What are we reading lately

[joeallonby]

Sounds like I have to run right out and get some of this stuff, both the
Luther Blisset and Emilio Salgari. I think it might appeal to me for the
same reasons the Murakami stuff does.


on 5/29/04 4:21 PM, umberto rossi at teacher at inwind.it wrote:

> 
> In data 29 May 2004, verso le 14:53, Paul Mackin si trovò a scrivere
> su What are we reading lately:
> 
>> The prevalence of Umberto's posts in the last few days prompts me to ask
>> if anyone besides myself is reading Q by a certain "Luther Blissett?" The
>> book is said to have actually been written by four semi-anonymous Italian
>> literary types (I've got the translation of course). Even wondered if our
>> Umberto might be one of the authors but guess he would have said
>> something.
> 
> I can write better than them any day of the week, though I admit I am
> not sure I can write a novel that is as funny as theirs! Jokes apart,
> they are a very successful bunch of writers who hide behind that
> collective name. They have written lots of novels, either under the
> LB denomination or as Wu Ming (sometime the members of the collective
> publish individual works, but in order to exploit the popularity of
> the brand name they sign the novel as Wu Ming 5 or Wu Ming 4).
> 
>> The novel, which deals with event surrounding the Reformation in Germany
>> and Holland, is even longer than Gravity's Rainbow but a very easy read. A
>> lot of fun.
> 
> One of the members of the LB collective has openly said that his
> model is Emilio Salgari, probably our best adventure novelist. He was
> an Edgar R. Burroughs with a political consciousness and better
> researching abilities. His most famous character, Sandokan, is a
> Malay pirate prince who fights against British colonial domination.
> Salgari wrote no-global stuff well before anybody dreamed of it. He
> worked at the end of the XIX century and committed suicide when he
> was still quite young. LB produce well-researched adventure novel
> with a very fast pace, which hide more or less overt allegories of
> today's political situation. Q, whose title is obviously a hommage to
> TRP, tells the story of the ill-fated Anabaptist revolution in
> Muenster, led by theologian and revolutionary thinker Thomas Muntzer.
> After the revolt has been drown in blood, Muentzer's companions
> escape and live undercover in many parts of 16th-century Europe,
> hunted by this Brock-Vond like secret agent whose name is Q., who
> works for the reactionary Catholic powers (his employer, cardinal
> Carafa, was one of the most sordid figures in Italian history, but
> that's another story). I guess the story should hint at the sad
> destiny of (Italian) left after the Seventies and the Reaganian
> reaction.
> 
> Anyway, the LB/Wu Ming collective is Bologna-based and officially
> left-wing, I guess they consider themselves as quasi-Marxist
> intellectuals. I have never had the pleasure to meet them, but I
> guess they are shrewd cultural operators who have found a viable
> formula for commercial success. Sometime I find their anti-
> Americanism a bit excessive (see their SF novel Havana Glam), but I
> have to admit their books are good reads... obviously those who think
> Pynchon was a crypto-Reaganite might dislike their stuff.
> 
> umberto rossi
> ___________________
> 
> "A mulatto
> An albino
> A mosquito
> My libido"
> 
> 
> 
>