Senza sangue

by Alessandro Baricco

‟uno:
Nella campagna, la vecchia fattoria di Mato Rujo dimorava cieca, scolpita in nero contro la luce della sera. L'unica macchia nel profilo svuotato della pianura.
I quattro uomini arrivarono su una vecchia Mercedes. La strada era scavata e secca – strada povera di campagna. Dalla fattoria, Manuel Roca li vide.
…
due:
Poi la donna gli chiese se lui ricordava.
L'uomo rimase a guardarla. E solo in quell'istante, finalmente, rivide davvero, nel suo volto, il volto di quella bambina, sdraiata là sotto, impeccabile e giusta, perfetta. Vide quegli occhi in questi, e quella forza inaudita nella calma di questa bellezza stanca. La bambina: si era girata e l'aveva guardato. La bambina: adesso era lì.”
Senza sangue è stato pubblicato per la prima volta da Rizzoli nel 2002.

Genres: Fiction, Italian Literature, Italy, Novels, Historical Fiction, Contemporary, Literature

61 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Alessandro Baricco is an Italian writer, born at Torino in 1958. He's the author of several works, including the novels Lands of Glass (Selezione Campiello Award and Prix Médicis Étranger), Ocean Sea (Viareggio Prize), Silk, City, Emmaus or Mr. Gwyn, among others.

He is also the author of the majestic rewrite of Homer’s Iliad, the theatrical monologue Novecento, the essays Next: On Globalization and the World to Come or The Game.

Baricco hosted the book program "Pickwick" for Rai Tre, which, according to Claudio Paglieri, "invited Italians to rediscover the pleasure of reading." In 1994, he founded a school of "writing techniques" in Turin called Holden (as a tribute to Salinger), which, under his direction, has been a resounding success. Since the publication of Silk, which has become a long-standing bestseller both in Italy and internationally, Baricco has established himself as one of the great Italian writers of the new generations.

He was awarded the Fondazione Il Campiello Prize in 2020 and the Penna d’Oro Prize in 2022 for his body of work.

Reviews

[Ilse · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Mercy Seat

Monsters can have children as well, but do monsters necessarily give birth to monsters? How to respond to the excruciating acts of atrocity that have been inflicted on your loved ones and kin in wartime? Revenge might be an explicable retort, emerging from a deeply ingrained primitive and natural instinct, but can it also be a legitimated one? Does settling the scores give any peace of mind? Or does vengeance only release an unbridled, never-ending cycle of retaliation?

Bearing in mind how the crimes committed by and their prosecution after the Second World War of Belgians who collaborated with the Nazi occupier still stir minds (and politics) many decades later and how little is needed to open old wounds, the context of the savagery of war put issues relating to revenge and vengeance on edge.



One fateful night marked the lives of both Nina and Tito – victim, killer and saviour in one. In the aftermath of a war in which Nina’s father is exposed as a physician faithful to the defeated regime and who is not adverse to lend them a hand in organising torture, Tito is involved into a death squad coming after him, while Tito in his turn is found by Nina fifty years later.

Structured as a diptych in which both parts enter in dialogue with each other, the first part accounts of the eventful night, soaked in violence, blood and torture. The second part in which Nina as an avenging angel reaches out to Tito shows how their lives have remained connected in ways they were only partly conscious of. Will she ultimately kill him after so many years?

She had once counted to two hundred and forty-three. She thought that now she would get up and go and see who those men were and what they wanted. If she couldn’t open the trapdoor, she would cry out, and her father would come to get her. But instead she stayed like that , lying on her side , her knees pulled up to her chest , her shoes balanced one on top of the other , her cheek feeling the cool of the earth through the rough wool of the blanket. She began to sing the song , in a thin voice . Count the clouds , the time will come.

Like Silk and Novecento, Without blood is another atmospheric and brief offering by the Italian writer and director Alessandro Baricco. It is a peculiar, gripping and thought-provoking blend of a war and morality tale on revenge, grief, love, guilt, forgiveness and mercy. Reflecting on how powerfully the past can continue to haunt someone, the reader is left perplexed by the choices which people make in extreme situations.

Thank you very much Jennifer, for tempting me to read Alessandro Baricco again.
(***1/2)

Edit 24.04.24: as some reviews discern western genre elements in the first part of this novella, western, I wonder if there will be any connection between Without Blood and Baricco's new book Abel - a 'metaphysical western' - Baricco knows well how to keep his readers intrigued.

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 3 out of 5]

There’s a short preface that tells us this story is not set anywhere in particular. But we can imagine that it is in Spain just at the end of the Spanish Civil war. Or, since it is translated from the Italian, we might imagine that it is fighting among the partisans in Italy during WW II.

