Class

This is a novel about the irrelevance of a group of young hip and infinitely wealthy Milanese running between NY and Italy. But the novel struck me as irrelevant itself; the characters are largely uninteresting, the plot is thin. the representation of NY is laughable. I'm a great fan of post modern attempts to break down the structures of the novel, but Pacifico hasn't succeeded here. Too bad as I really like to follow what's going on in contemporary Italian lit.

I keep wishing there was a three and a half star rating. This was better than OK, but not really worth four stars. The story concerns upper class Italians in their twenties to around forty interacting with each other in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Rome. There is some excellent writing and the characters are interesting and convincing. The structure of the novel is not straightforward: is the narrator a ghost? How did she get this perspective? At some point the narrator and point of view change. Near the end we get a section composed of notes taken by another character. Some of it works and some of it doesn't. It's difficult to have a lot of sympathy for any of the spoiled, self-involved posers that most of these characters represent, but their interactions are amusing and some of the sex is comical if a little pathetic. A very mixed bag.

Superficial, nihilistic, totally uninteresting novel. I could not finish it.

A disappointing and twee read about stultifyingly boring people.

Surreal and observant, this book was a pleasant surprise. The end creeped me out a bit but all in all a solid novel.

Got this from the library. Don't judge me cuz I'm too poor to buy all the books I read.First off: DO NOT READ THE NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW.Further, "F" Dwight Garner for giving away such a large piece of the novel so early in his review. I understand that this is a literary novel, so the quality of the book has little to do with the plot or the devices thereof, but giving THAT away was dirty pool.I liked this book. The language is superb, the characters are easy to hate but difficult to dismiss. You'd loathe them and everything about them, if you didn't kinda sorta identify with them. This novel shines as a polyphonic novel, with shifting perspectives, motives and fist sized steam. The sex seems real, more a desperate cry of the achingly lonely than conquest or pleasure. These characters see sex as acceptance that they so desperately need, not pelt collection.

Maybe that was the point, but the novel wasn't enjoyable to read.