Customer Reviews

Don't Move: A Novel

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A searing tale of sexual obsession "Don't Move" grips readers with riveting opening lines: "You ran the stop sign. You had your imitation wolf-skin jacket on, your headset was plugged into your ears, and you never even slowed down."

The accident victim is Angela, the only child of Timoteo, a highly respected surgeon, and Elsa, also successful, an independent modern woman. The couple had discussed at length whether or not to give Angela the scooter she so desperately wanted. They had given in at last.

As Timoteo sits alone by his daughter's bedside he realizes she is close to death. This fact, in some mysterious way causes him to reevaluate his own life. He remembers his past, the year before his daughter's birth and his inexplicable passion for Italia, a poor woman he met in a small town bar. His car had broken down, and he was stranded.

Italia was the antithesis of his wife, "She was neither beautiful nor very young, with badly bleached hair and a thin but strong-boned face. She was wearing too much makeup, which made her bright eyes look sad."

Nonetheless his desire for her was undeniable. Reliving his past Timoteo silently pours his anguished confession into the ears of his comatose daughter.

Told largely in flashback "Don't Move" is a marvel of prose as Mazzantini adroitly tells parallel stories of Timoteo's well ordered life with Elsa and his all-consuming, passionate affair with Italia.

Born in Ireland and raised in Italy, Mazzantini is an incredibly skilled writer. "Don't Move," which has sold over a million copies in Italy is her second novel and the first to be published in America. All one can say is welcome to our shores!

- Gail Cooke

The main character tells his daughter who lies in a coma his story. The story of his most intimate feelings towards different people. Obvious his love for his daughter and his fear she might die. The fact that over the years the love towards her mother has gone. And most of all its the story of the obscure relationship for an unknown woman he picked up somewhere, and the graphic account of the raw sex he has with her.
And after a while there is a change in the horrifyingly selfish abuse of the main character towards this unknown woman.
This book is chilling, tender and loving at the same time.
It has in the meantime been travelling my circle of friends. Each and everyone finds it overwhelming. This is a must read for sure.

I read the Italian version "Non Ti Muovere" and just finished the English translation...what an excellent job done! Mazzantini captures the reader beyond a normal level. I wish the book would never end. If you like her work, "Il Cantino di Zinco" is also very well written, although out of print in English.

This was an interesting read. I found the story to be very detached from time in an odd way. I could not honestly tell you when the story took place because I think that the author was trying to illustrate the concept that it could take place at anytime and anywhere really. What I mean by this is the accidents in life, the affairs and indiscretions that people -regardless of class- all have.

The narrator Timoteo begins the flashback tale by telling us of his daughter Angela's near fatal accident. She was riding a scooter that her parents had argued over even giving her (for fear of an accident) and she ends up in the hospital because she was hit by a car. Her father Timoteo is a brilliant surgeon and she is rushed, clinging to life, to his hospital. While she is being operated on Timoteo reflects on the year prior to her birth all the way up through present moment. He tells of his relationship with her mother Elsa -- an incredibly independent and well provided for woman. They have a beach house and lead what is most likely a very privileged life. One day on the way to the beach house Timoteo's car breaks down in what I could only gather was a shantytown. While waiting for the car to be repaired he meets a woman named Italia in a bar and ends up raping her. After raping what he describes as a poor and ugly woman, he proceeds to his beach house to meet up with his wife. All the while Timoteo cannot stop thinking of the power he felt by raping Italia and how he wanted it to happen again. Ultimately he goes back and bizarrely enough begins a relationship with her. He leads a double life until up to a few days after his daughter is born. And so goes the story...

The entire time I was reading this book I could not help but feel that Timoteo was quite possibly the most selfish man to have ever walked the face of the earth. He spends his time mentally confessing his sins to his daughter instead of praying to God for her operation to be successful. The book was very well written but I absolutely detested the storyline. This book is actually closer to a 4 but I did not think it was quite there by my standards -- hence the 3 star rating. A good book to get from the library - certainly not worth purchasing at the hardcover price.

I can't remember the last time I wrote one of these reviews. This novel was just that gripping and beautiful. It is infused with details of love, with poignant smells, and it promises to break your heart. If you have ever loved and lost someone, this novel will resonate with you for a very long time.

"Don't Move" must have sold to the publisher on the strength of its first 40 pages and the outline, because it gets off to a rattling good start. However, the book is driven by the increasingly widespread contempt for maleness that pervades the literary and movie world and its plot is hardly believable.

