Big Brother

George Orwell: 1984

And another classic. Great, great read and a shame to have missed out on it up to now. Thanks to the very special person who brought it to my attention.

The novel is set against the background of a system of totalitarian one party rule, in a world where the remaining three mega-states, Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia are in a permanent state of war. While ostensibly communist, Oceania is organized into a three-class society consisting of members of the inner party, the outer party and the proletariat. Winston Smith works in the Ministry of Truth, where he is tasked to adjust historical newspaper articles in line with the ruling party's ever changing version of reality. Smith despises the party, but continues to participate in its rituals which permeate every aspect of daily life. As a first act of resistance, he acquires a notebook and a pencil and begins to write a diary. He also falls in love with Julia, a co-worker at the Ministry of Truth. Together, they establish themselves a hideout in one of the proletarian quarters of London. When they attempt to join the resistance, their entire newly created reality turns out to be a set-up by the secret police, whose agents had apparently surrounded Winston and Julia since they beginning. They are arrested, tortured, betray each other and are finally released, broken and awaiting certain death at the hands of the party.

Overall, a masterpiece. The novel convincingly portrays the darkness of living in a totalitarian regime. What I found most interesting is the importance that control over the public narrative has for any authoritarian system. Speaking alternative facts... Equally scary is the idea, well portrayed by Orwell, that totalitarianism also aims at dissolving the social relations that are integral to human nature, such as the relations between lovers or parents and children. Finally, what came as the biggest shock to me when reading the novel was the absolute futility of resistance; the secret thought police seems to have been on the tracks of Winston and Julia since the very beginning.

Random pop cultural reference:
Alternative facts. What else. 

Favorite quotes:
"War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength."

"And if all others accepted the lie which the party imposed- if all records told the same thing- then the lie passed into history and became truth."

"What could you see to attract you in a man like me? 'It was something in your face. I thought I'd take a chance. I'm good at spotting people who don't belong."

"He wondered vaguely whether in the abolished past it had been normal experience to lie in bed like this, in the cool of a summer evening, a man and a woman with no clothes on, making love when they chose, talking of what they chose, not feeling any compulsion to get up, simply lying there and listening to peaceful sounds outside."

"To hang on from day to day and from week to week, spinning out a present that had no future, seemed an unconquerable instinct, just as one's lungs will always draw the next breath so long as there is air available."

"When once you were in the grip of the Party, what you felt or did not feel, what you did or refrained from doing, made literally no difference. Whatever happened, you vanished, and neither you nor your actions were ever heard of again."

"There is no possibility that any perceptible change will ever happen within our own lifetime. We are the dead. Our only true life is in the future."

"Reality exists in the human mind and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the party which is collective and immortal."

"The command of the old despotisms was "Thou shalt not". The command of the totalitarians was "Thou shalt". Our command is "Thou art"."

Holy War

Thomas Hegghammer: Jihad in Saudi Arabia- Violence and Pan-Islamism since 1979

This book about the evolution of jihadism in Saudi Arabia represents social science at its best.

Hegghammer sets out to explain mobilization for Islamic activism in its jihadist variant in Saudi Arabia. The book applies a threefold analytical approach, distinguishing between macro-, meso and micro-level mechanisms that drove the development of jihadism in Saudi Arabia. The macro-level comprises international developments, Saudi domestic politics and the development of the Jihadist ideational landscape. At the meso-level, Hegghammer focuses on jihadist entrepreneurs and their strategies for mobilization. Finally, in his investigation of the micro-level drivers of jihadist mobilization, Hegghammer examines individual combatant's socio-economic profiles and motivations.The three levels of analysis are, in turn, applied to the three stages of Saudi jihadism: A first phase from mid-1980s to mid-1990s saw the emergence of classical jihadism, a doctrine which developed out of "liberation" struggles in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya and argued that all Muslims had to fight against non-Muslim invaders of Muslim territory. A second phase saw the emergence of global jihadism under Bin Laden, who, argued for out of area mass casualty attacks against non-Muslim powers. In the third phase, Al Qaida in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) emerged in order to wage war against the Western presence in Saudi Arabia.

