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4.07 AVERAGE
4.07 AVERAGE
"The price of freedom is high — far higher than that of slavery. And it is not paid in gold, nor in blood, nor in the most noble sacrifices, but in cowardice, in prostitution, in treachery, and in everything that is rotten in the human soul".
,,Laisvės kaina aukšta. Gerokai aukštesnė už vergijos."
,,Prieš išvaduojami mes kovėmės ir kentėjome, kad nemirtume. Dabar kaunamės ir kenčiam, kad išgyventume. Esama gilaus skirtumo tarp kovos už tai, kad nemirtum, ir kovos, kad išgyventum."
,,Štai kas šiandien yra Europa: pūvančios mėsos krūva."
,,Pasaulyje egzistavo vien gyvieji ir mirusieji. Visa kita neturėjo reikšmės."
SUNKUS SKAITINYS
Sužavėjo mane šio rašytojo ,,Kaput", ėmiau ir ,,Odą". Ilgokai delsiau žinodama apie ką bus knyga, bet džiaugiuosi, kad perskaičiau. Ar kartočiau? Ne. Negatyvus, sunkus kūrinys, bet kartu - aktualus. Be to, labai sunku vertinti tokią knygą ypač skaitant dabartiniame geopolitiniame kontekste.
Knyga netrunka įtraukti. Ji ne tik stilistiškai, bet ir tematiškai labai turtinga. Truputį Kamiu, truputį Sruogos, gal net Markeso vaibo mišinys. Dialogai - puikūs. Vietom tikrai teko prunkštelti dėl veikėjų sarkazmo ir apskritai - absurdiškų situacijų. Daug į metaforas įvilktų temų ir klausimų: karas, žmogiškumas, tikėjimas ir viltis. Ką reiškia būti žmogumi karo kontekste? Kaip išsaugoti ne tik sielą, bet ir kūną? Ar apskritai įmanoma?
Sunkus ir liūdnas skaitinys. Tikrai ne visiems gyvenimo atvejams ir ne visiems skaitytojams.
,,Prieš išvaduojami mes kovėmės ir kentėjome, kad nemirtume. Dabar kaunamės ir kenčiam, kad išgyventume. Esama gilaus skirtumo tarp kovos už tai, kad nemirtum, ir kovos, kad išgyventum."
,,Štai kas šiandien yra Europa: pūvančios mėsos krūva."
,,Pasaulyje egzistavo vien gyvieji ir mirusieji. Visa kita neturėjo reikšmės."
SUNKUS SKAITINYS
Sužavėjo mane šio rašytojo ,,Kaput", ėmiau ir ,,Odą". Ilgokai delsiau žinodama apie ką bus knyga, bet džiaugiuosi, kad perskaičiau. Ar kartočiau? Ne. Negatyvus, sunkus kūrinys, bet kartu - aktualus. Be to, labai sunku vertinti tokią knygą ypač skaitant dabartiniame geopolitiniame kontekste.
Knyga netrunka įtraukti. Ji ne tik stilistiškai, bet ir tematiškai labai turtinga. Truputį Kamiu, truputį Sruogos, gal net Markeso vaibo mišinys. Dialogai - puikūs. Vietom tikrai teko prunkštelti dėl veikėjų sarkazmo ir apskritai - absurdiškų situacijų. Daug į metaforas įvilktų temų ir klausimų: karas, žmogiškumas, tikėjimas ir viltis. Ką reiškia būti žmogumi karo kontekste? Kaip išsaugoti ne tik sielą, bet ir kūną? Ar apskritai įmanoma?
Sunkus ir liūdnas skaitinys. Tikrai ne visiems gyvenimo atvejams ir ne visiems skaitytojams.
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
funny
informative
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Molto interessante per le vicende narrate ma pesante per la lettura a causa del linguaggio pomposo e delle descrizioni eccessive e ridondanti.
