Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Torino, Einaudi
Description
It's the night of the most decadent party of the century. A rags-to-riches real estate magnate has planned an over-the-top weekend safari for the who's-who of celebrities at his sprawling residence in Villa Ada - once a public park, now the largest private home in Rome. Starlets, politicians, soccer stars, and intellectuals all turn up to rub elbows. Among them is a neurotically charming author struggling to write his next literary tome and pining for renewed recognition. He crosses paths with The Wilde Beasts of Abaddon, a satanic sect planning to ruin the evening's festivities in order to go down in history as a world-famous cult. What was intended as the most spectacular fête of the year quickly descends into apocalyptic chaos.
User reviews
LibraryThing member mojacobs
This Italian bestseller has been translated in several languages. I've read it in Dutch.
Several storylines interlock - the troubles of a small band of Satanists, the escapades of a middle-aged writer and tv personality who's on the way down, a megalomanic millionaire who's organising the party of
The author kept me entertained and wondering all the time, and I finished the book in two sittings. This is not a "brain-candy" book. It's a wonderful extravaganza, an absurd story written with great skill. I think it deserves 5 stars.
Several storylines interlock - the troubles of a small band of Satanists, the escapades of a middle-aged writer and tv personality who's on the way down, a megalomanic millionaire who's organising the party of
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the title, an ex-Satanist female singer recently converted to Catholicism, and lots more. Ammaniti takes them all to a grand-guignol apotheosis.The author kept me entertained and wondering all the time, and I finished the book in two sittings. This is not a "brain-candy" book. It's a wonderful extravaganza, an absurd story written with great skill. I think it deserves 5 stars.
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LibraryThing member Lampedusa
Breathtaking audacity! I felt sorry for the satanists!
LibraryThing member Opinionated
Ammaniti is my favourite modern author and I look forward to each of his books, in translation, with great anticipation. In each of his 4 novels to date he has taken a similar approach - his protaganist is a teenage boy, forced into making adult decisions through the fecklessness of the adults who
But in this book Ammaniti abandons the teenage hero and lets rip full bore on the vacuity of celebrity
So what do we have? We have a rather ineffectual group of would be Satanists (or rather representatives of the underclass, desperate to make a name for themselves). We have Fabrizio Ciba, vacuous celebrity author with the intellectual depth of a puddle. We have Simona, the classic showgirl / model / actress. We have Larita, the bad girl singer gone good. And we have the mafioso turned successful businessman (Italian readers will no doubt recognise some charicatures here) throwing the most spectacular party of the year, in the worst possible taste
And Ammaniti really pulls out the stops, describing a Bacchanalian orgy of excess which eventually turns into a Boschian nightmare. Its extremely funny - but you can feel the author's pen dripping with contempt for his celebrity characters. The people at the bottom of society - such as the Satanists - are treated much more sympathetically
And then - a sour note. There is a frankly unbelievable subplot involving Russian athletes who claimed asylum following the Rome Olympics in 1960. This, frankly, does not work - and breaks the spell
Which is a shame. But for 240 pages this is still a brilliant work of satire - but ranks as an "entertainment" as Graham Greene would have it, vs some of his major works. I still think "I'll Steal You Away" is one of the literary masterpieces of the last 20 years. Read that first - then "As God Commands" then this. Its still better than 95% of other books this year - but it has its flaws
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are supposed to support him. Sometimes those decisions are the right ones - more often they go spectacularly wrong. And of course he is a remorselessly cruel satirist of the vacuity of celebrity and the hopelessness of the dreams of those at the bottom of society who would make it big.But in this book Ammaniti abandons the teenage hero and lets rip full bore on the vacuity of celebrity
So what do we have? We have a rather ineffectual group of would be Satanists (or rather representatives of the underclass, desperate to make a name for themselves). We have Fabrizio Ciba, vacuous celebrity author with the intellectual depth of a puddle. We have Simona, the classic showgirl / model / actress. We have Larita, the bad girl singer gone good. And we have the mafioso turned successful businessman (Italian readers will no doubt recognise some charicatures here) throwing the most spectacular party of the year, in the worst possible taste
And Ammaniti really pulls out the stops, describing a Bacchanalian orgy of excess which eventually turns into a Boschian nightmare. Its extremely funny - but you can feel the author's pen dripping with contempt for his celebrity characters. The people at the bottom of society - such as the Satanists - are treated much more sympathetically
And then - a sour note. There is a frankly unbelievable subplot involving Russian athletes who claimed asylum following the Rome Olympics in 1960. This, frankly, does not work - and breaks the spell
Which is a shame. But for 240 pages this is still a brilliant work of satire - but ranks as an "entertainment" as Graham Greene would have it, vs some of his major works. I still think "I'll Steal You Away" is one of the literary masterpieces of the last 20 years. Read that first - then "As God Commands" then this. Its still better than 95% of other books this year - but it has its flaws
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LibraryThing member bostonbibliophile
Reading Ammaniti is always a treat and this book was a really good time. A washed-up writer and a group of half-assed Satanists attend a bacchanalia thrown by a mafioso; toss in a pop singer with a heart of gold, a group of feral Russian Olympians and a zoo's worth of wild animals and buckle up. I
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kind of loved this strange, funny, sad book. Show Less
LibraryThing member JBarringer
There were a few spots where the translation seemed rather awkward, but otherwise this was a well paced and well written book. It seemed like a good representation of the modern Italian world, with its blend of high culture and chronic high unemployment. The wanna-be Satanic cult was hilarious, as
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was their fate, and I could see this as a fun book club selection. Show Less
Awards
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2015)
Language
Original language
Italian
Original publication date
2009 (original Italian)
2013 (English translation)
ISBN
9788806191016