Classicial Jihadism 
A first chapter investigates the macro-level mechanisms behind the spread of classical jihadism. A central factor was the rise of Pan-Islamism, i.e. the idea of Muslims as one people. During the 1970s and 1980s, Saudi King Faisal promoted pan-Islamism in an attempt to shore up the domestic legitimacy of the Saudi monarchy during a times of Iranian challenge and sinking oil prices. The Muslim World League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, both organizations created as Saudi initiatives, assumed central roles in furthering the pan-Islamic cause. Pan-Islamism also increasingly assumed a security dimension in the late 70s and 80s, triggered by the increase in conflicts in Muslim countries.
Chapter 2 moves to the meso level of classical jihadism. Hegghammer points to the importance of Abdallah Azzam's reformulation of Jihadist doctrine, which, based on the case of Afghanistan, redefined jihad in territorial struggles against non-Muslim invaders as a collective duty for all Muslims. During this period, an organizational blueprint to facilitate jihadism was developed in Afghanistan: The Services Bureau provided a separate infrastructure for Arab fighters and systematically worked with the media and through Muslim charities. A similar formula was later applied in Bosnia and Chechnya.
Chapter 3 investigates the micro dimension of classical jihadism, i.e. the question of who got recruited for what reason to join the jihad in Afghanistan, Bosnia, or Chechnya. Hegghammer's central finding is that neither socio-economic indicators nor ideology were good predictors for why individuals decided to join, but rather friendship, kinship ties and the social experience of joining jihad.

Global Jihadism
Chapter 4 investigates the opportunity structure for global jihadism between 1996 and 2001. A central precursor for the radicalization of the Saudi Islamist scene was the oppression of the Sahwa movement in the early 1990s. The Sahwa is a non-violent reformist movement merging Wahhabist ideology with the ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood. Saudi state oppression of the Sahwa led to the loss of a part of the clergy which could rein in the more radical jihadist elements, The vacuum  was partially filled by the al-Shu'yabi school of clerics, who increasingly provided Wahhabi religious legitimacy for jihadist activism. Moreover, repression of the Sahwa also convinced Jihadists of the futility of non-violent protest, and ultimately resulted in the 1995 Ryadh bombing against US military contractors. The Saudi state enhanced, but also inconsistent repression, which followed the attack only furthered the radicalization of a generation of militants. All this took place against the opportunity structure offered by international conflicts in Kosovo, Cechnya, the Palestinian intifada, and increasing tensions between the Taliban and the West.
Chapter 5 examines the meso-level of Al Quaida's development in Saudi Arabia. The doctrine of global jihadism as formulated by Osama Bin Laden foresaw global warfare against the "far enemy" (the United States). Hegghammer argues that in spite of this doctrine being much more controversial than classical jihadism, Bin Laden still managed to aquire military capabilities out of proportion to his actual support base in Saudi Arabia. The central factor were safe havens in Afghanistan, allowing Al Quaida to provide its recruits professional military training.
Turning to the micro-level once more, Hegghammer examines in Chapter 6  the motivations among Saudis that joined the jihad in Afghanistan in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Recruitment in Saudi Arabia at that time had to be done mostly underground, which increased the importance of gatekeepers, individuals in Saudi Arabia who could provide a link to Al Qaida in Afghanistan. This function was taken over by private recruiters, religious study groups, and sheiks. Individual motives for joining during this period remained diverse, ranging from religious reasons to the quest for adventure.