Miserable, that's the first word that comes to mind. This book can bring tears to your eyes, but not solely for Malaparte's eloquence, but also because of the putrid stench of the aftermath of war it evokes: the sickness, the depravity, the death. However, misery comes in various shapes and sizes and Malaparte displays that with the anecdotes he weaves together and the way he does is impressive. The final two chapters wrap up his account well.
One more thing, never question an author’s truthfulness while you’re eating.
One more thing, never question an author’s truthfulness while you’re eating.
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This book is nasty. In keeping with Malaparte's previous autobiographical novel Kaputt it positions Malaparte as the main character and author, though how much of the novel actually occurred in real life is unclear and frankly unimportant. Malaparte is a liaison to the Allied Forces as they land in and liberate Italy from Axis control in WWII. The book stretches believability and begs the reader to say "this can't possibly have happened", seemingly for the purpose of illustrating how confusing and messy "liberation" is. Civilians who yesterday were helping the Axis war machine are now singing the praises of the Allies as they move their armored columns through the street. Malaparte is in his classic scumbag mode and valorizes the scheming, desperate survival instincts of the Italian citizens and juxtaposes it against the lavish, decadent attitudes of the Allied Forces. It's a nasty book, almost cartoonish in some of its depiction, but it's effective and memorable.
"You think that's air you're breathing?" — Wachowski
Un-mediated post-war writing, when not vying for absolute-zero matter-of-factness (such as in Primo Levi's high-fidelity text), is always trying to write as grim as possible. Is it success or failure when the failure to be grim is read as a grim failure.
We already know that it's possible to be destroyed for nothing at all (most cases in the private holocaust some call "History"). The notion that, "certain horrible and life-scarring experiences actually make you a worse person," is also well-trafficked. Though what of that other category: those who haven't been destroyed enough, i.e. the vulgar sense of the phrase, "More Annihilated Than Repentant." (I may have finally discovered the source of this phrase in Kierkegaard's Stage on Life's Way in a footnote indicating Leibniz's apocryphal Baron Andrè Taifel who had a satyr and a similar inscription on his coat of arms, (though this I have not myself yet confirmed.))
When the most abject humiliation the author can imagine is the pay-per-view (paper view) scene of an Italian woman exposing her lower half beneath a figure of the Virgin (Mary), ideology has already fallen back onto a wound (though it appears clear as air). For such men, "it's easier to imagine the end of the world, the holocaust, (and the end of capitalism) than the end of misogyny." Given this to be the case here, our author evidently hasn't been whipped enough. We want to get it out of him, perhaps by whipping even more, though always with knowledge that whipping has never cleansed an ideology. ". . . But maybe just this once. . ." Though it may be, as is more frequently the case, that "[we] like to whip [...] and are always working to find a pretext. . ."
Either way, as we deliberate, Malaparte's Pathos becomes "black-comedy" and is rapidly fermenting (ideological-ferments) into Bathos. Episodes of there's-a-hand-in-my-soup, and this-flattened-corpse-is-the-flag-of-Europe are emblematic here. It is no longer possible (if it has ever been possible) to grimace and shout in earnest: "They think they are fighting and suffering to save their souls, but in reality they are fighting and suffering to save their skins, and their skins alone." Per Adorno, 'the grimace is false because it admits too readily what we know to be true.' Thomas Bernhard is better (and more grim) when he writes, “We’re so arrogant that we think we’re studying music whereas we’re not even capable of living,” How grim is it that, even after imprisonment by fascists (per wikipedia) our author cannot get even as grim as this.
Conversations with General Cork on the Via Appia Antica are reminiscent of Madame Bovary at the Agricultural Fair, though Malaparte isn't fit to lick Flaubert's toes.
It may be true what Althusser says about Hegel: that it had not been possible to decipher him until Marx wrote Capital. Sometimes a text can only be illuminated in retrospect (perhaps this is reason to keep writing). For other texts, destruction by what comes along later is more common. Though, until now, I hadn't seen a text more destroyed by The Simpsons than this book, which, unhappily, concludes (in a scene of great Pathos): 'and I saw one of the babies and the baby looked at me.'