Fernando Sdrigotti

I loved the freshness of reading this book. The frame of it charmed me, and the vulgarity didn’t turn me away as it often does, just because of the main character’s extraordinary agency. I enjoyed the satire of a ‘Paris book’ even without having read any sincerely—and not having read them because that meandering and ultimately navel-gazing type of story doesn’t appeal at all to me. So I have no dry ground to stand on to claim that this turns those upside down, or that this completely subverts them. It was just more interesting from the premise on.
A significant part of that interest was held by the jokes about writing itself. Having read Sdrigotti’s [b:Shitstorm|42068518|Shitstorm|Fernando Sdrigotti|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1537902181l/42068518._SY75_.jpg|65596104] I’m inclined to believe those might be him but I’d better read more Dean and more Sdrigotti just to make sure. But maybe they’re just the beautiful fruits of friendship rained down upon humanity like manna from a conversation that took place in some writer’s haunt in Paris.
“‘How could you escape? How could you? HOW?’
‘TELL ME!’
‘SELF-PUBLISHING!’
‘OH NO!’” (120)
The more of these formally experimental things I read, the more I seem to see a binary in innovation in writing. There can be innovation within the form of story, or innovation of the form itself. And neither of these alone are a virtue for their own sake, simply another axis upon which an author builds the piece, more or less important depending on how strong the other attributes of the story are. I am beginning to hate the term ‘voice’ because I am a human with a capacity for getting tired and I have listened to people academically or literarily talk about writing for more than five years, and between it and ‘tone’ I usually consider it the more useless and trite of the two. But in this piece, the ‘voice’ blends with the strength of the character because of the particular first person narration. So regrettably I must say the voice is strong here. What the authors do with agency, exactly, is to make the narrator relatively clear-eyed and quite critical of his place in the story, without making him overbearing or controlling. The resulting bit of distance combined with experience and sensory detail make the book.
As the second Dostoyevsky Wannabe I’ve read, after [b:A Hypocritical Reader|39072186|A Hypocritical Reader|Rosie Snajdr|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1520430277l/39072186._SY75_.jpg|60625191], this form of innovation felt more readable, which is not to say universally better, but certainly better to me. The prose here gave plot and character even without providing scenes a typical assigned meaning or much narrative structure, which helped me to place the innovations rather than making the whole text an opportunity for interpretation, as Snadjr does in many of her pieces. The binary comparison now seems unfair, the only connection between them being the publisher, even if that group is somewhat defined by its position relative to conventional literature. I can recognize that they were distinct projects with different aims, and the weight of a comparison of reading experience is not quite so valuable with that knowledge. So I guess I’d better read more Dostoyevsky Wannabe books, as well, before I pass judgement, I can say confidently now at the end of this paragraph where I’ve passed judgment.
My final sentiment about this book is that there are certain lines I’d like to memorize just to carry around and keep as my opinions on new media I see. Particularly:
“I have no fucking idea of what I have just seen apart from the fact that it can only have been imagined by someone incredibly stupid.” (97)
In conclusion, four stars, but only not five because I can’t remember what it feels like to be the kind of person who gives things five stars.
… (plus d'informations)

“They demand everyone burns in hell. They demand to burn in hell as well.” (42)
“Shitstorm” achieves everything it aims for. The dispassionate tone relegates everything that happens, each diversion and tragedy and interaction, to another triviality in the series. It’s a perfect way to illustrate the life cycle of a scandal, emphasized by the way the tone gains a mercilessly precise focus when talking about the dentist. And the course that Sdrigotti takes to get away from Dr Turner and, eventually, back to him is an unhurried maze. The effect of the same impartial tone for so long is exhausting, achieving the same effect as a few hours on Twitter but with much more reward. Sdrigotti writes a tidy nihilist tale.
“But soon it became clear even to him that the ordeal would have little significance when considered as just one episode in his life—it would be left behind sooner or later—it would stop mattering.” (56)… (plus d'informations)