Post 9/11 Jihadism.
Chapter 7 details the macro-level mechanisms which drove the mobilization and recruitment for Al Qaida in the Arab Peninsula. After the 09/ 11 attacks, pan-Islamist sentiment reached new heights, motivated by perceived symbols of Muslim suffering in Afghanistan, Yemen and Guantanamo. The al-Shu'yabi school of clerics (including notably Nasir al-Fahd and al-Khudayir) also proved to be a central factor in recruitment and mobilization for AQAP. Those clerics did so directly, by religiously justifying the killing of Westerners in Saudi Arabia and of Saudi Security Forces, but also indirectly, by driving the Saudi Security Forces to adopt a more confrontational stance against AQAP.
Chapter 8 investigates the meso or organizational level.of AQAP activities in Saudi Arabia after 2001. For AQ, having been evicted from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia became more attractive as a theater of operations and less useful as a source of money and recruits. Bin Laden thus saw the time to have come to begin the campaign against the foreign presence in Saudi Arabia, sending two major terrorist networks into action. While the al-Nashiri network was largely dismantled by Saudi counter-terrorism efforts, the al-Ayeri network was able to engage in a strategy of systematic organization-building. Hegghammer describes the network's information and propaganda efforts, an infrastructure for recruitment, a training infrastructure, weapons, money and safe houses. AQAP, or mostly the al-Ayeri network, finally launched its campaign in spring 2013.
Chapter 9 investigates the biographies of people involved in the AQAP campaign between 2002 and 2006, taking the analysis once more to the micro-level of terrorist recruitment. A clear common denominator of most Saudi jihadis during this period was the shared Afghan experience which also explained their problems to reintegrate into Saudi society. As for their motivations for joining, anti-Americanism played a more important role than for previous generations of Jihadists, but comradeship, revenge and fear of security forces also figured prominently. Hegghammer outlines three mechanisms which brought Saudis into AQAP: persuasion- AQAP activists persuading others to join in, incrimination- people becoming unknowingly incriminated through their association with AQAP members- and protection- people joining in search of protection from the police.
Chapter 10 deals with the petering out of the AQAP campaign after 2010, essentially identifying 3 different factors:  the effectiveness of Saudi counter-terrorism, the lack of popular support, and the popular appeal of joining a classical jihad in Iraq rather than fighting in the Saudi homeland. Regarding Saudi counter-terrorism, Hegghammer describes the complete overhaul of the Saudi counter-terrorism apparatus, the circumscription of AQAP's resources, the creation of exit options for militants, and a religious propaganda campaign directed at the hearts and minds of the Saudi Islamist community.

Overall, area studies meets social science at its best. Hegghammer manages to combine a rigorous conceptual framework with well-researched evidence on jihadism in the Arab peninsula, based on primary sources. Plus, the whole book at points almost reads like a thriller. Highly recommended.

When a man loves a woman

Haruki Murakami: Men without Women

A collection of short stories. About, well, men without women. The German translation is already available, the English one out in May 2017. Great stuff.

• Kafaku, a widowed actor, has lost his driver's licence and is relying on a young female driver, Misaki. He begins telling how he started meeting his deceased wife's lover to talk about his late spouse.

• Kitaru, a young Japanese studying to be admitted to university, asks his friend Tanimura to take out his long-term girlfriend Erika for a date. On the date, Erika explains the problem of being together with somebody one has known all life long. A couple of weeks later, Kitaru disappears. Sixteen years later, Erika and Tanimura meet again. It turns out Kitaru left Tokyo and later Japan after Erika had had an affair with another man.

• Dr. Tokai, a middle-aged succesful plastic surgeon and happy bachelor, has been together with dozens of women, but never with a serious intention to get married. When he finally falls in love with a woman, this sets in motion a process of physical and psychological decline.

• For reasons that are not discussed, Habara is unable to leave the house he is staying in. His only contact to the outside world is a nurse, Scheherazade, who regularly comes to visit him, sleeps with him, and tells him stories.

• Kino, freshly separated from his wife, takes over an aunt's cafe and turns it into a bar. After a couple of surreal events, he temporarily closes the bar and heads for a journey in search of himself through various Japanese cities.

• In a short story clearly inspired by Franz Kafka, a man wakes up in bed barely capable of moving, having been turned into "Gregor Samsa". He finds himself on his own in a large house in a city that seems to be a war zone. A camel-backed woman comes by to repair a defunct lock. Samsa discovers the new emotion of being attracted by the woman.

• A  final short story turns around a man reflecting on a former girlfriend after receiving a phone call informing that the latter has committed suicide.

A great collection, covering the entire range of Murakami's story-telling, from realist (think Norwegian Wood) to surrealist (think Wind-Up Bird Chronicle). Told in his typically minimalist language, Murakami once more succeeds in creating the magic characteristic of his work. 

Random movie reference.

Men without women.... Steeeeella.

Favorite quotes:

Will leave that one to the translator.

How to make a state. Or not.

Francis Fukuyama: Political Order and Political Decay

The second volume of Fukuyama's magisterial work on political development, this time covering the time period since the French revolution. Must read, even though it is slightly weaker than the first volume.

Fukuyama sets out to provide an update to Samuel Huntington's Political Order in Changing Societies. Huntington argued against modernization theory by making the case that different dimensions of development do not necessarily go together. On the contrary, social mobilization resulting from economic modernization may cause new political demands which cannot be accommodated by the political institutions in place. Disorder and violent conflict may be the result.