Married to a strong and controlling feminist, a surgeon secretly rebels against her by repeatedly raping an isolated working-class female in her miserable home under a viaduct next to the Gypsies. Instead of being repelled by his own behaviour, seeking help and getting over it, he convinces himself he is passionately in love with this non-person.

Indeed, the author takes no care to make his love-object come to life, and, knowing her so little, we are left unmoved by her abortion and subsequent death from complications. It is the narrator's immense egotism that compels us to read on incredulously, as he systematically trashes the life of his beautiful, successful and feminist wife and gets away with it.

The narrator's motive for telling his story, the imminent death of his 15 year-old daughter whom he did not know well either, is powerful if bizarre, and is told kaleidoscopically in a complicated series of flashbacks which is not entirely controlled.

For example, when he has cut open his lover's bowels to look at the septicimia, he at first concludes that it is caused by her abortion. However, the author rapidly realises that the timeline of her story does not allow that, and the narrator quickly---and over-conveniently---assumes that his lover has had another abortion since then. It's hard to control a long chain of flashbacks and here we hear the cogs squeaking.

This is another story with a villain for a hero, a worrying trend for anyone who cares about men. He has no friends, his only male relationship being a cynical liaison with a spoilt colleague. His wife always initiates sex. One can imagine him as one of those Italian only children who dominate a household during their childhood. He does not read books, cares about no ideas, has no political beliefs, does not love his wife, and only realises he loves his daughter when she is dying in hospital.

Of course, we realise that he is plagued by profound guilt over his appalling behaviour at the time of her birth. He feels instinctively that his misbehaviour is being punished by fate. Thus he engages in a long confession of his sins, although there is no priest present.

Ultimately, this novel is a triumph of the storytelling art, because its narrative skill overcomes all the unpleasantness and absurdity of the basic material. If she can produce more credible plots, and more likeable heroes, Mazzantini has great promise as a novelist.

After starting to read the book - I left it at about page 50.
I could not read it and identify myself in any way with the teller, his actions and decisions.
It was simply a turn-down.

Then 2 years later I met a friend who insisted I go on reading.
I finished the book in 2 days and what at the beginning looked so repulsive to me - became great compassion with lots of emotions and sensitivity.

I admit I cried.

Things maybe not look too good at the beginning with not much "healthy" sense, but don't abandon the book... It will sweep you like a wave.

If I could give this book 3 1/2 stars I would. Otherwise, it is between good and great.

The Great: The story is fascinating, it is gripping from the first page. We are in the midst of a parent's worst nightmare and at the same time, thrown into the dark, troubled memories of the narrator. As the story progresses, we are both in the waiting room, wondering if the narrator's daughter will pull through and on a journey through the past, reliving his heightened love affair with a impoverished woman he met in a bar.

The Good: Despite all the great, the writing is filled with a lot of metaphors. Be prepared, the word 'like' appears a lot. The narrator acts 'like this', feels 'like that'. For a surgeon, he is very poetic almost too the point where it feels maudlin, contrived and unrealistic. I am impressed with the story but it could have used a bit of editing to tighten it up. Sometimes the over-description of things took away from the emotions, from the strength of the tale. Paragraphs needed trimming here and there. There is a lot of 'telling' here and in good writing, 'showing' is a strength.

I saw the movie first which I feel retains the best elements of the book. The book, as in most cases, was better than the movie but not in all instances.

Overall a solid read and if you don't mind the maudlin poetic confession of the narrator, then you might give this book five stars. Between good and great is still not bad.

Overall bland and way too drawn-out with a bit of a whiny undertone makes this novel not one that I would not recommend and would definitely not read again. Quite disturbing with little resolution and even less plot. The narrator of the story is selfish, overall not likeable, and altogether not believeable. (The novel makes him out to be an intelligent man conscious of the body and diseases, yet has unprotected sex/rapes a woman in a dirty dark apartment?) Sure, it absolutely could really happen, but the way the author writes the character, he doesn't make a believeable case (let alone the father spilling this tale to his comatose daughter).. Do youself a favor and skip over this one if it finds its way to your reading list.

This is just a flat-out incredible, gripping novel that makes you salivate to anticipate the English translation of the author's other work (she's written, says the book jacket, another novel). Now I am not the world's most patient reader--I tend to like to get to the end of the books I read, however good they are. But this was a rare case where I wished the novel would have just kept on going, going, going. I was thoroughly captivated by the narrator and his story. You will be, too, I think.