Rewritten by machine on new technology

The Bookageddon Challenge has activated my speed-reading gene. I have just finished reading Nino Ricci's The Book of Saints and am now plowing through a compulsively readable new SF novel.

So, Book of Saints. This is a slim novel, very quick and easy to read, but heavy in other ways. After I finished it I had to take a day or two to process it.

The story is told through the eyes of Vitto, a seven year old boy living in an isolated little village in Italy.  He lives with his mother and grandfather; his father has gone to America for work. Because the story is told by a seven year old, none of the adults' life stories are told in full detail; you just get what the boy sees, and what he imagines is going on, and you have to put it together from there.

This is a very traditional village, totally out of touch with the modern world (the 60s), without phone service, electricity or even decent roads to the next town.  Vitto's family enjoys a certain privilege, because his grandfather is the "mayor" of the village - in other words, the long-time head of the boys' club that makes decisions for the town. His status declines, however, due to the behaviour of his daughter, Vitto's mother.

Of course, Vitto can't really spell out for us what his mother is up to, but it's pretty easy to figure out, even before she turns up pregnant. You never really get the mother's point of view either, because of the very restrictive environment she lives in.  She never gets to express herself or explain her circumstances; you just see her getting angrier and angrier at the way the villagers are treating her, and you hope that she will find a way to escape ... then, finally, she does, and just as you're thinking, "Great! Now we will learn a bit more about this character!" Guess what? She dies. Surprise surprise.

This novel is the first in a trilogy, but I have to say I am not all that eager to move on to the next one in the series, largely because at the end of The Book of Saints, Vitto arrives in Canada as an immigrant, and it's a case of "been there, read that" in highschool and a hundred times since then. And also, to me the centre of the novel was not Vitto but his mother, and the rest of the series will of course be all about him and his epic struggles ... meh. Some other time.

Don't get me wrong, this was a very well written book. It's about a bunch of people in tragic circumstances, and Ricci makes you really feel the tragedy and the helplessness. The child as narrator bit is done beautifully - Vitto is not cloying or overwrought at all, but quite believable. The suspense is killer. (Of course, I've just ruined it for you all).

Happy reading!