In the Origins of Political Order, Fukuyama introduced four dimensions of development: social mobilization; economic development; the development of ideas about legitimacy; and political development. Political development, in turn, includes state-building, the rule of law, and democratic accountability. As for state-building, humankind has seen a transition from band-level societies (based on genetic relatives) over tribal societies (based on shared ancestry) to state-based societies. A central step towards modern states is the transition from a patrimonial system- where friends and relatives of the ruler staff important offices- to impersonal bureaucratic rule. The central obstacle to building modern states are the natural human tendencies for kin selection (altruism increases in proportion to the number of genes shared) and reciprocal altruism (the exchange of favors between non-related individuals). The second dimension of political development, the rule of law, has its origins in religious institutions which were charged with interpreting religious texts and were independent of the state. Finally, Origins of Political Order demonstrates how democratic accountability arose (in Europe) out of the conflict between the monarch and the estates.

The first part of Political Order and Political Decay is devoted to state-building (1). Historically, patrimonalism has been overcome in one of two ways: military competition increasing the need for tax revenue which leads to the professionalization of the bureaucracy; or reform coalitions pushing for efficient and un-corrupt administrations. Fukuyama conducts several case studies of state-building. Democratization before the establishment of a strong administration led to pervasive clientelism in Greece, Italy, Britain and the U.S., while the establishment of a modern bureaucracy by a strong authoritarian state, driven by military competition, proved enduring in Prussia/ Germany. Coalitions which ultimately reformed clientelistic states emerged in UK and the US, but not in the low-trust societies of Greece and Southern Italy (2).

In a separate chapter, Fukuyama goes on to establish the distinction between state-building with its focus on tangible institutions from nation-building focused on creation of a sense of national identity. Nation-building is usually achieved through one of four processes: moving borders to fit national identities; moving or eliminating populations to create homogeneous political units; cultural assimilation of identities into the dominant national culture; and adjusting national identities to fit political realities.

The second part of the book deals with political development in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Existing theories of political development point to climate, geography, population density, and different experiences with colonialization as explanatory factors. Higher population densities spur specialization and technological progress, which in turn sets the ground for the development of modern states. Inhabitable flat and open land allows states to project military power and establish a monopoly of force; geographic circumscription prevents tribal units from simply moving away from a centralized political authority exerting pressure on them. Hospitable climates allow for colonial settlement and state-building rather than merely extractive rule. Fukuyama draws upon these theories and shows how the different factors interacted in driving political development on the three continents (3).

Part 3 of the book discusses the origins and spread of democracy. Fukuyama, drawing upon the works of Karl Marx and Barrington Moore "Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy", focusses on economic development and social mobilization as the major explanatory factors. Historically, democracy emerged where a growing middle class displaced an old order dominated by landowners and the peasantry. Democratic consolidation in turn, depends on the positioning of the middle class, which often turns against democratic institutions when it feels threatened by the working class or poorer segments of the population demanding redistribution.

In part 4, Fukuyama deals with the decay of political institutions. Decay usually constitutes a failure to adapt institutions to new circumstances. It occurs in the form of “repatrimonialization” with insiders capturing previously impersonal state institutions, as the natural human tendencies of kin selection and reciprocal altruism come to the fore once more. It can be the result of the cognitive rigidity of elites or of their lacking interest in change. Change can be blocked by elites due to their superior access to resources and information.  

Fukuyama focusses his empirical discussion of political decay on the U.S. The central problem identified by Fukyama is the lack of legislative coherence. Administrative decision-making my either be excessively constrained, or there may be too generous delegations of authority. Fukuyama points to a variety of drivers. First, functions which are handled by administrative bureaucracies in other countries are increasingly taken over by the courts in the US. This leads to costly litigation, slow decision-making and inconsistent law enforcement. Second, Fukuyama argues that interest group influence on Congress has become excessive. This in turn, leads to Congress designing complex and often contradictory mandates for administrative agencies. Third, the US system of checks and balances brings a significant number of veto players with it, providing interest groups with multiple avenues of influence.

Overall, Origins of Political Order and Political Order and Political Decay should be must-read for anybody interested in politics or the development of political institutions. The wealth of empirical material covered in this opus magnum is nothing less than impressive. On the theoretical side, Fukuyama stands be commended for avoiding a mono-causal approach in explaining political development. Instead the careful consideration of path dependence and the interaction of various explanatory factors stand out. This contrasts nicely with for instance Acemoglou and Robinson’s attempt in Why Nations Fail to attribute economic development to a single political variable, the inclusiveness of a countries’ political institutions.

