Siracusa, by Delia Ephron

After finishing Loving, I briefly went back to Wolf Totem (which presumably I'll write about someday when I finish it) and then on my lunch break last Thursday, I found Siracusa at a thrift store (how many books do I find at thrift stores? A lot. Most books I read, perhaps.) and picked it up entirely because of my love of Sicily. When I got on the subway home that evening, I pulled Siracusa out and decided to start it rather than reading Wolf Totem (have I mentioned it's very bloody? Very.). Anyway, Siracusa is not the first book I've read solely because it was set in Sicily. That honor belongs probably to Blood Rain (which, now that I think about it, I picked up at the same thrift store where I found Siracusa!), though debatably to The Leopard. I also have a whole collection of Andrea Camilleri novels - I buy them every time I come across them! - but I haven't actually read any of them yet. And while we're on the topic of literature set in Sicily, I should mention the first piece I read in this category: Sun by D.H. Lawrence, which I believe I first read in middle school and which has really stayed with me these last 30-ish years.

I haven't actually been to Siracusa. I was supposed to go there on my first, aborted trip to Sicily in December 2014 when I ended up having to drastically alter my plans and go to Spain at the last minute due to a national strike in Italy that would have left me stranded at Malpensa. When I planned my actual first trip to Sicily in April 2015, I realized (very correctly in retrospect) that I had been far too ambitious in the amount of ground I thought I could cover when I'd made my itinerary for the 2014 trip. Sicily is a sizable island, train routes are limited, the autostrade connect the bigger cities, but much of the island is covered only by winding mountain roads, so travel is slow. On that first trip, I did my traveling by train and bus (and a couple extremely long taxi rides) and managed to cover really only the western tip of the island: Palermo, Trapani, Marsala, and Agrigento. On my second trip to Sicily, in 2017, I went back to Palermo for a couple days and then rented a car stationed myself for a week in the Nebrodi mountains, from where I made day trips to Taormina, Enna, Cefalù, among other places. The southeastern corner of the island, where Siracusa is, remains the part I have not visited. I have (at present only theoretical) plans to go back in 2019 and visit that corner, including Siracusa -- though I must say this book certainly did not increase my interest in going there.

Siracusa is about two couples who go on vacation together to Rome and Syracuse, a trip whose events end up destroying the relationships among nearly all of them. (This is why I always travel alone.) The story is told in alternating chapters from the perspective of the 4 central characters and only the reader really gets the full picture (and even that requires some conjecture). The overlapping narratives were really effective, and I found they gave me sympathy for all the characters, even as I didn't really like any of them. This was a tense, but fun read. And even as Siracusa comes off as quite unappealing, it captures very well the crumbling old and cheap new that I've seen elsewhere on the island. Places that have been in decline since the Baroque era is my aesthetic ideal.

Loving, by Henry Green

I wasn't sure if I'd go back to Loving after I set it aside for The Uninvited Guests and then started another book -- Wolf Totem, by Jiang Rong -- but then last week I found myself wanting to read something a little less bloody than Wolf Totem (which is incredibly bloody) and rather than starting something new, I decided to finish Loving. It's such a short book it felt a shame to abandon it, so I finished it in an afternoon and then sent it on its way (via PaperbackSwap, to someone to wanted it). I don't really have much to say about this book. It follows the affairs of the staff of an English estate in Ireland over the period of a few months during World War II. The war is in the background, as is the potential threat to the estate from the IRA, but none of it seems quite to penetrate the reality of the household staff. There were pieces of this book that I enjoyed and that were funny, but overall I didn't felt like it had much to give.

The Uninvited Guests, by Sadie Jones

I started reading Loving by Henry Green a little more than a week ago -- just after finishing Sepharad. I always find it particularly hard to pick a book to read after I finish something I've really loved. Sepharad left me in a mood and I didn't want to break it. I had read a few pages of Loving a month or so ago and found it wasn't what I was in the mood for at the time, so set it aside. After Sepharad I thought maybe it was the time, but in a week I labored through 100 pages and decided to set it aside again. Meanwhile, I picked up a copy of The Uninvited Guests at Housing Works and I decided to switch from one manor house drama to another. While I didn't totally love The Uninvited Guests, it was a fun read and the break I needed. I'm not sure whether I'll go back to Loving.

Sepharad, by Antonio Muñoz Molina

Sepharad can hardly be called a novel, though it says "A Novel" right on the cover under the title. But as Muñoz Molina notes in the Author's Note, "I have invented very little in the stories and voices that wave through this book." But, of course, novels can be based on true events -- so that's not really the reason I say it can hardly be called a novel. It's almost like a book of short stories, with occasional recurring characters. Almost a book of essays. Almost a memoir? Whatever it is, it's lovely. It's about memory and identity and being away from the place you call home. Muñoz Molina connects centuries of forced and voluntary emigration and demands that the reader identify with emigrants and refugees. The writing and stories are poignant and warm. I really loved this book.