I didn't even get My Brilliant Friend in English. I bought it in Italian and reread the first two chapters alternately in Italian then English four times and suddenly I figured out what the authors was trying to say. But I didn't have the heart to keep going at A2... I'm hoping one of these choices might be a better match!! Thank you!
I'm a B1-B2 reader and I ran into those devilish "2nd Wall" issues you raise when I recently read "La briscola in cinque" by Marco Malvaldi. Slang, jokes, specialized vocabulary, a hair of tuscan dialect...oof! I almost gave up - set it aside for 6 months before finishing it - and despite my love of gialli, won't be reading another in that series any time soon. On the other hand I ripped through "Il Custode" by Niccolò Ammaniti because the writing was reasonably simple despite a complex theme.
How do you think "A ciascuno il suo" compares to "Una storia semplice" in terms of accessibility? I loved "Una storia semplice" but it was indeed slow reading.
Thank you so much, Diane. I think you meant the first wall in Malvaldi's case. It's a bit of a nightmare for a learner, due to the slang and Livornese dialect, as you correctly pointed out. It makes perfect sense to struggle with it. "A ciascuno il suo" is definitely more challenging than "Una storia semplice," so I wouldn't attempt it at this time. The first book by Sciascia you could try is "Il giorno della civetta." Not easy either, but the Sicilian substrate is spelled out more, so there's less of a second wall to climb. I'm not surprised "Il custode" worked. It has the simplest Italian of the ones you mentioned and doesn’t require reading between the lines.
Thanks, Antonio! yes, indeed correct, it was the first wall for Malvaldi. I'll give "Il giorno della civetta" a try, as I did love Sciascia's language and style.
I used to recommend Io non ho paura to my students when I was teaching for exactly these reasons, and I assigned parts of it a few times. At a slightly higher level, I liked to use some Ginzburg stories and even assigned one of her short novels once because I find her prose very direct and accessible (yet elegant!). I assigned a number of these other authors, too, in small amounts at varying levels.
This is such a useful list. Thank you! I’m halfway through Italo Calvino’s Le Cosmicomiche, but I realised it’s actually kind of hard to read science fiction when you’re learning, because you’re constantly second-guessing whether impossible things are actually happening, or you’re misunderstanding.
Have you read Matteo Melchiorre’s Il Duca? My book club is reading it, and I’ve ambitiously ordered it in Italian, but I’m wondering now where it falls on the scale.
Thank you very much, Sarah. "Ambitiously" is the right adverb. It's not an easy read: long, lots of rare words, plus heavy congiuntivo and passato remoto. It's the poster child of wall one. There are some wall two elements, but with "Il Duca" that's the far more manageable of the two. On the bright side, wall one is mechanical work. It will take real effort to decode, dictionary at hand, but you'll learn a lot from it.
I finished it today, with seven hours left till book club! I loved it, and think I understood a good 90%. The heavy repetition of synonyms was a huge plus in the end, and I appreciated the practice with tenses I haven't used much in everyday life. I ended up mostly just powering through and trying to get stuff from context, since half the time when I looked up words, it ended up being strange archaic or technical terms like "scree" that I didn't even know in English.
I was wondering if/when you would mention Il Gattopardo. When I started to read it a few years ago I got no further than the first page, beaten back not by a wall but by the first hurdle - who or what was Bendicò? Try as I might to discover his identity I was stumped and gave up.
I see now that I should have started by trying to climb an ant hill not Monte Rosa! So thank you for the suggestions for reading for those of us still in the foothills, I now see that I should start there, and not in the mountains.
Mi trovo da ridere che sto leggendo A ciascuno il suo al mio livelo. Riesco a capire a gran parte delle parole, ma non posso capire le parole non dette. Nonostante questo, mi trovo questo libro molto piu facile da capire di Se una notte d'Inverno un viaggatore.
"Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore" è difficile anche per gli italiani. "A ciascuno il suo" ha una storia che puoi seguire anche se ti perdi i dettagli culturali. Nel caso del libro di Calvino, il secondo muro è strutturale: è difficile da seguire anche se traduci le parole e le frasi correttamente. Quindi non hai neppure la soddisfazione di una comprensione imperfetta come con Sciascia.