Still, the second volume did not convince me as much as the first one did. While Fukuyama provides great insights on state and nation-building since the French revolution, Political Decay has much less to say on the development of the rule of law and political accountability. Moreover, the book's treatment of political decay struck me as unexpectedly weak. Above all, Fukuyama does not employ a consistent definition and measurement of what he means by political decay. The conceptualization of decay as the repatrimonialization of political institutions which Fukuyama introduces in the beginning of Part 4 does not really feature in his case study of  the United States. Instead, he seems to define political decay as different parts of the U.S. administration having either too much or too little autonomy due to complex legislative mandates. Moreover, as Fukuyama does not offer an empirical measure of the kind of political decay he is interested in, it remains unclear to what degree the US system is really in a state of decay, both from a temporal and from a cross-national perspective.

Nevertheless, in spite of these quips, the book remains an absolute must-read. Moreover, both volumes are also so rich when it comes to theoretical concepts about political development that there is hope that they will inspire a lot of empirical research in the years to come.

Random movie reference:
Political decay and the Simpsons...

(1)   In order to be able to better understand obstacles towards state-building, Fukuyama introduces the concepts of corruption, rents, patronage and clientelism. Corruption is defined as the appropriation of public resources for private gains; Rents as the difference between production costs and a good's price; patronage as the reciprocal exchange between individuals of different status/ power; clientelism as the large-scale exchange of favors and individualized benefits (e.g. public good, public sector jobs) for votes through political machines.

(2)  With full male suffrage in 1864, Greece became one of the first full electoral democracies in Europe. However, a capable state had not been established at this point. This led to a clientelistic system of government. A variety of factors prevented the emergence of a reformist coalition. First, Greece has a tradition of foreign influence and colonialization, which has led to enormous distrust of government. Greek society is consequently focused on kinship ties rather than reforming the state. Moreover, economic modernization in Greece occurred largely without industrial development. While urbanization took place, it consequently just transplanted the patron client relationships that were prevalent in rural areas into an urban context. State employment distributed by political patrons came to be a major source of income for the new urban population, who consequently did not develop an interest to disrupt the status quo.

      Clientelism also remains pervasive in Southern Italy. Like Greece, Southern Italy also witnessed modernization without industrialization; the newly emergent middle class was mainly keen on joining the land-owning oligarchy rather than creating a reformist coalition. A low-trust society has perpetuated itself in Southern Italy, which has been promoted by the rise of organized crime performing certain state functions.

      In the UK, administrative reform was driven by the 1854 report of the Northcote-      Trevelayn commission to parliament which proposed, among others, merit based recruitment and the splitting of clerical duties from higher administrative functions. The report had been driven by the demands of intellectuals and the media in the aftermath of Crimean war. The relatively swift implementation of the report’s was facilitated by the low number of veto players in a Westminster system of government.

      In the U.S. the dismantling of a clientelistic system of party government and the establishment of a professional bureaucracy process was a slower process which took place between 1880 and the 1920s. The roots of administrative reform lie in the 1883 Pendleton Act, which established a (“classified”) merit-based part in the administration, where positions were no longer the prerogative of parties or congress. Driving factors in this process of administrative reform were middle class and business interests, social reformers, and the Republican Party. 

(3)  In Latin America, pre-existing state institutions were eradicated by the Spanish and the Portuguese and supplanted by oligarchic, class-based governments exploiting indigenous labor. The colonizers did not leave a legacy of strong institutions, as geography made military power projection difficult, population densities were not high enough to support the building of powerful states, and economic surpluses in the colonies were not reinvested but exported home. This left a legacy of highly unequal societies and sharp polarization. Moreover, the newly created Latin American states largely lacked national identities based on a joint language or shared ethnicity. From the 19^th century on, the newly independent Latin American states did not experience events akin to the French revolution or the intense interstate warfare which facilitated state and nation-building in Europe. Instead, most states in Latin America were marred by internal conflicts reflecting social divisions and inviting continued interventions by external powers.

