Georges Belmont Libri

Anthony Burgess' epic work revolves around a writer, Kenneth Marchal Toomey, and the man he is linked to through family ties, Carlo Campanati, an earthy Italian priest destined to become Pope. Toomey, now in his 80s recalls the past

Alex è un eroe dei nostri tempi: un teppista sempre pronto a tirar fuori il coltello, capo di una banda di duri che ogni sera, sui marciapiedi dei sobborghi, ripete il gioco della violenza: rapine, stupri, scassi, assalti ai negozi, scontri con altre bande. Finché Alex, che si interessa solo a Beethoven, viene tradito dai suoi amici durante una delle tante sue imprese. Le terapie di rieducazione, non meno violente, lo ridurranno a un'arancia meccanica, in balia delle sue antiche vittime, in una girandola di situazioni grottesche e paradossali. Con una testimonianza di Anthony Burgess e un'intervista a Stanley Kubrick che da questo romanzo ha tratto l'omonimo film.

Almost Transparent Blue is a brutal tale of lost youth in a Japanese port town close to an American military base. Murakami's image-intensive narrative paints a portrait of a group of friends locked in a destructive cycle of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. The novel is all but plotless, but the raw and often violent prose takes us on a rollercoaster ride through reality and hallucination, highs and lows, in which the characters and their experiences come vividly to life. Trapped in passivity, they gain neither passion nor pleasure from their adventures. Yet out of the alienation, boredom and underlying rage and grief emerges a strangely quiet and almost equally shocking beauty. Ryu Murakami's first novel, Almost Transparent Blue won the coveted Akutagawa Literary Prize in 1976 and became an instant bestseller. Representing a sharp and conscious turning away from the introspective trend of postwar Japanese literature, it polarized critics and public alike and soon attracted international attention as an alternative view of modern Japan.

J'accorde une haute valeur à mes expériences. Je ne sais si je suis arrivé à leur rendre pleinement justice. Tout ce que je puis dire, c'est que je n'ai pas épargné la peine pour que ce récit soit fidèle. Décrire la vérité, telle qu'elle m'est apparue, et de la façon exacte dont je l'ai atteinte, voilà quel a été mon effort incessant. A cet exercice mon esprit a puisé une paix ineffable ; car mon espoir bien-aimé a été que les hésitants retrouveraient ici foi en la Vérité et en l'Ahimsâ. L'uniformité de mon expérience m'a convaincu qu'il n'est d'autre Dieu que la Vérité. Gandhi