Very odd. The other reviewers say about the same thing I do. Let me just add that I found none of it memorable. Here it is, the next day, and all I remember is one image of a beautiful girl.

However, here's a bookdarted quotation (from, actually, that same train of thought):

[re'] the best way of describing a person. The meticulous enumeration of physical characteristics, used so much in bad novels, serves no purpose. Every new characteristic, rathe than blending with the preceding ones and little by little completing the portrait, cancels them, so to speak, and increases the fog that forms between the page and the reader. On the other hand, when Gide says of Claudel, 'As a young man he had the look of a nail; now he seems a pestle,' Claudel is immediately present, vivid, even though we do not know if he is tall or short, or what color his eyes are."

If you agree with that sentiment, and like how it is expressed, you might like bits of this book. If you know who Gide or Claudel are, you might like more bits. I'm glad I read the book just for that sentiment - but I still, in all honesty, didn't 'enjoy' the book. Hence the low rating.

(btw, I've no idea what 'abridged' means in the book description. Buzzi says this is a reworking of previous works, but there's no longer, 'unabridged' edition of this...)" ( )

Aldo Buzzi is a master of the personal essay. His mastery is evident in how effortless he makes his achievement look. His essays may appear to be random jottings, observations, and eccentric erudition, but they are arranged in such a way that one has to struggle (but always relents) to keep a smile from appearing on one's face. The first essay in the collection, "Chekhov in Sondrio," is the best thing I've ever read on the Russians (and several other topics as well). For example: "Like cabbages, cucumbers are an essential vegetable for Russians. Céline says, 'Over there a man fills his belly with cucumbers,' and Saltykov-Shchedrin, the satirist, sententiously, 'Man needs everything: butter, cabbages, cucumbers.'"