Sub-Saharan Africa had not yet made the transition from tribal to state-level societies when encountering Western colonizers in the 19^th century. This lack of strong state-societies can be explained by low population densities, the lack of inhabitable and open, but at the same time geographically conscribed land, and the often inhospitable climate. As a result, the European powers colonizing Africa relied on indirect rule through local proxies instead of building modern state institutions. Moreover, national identity remained weak with the European mainly replacing tribalism with ethnicity rather than engaging in nation-building. The result were neopatrimonial regimes whose defining features are personalism centered around a president or “big man”, pervasive clientelism, and weak state institutions

Fukuyama’s discussion of political development in East Asia focuses on China and Japan. Both countries already had strong state institutions and national identities before their encounters with the Western world. Leaders, often influenced by Confucian ideals, could thus draw upon strong bureaucracies to modernize their countries’ economies. A difference between East Asian and in East Asia that the development of strong state institutions preceded the establishment rule of law, which resulted in a state-society balance tilted very much towards the state. Unlike in other parts of the world, the major political issue in Asia has thus not been state weakness, but how to restrain states.

Girls, Girls, Girls

Elena Ferrante: The Story of a New Name

Part 2 of Ferrante's quadrology (as for my review of Part 1)... pure rock'n roll it is. Spoilers ahead.

The story begins at Lila's wedding with Stefano Carraci, right where the first book ended. Already during their honeymoon, Lila and Stefano descend into a cycle of provokation and abuse. After a while, however, Lila learns how to manage her violent husband and seems to be settling (or resigning) into the new circumstances. She gets pregnant but loses the baby.
Elena and her neighborhood boyfriend Antonio Cappucio break up, apparently due to to his upcoming military service but mostly due to Elena's continuing affection for Nino Sarratore. At school, Elena is being intellectually promoted by her teacher, Professor Gailani, whose daughter is dating Nino. Elena and Lila have their first longer term fallout after a party at Professor Gailani's place, where Elena moves elegantly in new intellectual circles, while Lila feels awkwardly left out (and jealous of Elena).
They reconcile and decide to spend summer holidays together in Ischia. The stay proves to be a decisive turning point for the two womens' story. Elena's secret intention behind the holidays is to be close to Nino, who is also in Ischia. In what is one of the most gripping parts of the novel, we see the slow unfolding of an affair between Lila and Nino. Elena, visibly under shock, reacts by spending a night with Nino's father. Another prolonged break ensues between Elena and Lila.
Elena gets accepted into university at Pisa, while Nino and Lila continue their affair. After running away from Stefano for a couple of weeks, Nino breaks up with Lila and she returns, pregnant, to her husband. In the coming years, Lila is all focused on raising her son Gennaro. At the same time, Stefano begins an affair with the sales clerk in his family's grocery.
The story ends with Lila running off with her long-term admirer, Enzo Scanno, and her son Gennaro. In order to make ends meet, Lila takes up work in a meat factory. While Lila and Enzo are not romantically involved, they seem to form an increasingly deep bond, united in studying together late at night. In the end of the story, Elena gets her first novel published, starting a promising literary career.

"My brilliant friend" was already a great read, but, in retrospect, it was no comparison to the second part of the Naples novels. The story really picks up pace, especially after Lila and Nino begin their affair in Ischia. As said before, Ferrante provides one of the best depictions of friendship and the lives of young adult's in all their complexity. The innocence that was still somehow there in Part 1 is lost. To use a concept introduced by Lila, the margins of the characters are "dissolving" in a microcosm of adultery, rivalry and violence. All this takes place against the contemporary social habits and politics of 1960's Italy which Ferrante so brilliantly depicts ... overall, nothing less than amazing. 

Random movie reference:
Difficult one. The whole dynamic between Elena, Lila and Nino kind of remotely reminded me of Noodles, Max and Deborah in Once Upon a Time in America. 

