Alessandro Baricco

[Helga]

This is an Italian author, and that's about all I know. For about 7 years I have been looking for a book by him called 'Novecento' but nothing by him has been translated into Icelandic. Now my brother gave me another book by him 'Ocean Sea'. He couldn't find the other one either except in Italian and German, and that dosen't do me any good.... but the wandering at hand is what can you tell me about this man and his books? have you guys read any? for some reason I can't find anything by him here in Iceland.... and if you know if 'Novecento' has been translated to english I would really appreciate it.

[lupe]

I've read both books you mentionned, as well as "Silk" from the same author, who is one of my favorite italian contemporary writers. There seems to be a english transaltion of "Novecento", under the title "Novecento: pianist". The movie based on the book was not bad, directed by Giuseppe Tornatore

[Sally Brown]

Hi Helga, I am Italian and in my country, as you can imagine, Alessandro Baricco is very famous. I know that his books are translated in a lot of different languages, but I don't know if they were also translated in Icelandic.
When I was a teenager I fell in love with his very impressive literature and read a lot of his great production... but at some point I started to suspect he was repetitive and his prose was cunning&crafty (I mean: attractive but not deep).
I still appreciate Alessandro Baricco, although not as an author, but as a teacher. Infact he established an important school of Literature in Italy, called "Scuola Holden", dedicated to Holden, the young protagonist of Salinger's book "The Catcher in the Rye". Many young Italian writers learnt their job in Baricco's school.

Bye,
Sally

[WuWei]

Arrogant and pretentious.

His style is overly self-indulgent and pathetically fake, he seems to always have a big thing to say about everything, some big time sentence clothed in falsely unassuming prose.

He basically provides middle middle and upper middle class with a cheap sensation of elitism, a very practically packaged feeling of cultural depth without the inconvenience of being too complex or too profound to be read while sunbathing in August.

Incidentally, the man is quite smart and has contributed some meaningful work, especially early in his career, but none of this is to be found in his best-sellers.

[Helga]

I'm reading Ocean sea like I said before and finding it ok, but I would like to read his earlier work if they are any better, but this one book I have been looking for is hard to find but my favourite movie is based on it so I really want to read it.
but thanks for your replies

[de Renal]

Have you tried google books? As far as I can see, you speak and read english very well, I think you shouldn't have problems reading it in english!
Or try SCRIBD, there I found many books I was looking for.. and you can print them as well, if you don't like reading from computer (I don't think anyone does :))
Good luck!

[Helga]

I had only tried amazon and something like that but I'll check out the options you mentioned. I mainly read in English so that will not be a problem. I just really want to read this book because it's my favourite movie.