Trick

One nuance of the Italian language that I truly understand refers to expressing your age. Ho 58 anni. In the translation, "I have 58 years," not I am 58 years old." Starnone explores this with Daniele, the grandfather. He is not his 70 something years; he has the experience of having lived those years -- just as he is not just a grandfather but an individual. I love that Starnone reveals this very important concept through Daniele's thoughts -- yes, especially his thoughts, but also in his interactions with his grandson, Mario. I love that Starnone presents this man as the complex human being that all elderly people and all people as they age are - anxious at times, insecure, jealous, inspired, playful, giving no f*^%s, grief at the change in physical, mental, and personal landscapes, and rage. I also love the contradictions of Daniele, which makes us both awkward and comfortable as we take in Starnone's textual, sensory reels as they play out.Starnone also explores the child's mental terrain through Daniele's eyes. Every action creates a reaction. And the interactions between adult and child are honest and feel realistic, nothing sugary or forced though there is constant accommodation. Starnone can juggle a scene in the present while infusing the past, Daniele's own fears and reflections, and still keep all the balls in the air without creating a chaotic mess. I also credit Lahiri's smooth and intuitive translation for that.I like the sketches and notes in the appendix but I haven't figured out why, yet.

Trick is set in a wintry November in Naples, Italy, over four days. Grandfather and grandson are marooned together in an apartment. Daniele Mallarico, a successful illustrator, now over 70 years, has reluctantly come from Milan to Naples, to his daughter Betta’s apartment, to look after her four-year-old son Mario for 72 hours, while she attends a conference.The grandfather has an obsession with his body; with its weakness, deterioration, and sluggishness after a minor surgical procedure. He reminisces about his youth. He does not like the dark. The grandson is a veritable bundle of energy, never static, always in motion. He is in his youth. He is not afraid of the dark.The novel is from the grandfather’s point of view. Mario is a precocious child – and yet innocent, playful, and, above all, unbearable. Daniele is protective and an anxious caregiver – and yet also mean and aggressive. And then Mario plays a trick on his grandfather.This is a battle of wits, a battle of minds, of two males at both ends of the age spectrum, at loggerheads with each other. It is a clever, well-paced novel with succint real-life dialogue, that is both enjoyable and thought-provoking. I loved it.

I LOVED "Ties"—"Trick" left me feeling stuck on the balcony yearning to be set free.Starnone's "Ties" was among my favorite books of 2017, so I was looking forward to the release of Jhumpa Lahiri's translation of "Trick"; however, this turned out to be starkly different both in its quality and ability to engage the reader. At times, I contemplated putting it down and revisiting it at a later date, but I continued to hope it might "turn a corner," but with the exception of a few enjoyable segments, it was an arduous journey from beginning to end. I was particularly disappointed, because this story has great potential and hidden underneath this novel's verbosity is a thread that could be a real gem: A telling of a relationship between a grandfather and his grandson, but also an exploration of one man's identity as he reflects on the life he has lived. Overall, I was disappointed—yet, I do find myself contemplating the fascinating back and forth that ensued between the grandfather and his grandson, Mario. There are lessons and nuggets of beauty in this novel, but you'll need to put in more effort than prospectors searching for gold during the California Gold Rush.

I liked it, but felt it wasn't as strong a story as TIES, a novel I very much liked. The four year old didn't quite work for me, especially his supposedly brilliant drawing. And the old dude seemed more of an idea than an old dude and I am an old dude and not an idea and no whereof I speak. Ideas in general seemed to be a little bit of a problem with this novel, but then it was bouncing off a James' story and I guess that's not surprising.

Starnone is fairly new to English-language readers, and is a delight to discover. This claustrophobic little novel takes place over 4 days and also several generations. It's a beautiful elegy of age and youth, and the foibles of both.

Trick tricks you into cautious optimism.despite the grumpy, frightened tone , ‚grandpa‘ is original.authentic and memorable even, I’m sure, to his compulsive brave little grandson. I was filled with a strange, renewed vigor when I completed the book. One thing - the ending was unnecessarily enigmatic to my taste.

I prefer Europa editions to any other paperback.

I wasn't a fan of Starnone's last novel Ties and didn't find much to rave about in this one either... He may be married to Elena Ferrante but he doesn't hold her talent for storytelling

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.

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

From what I had read about it, the plot of this novel sounded interesting; so I had downloaded it. I then found, from the long and scholarly Introduction by the translator, Jhumpa Lahiri, that “Trick” was heavily influenced by Henry James’ short story, “The Jolly Corner”; so I downloaded that also, and read it first – and found it quite incomprehensible (see my one-star review on Amazon). Would I have the same problems with this novel as I had with James’ story?No: the novel has a lucidity that is miles away from James’ convoluted prose, just occasionally drifting into Jamesian inner thoughts and images. The narrator is Daniele Mallarico, a 75-years-old and ailing widower, with declining abilities as an artist and book illustrator (he is currently at work illustrating an edition of James’ “The Jolly Corner”), living in Milan.He is asked by his daughter to come to his childhood home, a sixth floor flat in Naples, to look after his four-year-old grandson Mario, while his parents, both academics, are away for three days attending a conference in Sardinia. Reluctantly he agrees and arrives in Naples. The relationship between the disagreeable parents is extremely bad, and they separately complain bitterly about each other to Daniele; but the child is bright, and verbally and in other ways precocious (though he could not yet read).After the parents had left, Mario showed unbounded energy, constantly made his exhausted grandfather play with him, so that he is unable to work on his illustrations for the James story. Already during the first day, Mario became more and more undisciplined and hostile.Various incidents remind Daniele of his unhappy youth in that house. He had hated his father, and had had murderous thoughts. His family had wanted him to become a mechanic, while he had the talent and wish to become an artist. He had broken away at last, but was emotionally crippled. Later, in the dark, both in Milan and now back in the Naples apartment, he saw the ghosts of the people of his youth, mocking him. Since here there was an echo of James’ story, he thought of using these images for his illustrations, peopling the rooms he drew with Spencer Brydon (the main character in the James story) and with these ghosts. There is a dramatic scene when Daniele and Mario are painting side by side, Daniele on his illustrations – and the four-year-old Mario on an uncanny likeness of his old grandfather as a ghost. The sequel to this episode, and the effect it had on Daniele’s anyway waning belief in his art, are equally dramatic.The flat has a balcony thrust out over a void above the street below. It always scares Daniele, and it becomes the scene of a terrible trick Mario plays on him. This is followed by many horrifying pages in which the old man is reduced to a helpless child, utterly dependent on the wilful four-year-old: one cannot believe that the story will end well.The end of the novel is followed by an Appendix consisting of Daniele’s diary entries just before he goes to Naples and just after he has arrived there. They are accompanied by sketches which are difficult to read, at least on my Kindle. I found the Appendix not QUITE as obscure as James’ story, but is certainly the most Jamesian part of the book. It reflects on Daniele’s earlier life, on his art, and on how he was struggling to interpret James’ story in images. Lahiri’s Introduction comments on the significance of this Appendix; but it did nothing for me except causing regret that it was there at all. If it had not been there, I would have given the novel five stars. My apologies to aficionados of James: it is doubtlessly my fault that I cannot appreciate the man whom Colm Toibin calls “The Master”.

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.