Favorite quotes: 
"I understood only later that I can be quietly unhappy, because I am incapable of violent reactions. I fear them, I prefer to be still, cultivating resentment. Not Lila." (Elena)

"I got low marks in chemistry, art history, and philosophy, and my nerves were so frayed that right after the last bad grade I burst into tears in front of everyone. It was a horrible moment: I felt the horror and pleasure of losing myself, the fear and the pride in going off the rails." (Elena)

"I started to borrow novels from the circulating library, and read one after the other. But in the long run they didn't help. They presented intense lives, profound conversations, a phantom reality more appealing than my real life." (Elena)

"Even if you are better than me, even if you know more things, don't leave me." (Lina to Elena)

"She had felt the need to humiliate me in order to better endure her own humiliation." (Elena about Lina after the party at Professor Gailani's which led to their fall-out)

"She was born like that, she could have learned the art of engraving merely by studying the gestures of a goldsmith, and then be able to work the gold better than he." (Elena about Lina)

"Neither she nor I would ever have him. But both of us, for the entire time of the vacation, could gain his attention, she as the object of a passion with no future, I as the wise counselor who kept under control both his folly and hers. I consoled myself with that hypothesis of centrality." (Elena about Lila when Lila's affair with Nino is about to begin)

"The more Lina is surrounded by affection and admiration, the crueler she can become. She's always been like that." (Elena to Nino about Lila)

"Naples had been very useful in Pisa, but Pisa was no use in Naples, it was an obstacle. Good manners, cultured voice and appearance, the crush in my head and on my tongue of what I had learned in books were all immediate signs of weakness that made me a secure prey, one of those who don't struggle." (Elena about her return to Naples)

"I understood that ... I had made the whole journey mainly to show her what she had lost and what I had won. But... she was explaining to me that I had won nothing, that in the world there is nothing to win, that her life was full of varied and foolish adventures as much as mine, and that time simply slipped away without any meaning, and it was good just to see each other so often to hear the mad sound of the brain of one echo in the mad sound of the brain of the other." (Elena about her meeting with Lina in the end of the book)

Männer

David Szalay: All That Man Is

Made the Man Booker shortlist this year. A good read. Szalay presents short stories that revolve around men at different stages of their lives:

• Two young Brits travelling through Europe on interrail. While in Prague, one of them ends spending the night with the married owner of the apartment they are staying at.
• A young unemployed Frenchman on holidays in Cyprus where he meets meets a massively obese British mother and daughter couple.
• A Hungarian former soldier who falls in love with the prostitute he protects in London.
• A Belgian professor on a road trip through Germany. His young girlfriend has just discovered she is pregnant.
• A Danish journalist who visits his country's minister of defense on holidays in Spain to confront the latter about an affair he has had.
• A married British real estate developer who, while on a business trip to Switzerland, is being hit on by a younger colleague of his.
• A British pensioner who has emigrated to Croatia and whose life is thrown off balance when his only friend in town begins an affair with a younger woman.
• A Russian oligarch who is at the brink of financial ruin and whose wife is divorcing him. The oligarch heads for his yacht in the Aegean sea to commit suicide.
• A British retired civil servant at his holiday home in Italy who is looking back at his life while recovering from heart surgery and an accident .

Overall, definitely nice to read. Szalay's realism and attention to detail in describing the various scenarios is captivating. It is also fascinating to follow the nine men at different stages of their lives. Moreover, Szalay has written a truly European novel, whose settings span the entire continent. Still, while the short stories are really great, the book as whole didn't entirely click with me. One of the reasons may be that it remains unclear whether the book works as a novel or is better read as a loose collection of short stories.

Random movie association:

Still working on that one. But if the book needed a soundtrack, Grönemeyer would have provided it.

Favorite quotes:

"As he had been intent on enacting his own long-standing fantasy, so she had been enacting a fantasy of her own, in no way less elfish. Except that she was nineteen or twenty, and still entitled to selfishness- not having learned yet, how easily and lastingly people are hurt- and he was more than ten years older and ought to have understood that by now."

"That's the thing about fate, the way you only understand what your fate is when it's too late to do anything about it. That's why it is your fate- it's too late to do anything about it."

'Tell me ... have you got a hobby?' 'A hobby? ... No' He has never had a hobby- in his Who's Who entry, he had listed 'interests' as 'wealth' and 'power'.

"Slowly they made their peace with the place, until they felt a kind of love for it. You learn to love what's there, not what's not there. How can you live, otherwise?"

"Amemus eterna et non peritura. Amemus- Let us love. Eterna- that which is eternal. Et non peritura- and not that which is transient." 

Girls just Wanna Have Fun

Elena Ferrante: My Brilliant Friend

This is the first part of Elena Ferrante's "quadrology" about the friendship between two Napolitan girls which spans multiple decades. A great, great read, and one of the best coming off age stories/ "Bildungsromane" I have read in recent years. I understand where the international hype around those books is coming from...

