2024 Int Booker longlist: The House at Via Gemito

[Hugh, Active moderator]

The House on Via Gemito by Domenico Starnone translated by Oonagh Stransky (Europa), Italian/Italy

[ANC]

How is this one? I'm planning to buy it next.

[Mohamed]

Wonderful novel. I truly think this is his masterpiece. I read Ties and Trick and other novels by him but they were not excellent like this one.

[Paul]

Good to hear there is one to look forward to

[Tommi]

Yeah I look forward to this, too, I’ve liked all the novels I’ve read from him.

[Paul]

I've not been a fan so far - Ties was OK (a not as good version of Ferrante) and Trust quite poor by my taste,

Perhaps third time lucky.

[Mohamed]

Paul wrote: "I've not been a fan so far - Ties was OK (a not as good version of Ferrante) and Trust quite poor by my taste,

Perhaps third time lucky."

Seems like you read the winning novel already! I am hesitating between this and Crocked Plow as possible winner

[Rachel]

I'm conflicted on this one as I thought it was well written but entirely too long and redundant. I would've loved it had it been 150 pages shorter (and I don't think it would have lost any of its essence or meaning) but as it is, it was a grueling reading process. I don't see any similarities to Ferrante beyond the setting and violent nature of the characters.

[Paul]

To my eternal shame and mortification - I actually found I liked this one a lot more than his shorter novels.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

To be fair you are a big fan of his soap opera novels also and they are long even when broken into four books.

[Roman Clodia]

I'm still puzzled by this thesis that Starnone is Ferrante given that her Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journey contains letters, emails, interviews, essays going back to 1991 which are steeped in intellectual concerns about women's writing and reading.

Leaving aside the authentic feel of her writing, that would be quite some 30+ years masquerade!

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

Why would you let small things like facts and intelligent observations get in the way of a conspiracy theory!

[Roman Clodia]

Haha, silly moi!

[Mohamed]

Paul wrote: "To my eternal shame and mortification - I actually found I liked this one a lot more than his shorter novels."

I did not like his shorter novel either. they are bit quaky

[Elizabeth]

Roman Clodia wrote: "I'm still puzzled by this thesis that Starnone is Ferrante given that her Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journey contains letters, emails, interviews, essays going back to 1991 which are ..."

Yes! I think that's weird too. Her writing is so viscerally feminist and grounded in the realities of pregnancy risk, childbirth, childrearing, sexism - for someone who hasn't had those experiences to fake it in such a convincing way would be an amazing feat. Yet some of the evidence seems convincing. This article (https://lithub.com/have-italian-schol...) says that there's an algorithmic difference between Elena Ferrante's novels and her nonfiction writing (the implication in the article being that the nonfiction is written by Starnone's wife and the fiction by Starnone). I don't know. But I'm dying to find out who she really is!

[Paul]

I don’t want to believe the theory - and I want to (indeed do) believe it is Raja rather than Starnone even if the theory is part true.

Although even if Raja then some of the backstory on her origins is not what Ferrante has presented.

[Daniel]

I have a slightly different theory though, I believe that was actually Anita Raja (or whoever is Ferrante) who wrote (or had relevant collaboration in) Starnone's best books.

My favorite by him is the yet untranslated Autobiografia erotica di Aristide Gambìa - maybe his least popular for being a bit experimental. It was published around the same time that they published the first volume of Ferrante's tetralogy.
Approx. 1/3 of the book is a very large chapter in which he writes about the speculated Ferrante connection.
I left a few words about it here, it might interest those who enjoy this literary gossip: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Paul]

That's a good theory yes - does explain why some of his books aren't great whereas Ferrante's are consistently much better.

I'd half wondered if he was Ferrante if he deliberately wrote bad books under the Starnone name to throw people off the scent. Rather like the thriller writer Robert Galbraith has written some kids books and dodgy tweets under their real name so no one realises who they are.