving, sometimes heartbreaking, beautifully shot and featuring outstanding acting. And it's so important to tell the tales of the refugees, to remind how they are people like us, with stories and families and feelings. I cannot but highly recommend watching it.

Generations of Love - Extensions, by Matteo B. Bianchi

Reading this book is pure delight. I had loved Generations of Love a few years ago, and I enjoyed so much more the extended version now, for several reasons. And one of them was undoubtedly being able to read it in Italian - tired to wait for a translation, I read the author's book Maria Accanto (also delightfully funny) in Italian, and I found it was not that hard to understand, so I bought this one last December in Rome. Italian is a wonderful language, it makes one feel good just to hear its music in one's mind.

The book is a gem of coming of age literature, and the added chapters are excellent, some of them - like the ones dealing with the narrator's granny and parents - positively hilarious (I actually laughed out loud in the train while reading them).

So, another reason I loved to read it was that I became much more comfortable with my Italian; so not only am I starting to read 'tina, the magazine edited by Matteo Bianchi, as I'm starting a Calvino book (one of my favourite Italian writers).