The story begins with the disappearance of Lila Cerullo, who has apparently realized her long-standing desire to escape from her life without leaving a trace. This event inspires her friend Elena Greco to tell "their" story, going back to the Napolitan neighborhood they both grew up in the 1950s.
Both girls come from simple backgrounds. Lila is the daughter of a shoemaker, Elena of a porter at the city hall. They start to bond when attending primary school. Even though Lila is the academically more successful, it is only Elena who gets to continue her education; Lila learns how to make shoes in her father and brother's shop. Lila gets increasingly sucked into the world of shoe-making, hoping to get rich through hand-made shoes designed by her and her brother Rino. At the same time, she keeps on studying with Elena, which, due to the ever-present rivalry between the two girls, pushes the latter to become an increasingly successful student.  
The love lives of the two girls become increasingly important in the later parts of the book. Marcello Solara, whose family owns a bar-pastry shop and maintains ties to organized crime, starts to pursue Lila, much to her disliking. In order to escape from Marcello, Lila turns towards Stefano Carraci, son of the late godfather of the neighborhood, but now seemingly making a decent living in his family's grocery store. Elena, in turn, is in love with the Nino, the son of Donato Sarratore, a railroad worker, poet and womanizer. Elena is especially attracted by Nino's intellectual side and the fact that he seems to have developed beyond the confines of their neighborhood. However, apart from a kiss during a holiday, nothing happens between the two. Ever jealous of Lila and her relationship with Stefano, Elena takes Antonio Cappucio, a local mechanic, as her boyfriend. Without providing too many spoilers, the story finishes with Lila and Stefano's wedding, which turns out to run different than anticipated....

The book provides a colorful depiction of the Napolitan neighborhood the two girls grow up in, to include the various families that live in it. It also offers great insights into the social conventions of the time, with for instance Lila only being able to escape the advances of Marcello Solara by getting married to somebody else. Admittedly, I am no expert on female friendships. Still, Ferrante delivers what is probably one of the most interesting depictions of friendship- in all its complexity- I have ever read. Lila and Elena are not only best friends for each other, but also rivals, role models (especially Lila to Elena) and surrogates allowing one to live the life she herself cannot have (Elena to Lina). Nothing less than impressive.

Random movie reference:
Something from the godfather. Raising the question of whether we can ever get over our heritage..

Favorite quotes:
"The thing was happening to her that she later called dissolving margins. It was- she told me- as if, on the night of a full moon over the sea, the intense black mass of a storm advanced across the sky, swallowing every light, eroding the circumference of the moon's circle and disfiguring the shining disk, reducing it to its true nature of rough insensate material." (Elena about Lila's idea of "dissolving margins")

"I was afraid of what was happening to her, good or bad in my absence. It was an old fear, a fear that has never left me: the fear that, in losing pieces of her life, mine lost intensity and importance." (Elena about Lina not writing during her holidays)

"Out of vanity he would hurt anyone and never feel responsible. Since he is convinced that he makes everybody happy, he thinks that everything is forgiven him." (Nino about her father).

"Nino has something that's eating him inside, like Lila, and it's a gift and a suffering; they aren't content, they never give in, they fear what is happening around them." (Elena about Nino)

"The beauty of mind that Cerullo had from childhood didn't find an outlet, Greco, and it has all ended up in her face, in her breasts, in her thighs, in her ass, places where it soon fades and it will be as if she had never had it." (Their former teacher about Lila)

"But now I felt good and I wanted to feel even better. When Antonio, guessing that I was in the right mood, asked if I wanted to be his girlfriend, I said yes right away, even though I loved someone else, even if I felt for him nothing but some friendliness." (Elena about her boyfriend Antonio)

"It had been very energizing to win praise from those who seemed to me better ... taking sides against those who seemed to me worse ... and yet to behave toward the adversaries in such a way as not to lose their friendship and respect." (Elena)

"I thought how contradictory she was, without realizing it, with her rages, with those imperious gestures. She hadn't wanted me to go to school, but now that I was going to school she considered me better than the boys I had grown up with, and she understood, as I myself did, that my place was not among them." (Elena about Lina)

"Yes, you're right, I don't know what I am and what I really want, I use you and then I throw you away, but it's not my fault, I feel half and half, forgive me." (Elena about her feelings towards Antonio)