City [Hardcover]

Alessandro Baricco (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 28, 2001

'CITY is an important title for me, because it expresses what this book has always been in my head. A city. No particular city. An impression of a city rather. Its skeleton. I thought of the stories I had in mind as if they were neighbourhoods. And I imagined characters as if they were streets...The characters - the streets - are many. There is a barber who on Thursdays cuts hair for no charge, there is a giant, and a mute. There is a boy called Gould, and a girl called Shatzy Shell. There are professors, people who play football, a black kid who plays basketball and never fails to score, and there's also a general.' Alessandro Baricco

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Baricco struggles to regain the magic that made Silk an international bestseller in this disappointing follow-up set in the U.S. and starring a precocious 13-year-old named Gould, who finds himself losing his childhood amid the demands of life as a mathematical genius. Left alone in the wake of a family meltdown that cost his mother her sanity, Gould turns to flighty, 30-ish Shatzy Shell, who becomes the boy's governess. Their friendship starts as an exchange of innocent fantasy stories, with Gould's consisting of a series of imagined fights involving a heroic boxer, while Shell chips in with her lifelong desire to make a Western. Baricco spends the bulk of the book exploring the effects of Gould's baroque academic life on his development. The climax involves a fellowship award allowing Gould to go to Europe to perform advanced research, but he buckles at the prospect of leaving his cloistered, quaint life and disappears, allowing Baricco to explore the boy's upbringing when his father arrives for an emergency visit. Baricco writes a few engaging, entertaining scenes, but he can't get the sparks to fly with his two protagonists, and the fantasy subplots used to explore their ambitions remain murky and lifeless. The author never delves into Gould's mathematical world, either, making his protagonist seem more like a helpless savant than someone with the intellectual capacity to dominate a complex field. This book has some touching moments, but as a novel it never quite comes together.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Baricco, author of the international best seller Silk, is what's the cliche? a writer's writer. Or, more accurately perhaps, he's an experimentalist's experimentalist. His latest novel features Gould, a 13-year-old genius bound to win the Nobel prize whose mental life revolves around a boxing tableau created and shared with two imaginary friends, a giant and a mute. Also prominent is Schatzy Shell, his thirtysomething attendant (his mother is "ill" and his military father absent), who is similarly absorbed by an imaginary Western she developed as a six year old. As the core of the book, these fixations are fascinating, and there's even some writing about boxing that makes similar efforts by Joyce Carol Oates look pale. Two self-absorbed characters may not make for a lot of plot, but plot isn't really the point with this genre. Like the best experimental novel of the 1990s, Stephen Dobyns's Wrestler's Cruel Study, Baricco uses the boxing ring as a moral framework and the comic strip as a frame of reference. City lacks Dobyns's verbal pyrotechnics, but it's still brilliant. That said, it would also leave the average library reader who chanced on it frustrated and confused. For large collections and academic libraries, especially those that support writing programs. Robert E. Brown, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, NY
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Hamish Hamilton; First Edition edition (June 28, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 024114101X
• ISBN-13: 978-0241141014
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,424,622 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If bank robbers go to jail, why do intellectuals roam free?, August 10, 2002

By 

Douglas Jenkins (Honolulu, currently) - See all my reviews

This review is from: City (Hardcover)

I made the mistake of holding off on reading this because the critics didn't seem to like it. But the criticisms are injust. It is more like Ocean Sea than it is like Silk. I would suggest that it is a little more mature than Ocean Sea. It is vast and surreal, yet cohesive and holds your attention. It is a wonderful book -- touching and funny and depressing, blah blah blah. Difficult to describe. But absolutely worth reading.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Follow Barrico on a splendid tour through his City, June 13, 2003

By 

Philippe Vandenbroeck (HEVERLEE, BELGIUM) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: City (Italian Edition) (Paperback)

Barrico's 'City' seems, in all its fragmented splendour, a thoroughly modern book. Yet, at the same time it casts a long glance back to the origins of the novel as a Western cultural invention, emulating the picaresque models of Cervantes and Rabelais, or the 'sentimental' journeys of Laurence Sterne. Barrico says he has conceived of the book as the plan of a (European) town, with its irregular, organically grown quarters, streets, buildings. Reading the book then amounts to an exploratory ramble through this city, with sudden twists and overlaps in the narrative as you turn a corner and an unexpected vista opens onto a different neighbourhood. It takes a few pages to get used to, but once one has adjusted to Barrico's pace, the experience becomes utterly engrossing. Barrico has real talent as a story teller; his prose has the directness and vivacity to keep you very involved.

It is difficult to say what this book is 'about'. Given the heterogeneous and evolving nature of a city it would be against the spirit of Baricco's undertaking to outline the see-it-all-in-one-hour tour. A few important themes that emerged from my reading - as the major arteries in this sprawling town - are the importance of personal authenticity and the nature of mentorship. Ultimately, the city becomes a metaphor for human life, which is also a crooked, haphazard affair with many unexpected twists and turns. But at each crossing, we are free to choose our direction, if we really want to. Even the predicament of being a 'genius' doesn't liberate one from making these tough choices, time and again. To understand why that is you'll need to read this book ...

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Although critics may find it disappointing...., June 21, 2002

By 

Mila (Glen Allen, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: City (Hardcover)

... I really enjoyed this book. It tells you about the day dreams of a boy, who could not live his childhood to the full because it happened to him to be a genius. You will love the stories he tells himself, like the one about the famous boxer, because they're written in the "typical" magical Baricco's style.
You will feel pity for the genius kid and you will be amazed at the young girl , who can reach his hearth and teach him how to be free. Two scenes you won't forget: the fast food experience, and the lesson about the porch. I keep on reading it loud and being touched.