Di cosa parliamo quando parliamo di libri è uno dei rari casi in cui il titolo inglese, Where I’m Reading From, è meno suggestivo di quello italiano, che cita una famosa raccolta di racconti di Raymond Carver, Di cosa parliamo quando parliamo d'amore. Inoltre, anche Di cosa parliamo quando parliamo di libri è una raccolta: non di racconti, ma di brevi saggi sui libri e su tutto ciò che gravita loro intorno.

È vero che non tutti i piccoli saggi di Tim Parks son riusciti con il buco, ma io vi consiglio tantissimo di leggere questo libro: affronta una serie di questioni – che ci si pone spesso e alle quali si danno sempre un po’ le stesse risposte – proponendo un punto di vista diverso e uno spunto di riflessione niente affatto banale. Il saggio dedicato al premio Nobel per la letteratura, per esempio, ha avuto una certa risonanza.

Il fatto è che Parks, oltre a essere un autore e traduttore, è anche un giornalista che scrive di libri: ha competenze tecniche che chi legge per piacere e poi butta giù due righe di opinioni in merito sul suo blog (come me) non ha e non è male dare una sbirciatina a fenomeni dei quali facciamo parte, spesso inconsapevolmente.

Certo, non c’è niente di male nell’apprezzare i celebratissimi Murakami o Franzen, ma nemmeno nell’avere una visione d’insieme di dove stia andando la letteratura e dove ci stia portando (perlomeno a noi lettrici e lettor*): per esempio, sono rimasta colpita dall’idea che uno scrittore appartenente a un Paese culturalmente lontano dal nostro debba sfrondare il suo libro di ogni caratteristica locale per poter sperare di avere un pubblico più vasto. Alcuni elementi, infatti, sarebbero comprensibili soltanto a chi ha un certo background (sociale, culturale, storico, e via dicendo) e questo renderebbe questi romanzi meno appetibili sul mercato internazionale. Di conseguenza, c’è da chiedersi se leggere letterature di altri Paesi in traduzione ci faccia davvero conoscere altre culture o sia solo un pretesto per rassicurarci…

Parks non dà una risposta alle questione che pone: l’idea di Di cosa parliamo quando parliamo di libri è più quella di aprire un dibattito e vedere quali soluzioni saltano fuori. Smettere di tradurre letteratura straniera perché tanto ci risulta incomprensibile? Non mi pare una via perseguibile. Si potrebbe inserire un’introduzione o qualcosa di simile dove si spiegano alcune peculiarità di una certa cultura che il pubblico al quale ci si rivolge altrimenti troverebbe oscure. Lieviterebbero i costi del libro? Non so.

L’unica certezza è che Di cosa parliamo quando parliamo di libri mette in moto le rotelle del cervello: il che è una buona cosa. ( )

Some interesting insights. ( )

I do like reading books about books and reading, and in this collection of essays and articles drawn from the New York Review of Books, Tim Parks, extolls the virtues of reading, asks why we hate the books our friends love and tries to fathom just how a Nobel prize winner is selected. Other questions that he considers include: why finish books, the dull new global novel, what the writers job actually is and can we learn to speak American.

All of these thing are interesting questions about a variety of subjects on reading, writing and awards, and Parks is not afraid to be provocative in answering them. He advocates rethinking the purpose of a book, what it is for, why we read it and the perils of the homogenisation of languages and the slide towards one world culture. He puts his strong opinions in a short, to the point essay style making it easy to dip into and to find a particular point he was making. I have only read An Italian Education by him so far and sadly wasn’t aware that he was a novelist as well as a translator, critic and professor of literature. He is quite well placed to make these observations and he draws on his skills to write these articles. Sadly thought there were flaws; whilst some were amusing and easy to read, others were very academic, esoteric and dry to read, which is a shame as some of the articles were superb. 3.5 stars overall. ( )

Nu weet ik hoe het komt dat ik zo teleurgesteld was door Parks’ vorige book ‘De kunst van het moorden’. Dat is op hetzelfde moment geschreven als dit boek, en het is duidelijk dat hij al zijn creatieve vermogens in dit voorliggend boek heeft geïnvesteerd. Op zich is dit niet meer dan een losse verzameling korte essays over literatuur, de boekenwereld, het fenomeen van lezen en van schrijven, en ook de bijzondere activiteit van het vertalen. Maar Parks geeft een briljant inzicht in wat er de laatste jaren in die branche veranderd is, en aan het veranderen is: de technologische evoluties, de globalisering, het e-readen, de andere omgang van auteurs met lezers via sociale media en literaire evenementen, enzovoort. In die zin drukt de ondertitel (“de veranderende wereld van het boek”) veel beter de geest van dit boek uit. Wat ook opvalt: Parks is echt niet te beroerd om heilige huisjes omver te stoten. E-reading bijvoorbeeld is voor hem absoluut niet de doodzonde waarvoor het onder boekenliefhebbers wordt gehouden. En hij gaat ook uitgebreid in op de bedoelde en onbedoelde gevolgen van globalisatie voor de literaire markt, zonder zich over voor en tegen uit te spreken. In die zin is dit boekje veel meer de moeite dan dat curieuze, charlatan-achtige essayboek van de Italiaanse schrijver Allessandro Barcicco, “De barbaren” dat zo op handen wordt gehouden, maar absoluut geen steek houdt (zie mijn review). Parks is en blijft zonder meer mijn favoriete schrijver van het moment, en met dit boek bewijst hij eens te meer dat hij die reputatie echt verdient. ( )

Ι started writing this review, a day after I started reading Tim Parks book, because there were so many thoughts in my head, so many questions I didn't even know I had.

Why do some of us feel compelled to get through a book we hardly like, while others (like yours trully) give up once they realise that it is a waste of time?Why do we feel members of a greater community once we read a novel which is accompanied by world-wide success? And even feel guilty if we don't like it at all? How does our upbringing, or our family values influence our appreciation of this genre or that? Why do we tend to value foreign literature more than our own country's? Tim Parks tries to answer all these questions and many more.

There were moments when I lifted my eyes from the page to think on the issues examined in his essays. His language is simple, informative but not didactic. I had the feeling that I was participating in a discussion with a very eloquent and very friendly teacher, a colleague. Not to mention his excellent essay about the Nobels which convinced me as to the absurdity of having such a competition, in the first place.

There was, however, something that bothered me. Repetition. There is information that is mentioned so many times that it becomes tedious. E.g. the fact the he lives in Italy or that one book fair in France. Also, I found that the number of authors he focuses on is rather limited. We are forced to think of DeLillo, Roth, Faulkner, Borges, Hardy and Lawrence too many times, as if they are the epitome of Literature alone and nobody else. Well, no, they are not. This problem becomes much more obvious towards the end of the book.

Perhaps, this repetition is the trap that lays there for all teachers. We- and I'm speaking from personal experience, pleading guilty to the crime- tend to repeat things over and over again to help our students understand. Otherwise, you don't teach, you don't inform. You impose, you give a lecture that accomplishes nothing. So, I must conclude by saying that I wish I had a professor like Tim Parks in university.

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