I didn't even get My Brilliant Friend in English. I bought it in Italian and reread the first two chapters alternately in Italian then English four times and suddenly I figured out what the authors was trying to say. But I didn't have the heart to keep going at A2... I'm hoping one of these choices might be a better match!! Thank you!
Super helpful, thanks!
I'm a B1-B2 reader and I ran into those devilish "2nd Wall" issues you raise when I recently read "La briscola in cinque" by Marco Malvaldi. Slang, jokes, specialized vocabulary, a hair of tuscan dialect...oof! I almost gave up - set it aside for 6 months before finishing it - and despite my love of gialli, won't be reading another in that series any time soon. On the other hand I ripped through "Il Custode" by Niccolò Ammaniti because the writing was reasonably simple despite a complex theme.
How do you think "A ciascuno il suo" compares to "Una storia semplice" in terms of accessibility? I loved "Una storia semplice" but it was indeed slow reading.
Thank you so much, Diane. I think you meant the first wall in Malvaldi's case. It's a bit of a nightmare for a learner, due to the slang and Livornese dialect, as you correctly pointed out. It makes perfect sense to struggle with it. "A ciascuno il suo" is definitely more challenging than "Una storia semplice," so I wouldn't attempt it at this time. The first book by Sciascia you could try is "Il giorno della civetta." Not easy either, but the Sicilian substrate is spelled out more, so there's less of a second wall to climb. I'm not surprised "Il custode" worked. It has the simplest Italian of the ones you mentioned and doesn’t require reading between the lines.
Thanks, Antonio! yes, indeed correct, it was the first wall for Malvaldi. I'll give "Il giorno della civetta" a try, as I did love Sciascia's language and style.
I used to recommend Io non ho paura to my students when I was teaching for exactly these reasons, and I assigned parts of it a few times. At a slightly higher level, I liked to use some Ginzburg stories and even assigned one of her short novels once because I find her prose very direct and accessible (yet elegant!). I assigned a number of these other authors, too, in small amounts at varying levels.
She's definitely a great choice too.
This is such a useful list. Thank you! I’m halfway through Italo Calvino’s Le Cosmicomiche, but I realised it’s actually kind of hard to read science fiction when you’re learning, because you’re constantly second-guessing whether impossible things are actually happening, or you’re misunderstanding.
Have you read Matteo Melchiorre’s Il Duca? My book club is reading it, and I’ve ambitiously ordered it in Italian, but I’m wondering now where it falls on the scale.
Thank you very much, Sarah. "Ambitiously" is the right adverb. It's not an easy read: long, lots of rare words, plus heavy congiuntivo and passato remoto. It's the poster child of wall one. There are some wall two elements, but with "Il Duca" that's the far more manageable of the two. On the bright side, wall one is mechanical work. It will take real effort to decode, dictionary at hand, but you'll learn a lot from it.
I finished it today, with seven hours left till book club! I loved it, and think I understood a good 90%. The heavy repetition of synonyms was a huge plus in the end, and I appreciated the practice with tenses I haven't used much in everyday life. I ended up mostly just powering through and trying to get stuff from context, since half the time when I looked up words, it ended up being strange archaic or technical terms like "scree" that I didn't even know in English.
This is a great list, thank you.
Thank you very much, Sarah. 🙏
I was wondering if/when you would mention Il Gattopardo. When I started to read it a few years ago I got no further than the first page, beaten back not by a wall but by the first hurdle - who or what was Bendicò? Try as I might to discover his identity I was stumped and gave up.
I see now that I should have started by trying to climb an ant hill not Monte Rosa! So thank you for the suggestions for reading for those of us still in the foothills, I now see that I should start there, and not in the mountains.
Solid plan, Ann. Il Gattopardo can wait.
Mi trovo da ridere che sto leggendo A ciascuno il suo al mio livelo. Riesco a capire a gran parte delle parole, ma non posso capire le parole non dette. Nonostante questo, mi trovo questo libro molto piu facile da capire di Se una notte d'Inverno un viaggatore.
"Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore" è difficile anche per gli italiani. "A ciascuno il suo" ha una storia che puoi seguire anche se ti perdi i dettagli culturali. Nel caso del libro di Calvino, il secondo muro è strutturale: è difficile da seguire anche se traduci le parole e le frasi correttamente. Quindi non hai neppure la soddisfazione di una comprensione imperfetta come con Sciascia.