レビュー要約

• 紹介や批評では、短い室内劇のような構成のなかで、祖父と孫の駆け引きが老いと創作の不安へ広がる点が評価されている。軽い悪戯の題名に反して、感情の層は濃い。

• 書店紹介では、普通の家族小説に収まらない緊張感と、ナポリの気配を背景にした心理劇としての魅力が強調されている。

レビュー

• Domenico Starnone, a sharp observer of family life, is always penetrating, never sentimental. In this short and tart tale, an aging man finds himself enmeshed in absurd combat with his precocious four year old grandson. His characters are not exactly likeable but they are, in the end, deeply sympathetic. Starnone is a plausible candidate for the pseudonymous Elena Ferrante, and this novel shows why.

• You can tell a masterful piece of writing by how true it rings, and the sound this novel makes is resoundingly true. Daniele is an aging illustrator, attempting to put together a series of pictures for a deluxe version of Henry James's short story 'The Jolly Corner'; but he is interrupted in his work by a summons from his daughter, Betta. She needs Daniele to look after four-year-old Mario while she and her jealous husband are away at a conference. The story explores the few days that Daniele and his grandson share. This book could have gone so wrong, in many ways - it could have split the narrative between Daniele and Mario, for instance, or it could have had both Daniele and Mario come out unnaturally enriched by the experience of their time together. But this is real literature, and if anything is learned, knowledge comes free of cliche. 'Trick' is translated by Jhumpa Lahiri, who has done an admirable job of keeping the prose tight yet also feather light. For a story that contains so many nods towards Henry James it is remarkably readable (I have yet to read a James novel to its conclusion, but 'Trick' took me two days in an otherwise busy schedule). I must makes special mention of Asymptote, a literary journal that specialises in works in translation; without them I would never have come across this magnificent book, and for that I am inordinately thankful.

• The narrator is in his seventies and goes from his home in Milan to Naples, his birthplace and where his daughter lives with her husband and child. "Grandpa" then has to care for little Mario, who is both angel and devil. The grandpa questions everything about his minor career success, his marriage before his wife passed, and his supposed escape from the many ghosts of his past. This book has all the power of Lolita, even as the questions faced are completely different in nature -- it will push you to ask similar questions about your own life, past, fidelity, and success or lack thereof.

• schnell & zuverlässig

• The first part of the book was interesting and real, but second part confounded me - it was almost a retelling? But lost me totally.

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