In any case, the theme is the cruelty of war and how people attempt to justify the killings. We have multiple layers of moral dilemmas and moral complexity. A man justifies the atrocities of war saying that he wants to build a more just society and you must destroy to rebuild, so this is the price.



Here’s the basic story: a man in a rural farmhouse is gunned down by four men who arrive in a car. He is a doctor who had been accused of being a torturer of prisoners from the other side. Yet the war was over when he was killed, so was his killing justified? A very young boy is also killed. He shot his gun at the killers to protect his father. So, was his killing justified?

During the killings of the man and his son, a young soldier, a boy really, spots a girl under a trap door in the cellar. He doesn’t reveal to the others that she is hiding in there. The whole story derives from this one instant. “Have I ever been in a moment that is not this one?”

Eventually a local man finds her, takes her in and treats her well. But when she is 14, he “loses” her to a wealthy man in a card game. So does that action nullify his years of caring for her with kindness?

After hearing and partly seeing her father and brother killed above her head, she spends her life in and out of mental hospitals and tracking down the killers and killing them. In her old age, she has found the last one, the man who saved her, Does she kill him too?

It’s a very short that can be read in a sitting. It’s not really even a novella, more of a long short story. It’s written in the style of an allegory or a fable, so the implausibility of the ending doesn’t really have to bother us.

photo of the Spanish Civil War by Robert Capa from reelphoto.blogspot.ch

[Pakinam Mahmoud · Rating 3 out of 5]

كتاب مستواه متوسط..فكرته مش جديدة..بتدور أحداثه حول فكرة الإنتقام و إزاي الناس بتقدر تبرر القتل كوسيلة لحياة أفضل..
تالت لقاء ليا مع باريكو بعد حرير و مونولوج عازف البيانو اللي كان أسلوب الكاتب فيهم يتمتع بعذوبة وسلاسة غير عادية ولكن هنا محسيتش بجمال قلم باريكو اللي أنا متعودة عليه..
كتاب لطيف يعني..ماشي حاله..ينصح بيه كإستراحة بين الكتب التقيلة مش أكتر..

[Sawsan · Rating 4 out of 5]

رواية للكاتب الإيطالي أليساندرو باريكو تدور أحداثها في بلد غير محددة
تتناول إشكالية قديمة ليس لها حل وهي العلاقة الجدلية بين الانتقام والعدالة
هل الانتقام فعل لابد منه لتحقيق العدالة الغائبة وخاصة زمن الحروب؟
والحروب وتبعاتها التي لا يستطيع الانسان أن يتجاهلها أو يتعايش معها
يظل الانتقام رغبة انسانية.. عندما تتحول لفعل قد يمنح الانسان اللذة أو يحرمه السكينة

[Jennifer nyc · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a reread for me, and originally I gave it 5 stars. I remember feeling elated by it. This time it felt like an excellent short story, not so much a novella. I love novellas, they feel like the most perfect distillation of a story in the way a film is. This felt more like only two vibrant scenes, the first violent and suspenseful, the second a much later resolution. The latter part was weaker until the very end.

I first discovered Baricco like most did, with his gorgeous novella, Silk. That was a romantic fantasy of otherness, whereas this (although also embedded in history) dealt with a harsh reality in a single country. Definitely worth the read, completed in one sitting.

I also recommend his Ocean Sea.

[Helga چـو ایـران نباشد تن من مـباد · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

The night outside was illegible, and the time in which it was vanishing was without measure.

The old farmhouse of Mato Rujo stands blankly in the countryside.
Four year old Nina closes her eyes, flattens herself against the blanket and curls up tight, pulling her knees to her chest. She is hiding beneath the floorboards of the farmhouse.

She felt the earth, cool, under her side, protecting her—it would not betray her. And she felt her own curled-up body, folded around itself like a shell—she liked this—she was shell and animal, her own shelter, she was everything, she was everything for herself, nothing could hurt her as long as she remained in this position. She reopened her eyes, and thought, Don’t move, you’re happy.

Nina’s brother is also hiding somewhere nearby, because three men have come to the farmhouse to kill their father, known as the Hyena, an assassin that has murdered dozens of people during the war.

They were like three madmen, abandoned on a dark stage.

The three men kill the Hyena that night and shoot his young son dead after he aims a gun at them.
Tito, one of the assassins finds Nina, but spares her life, never telling the other two that he had seen her hiding, listening, witnessing and memorizing.

Nina heard a silence that frightened her. Then she joined her hands and stuck them between her legs. She curled up even tighter, bringing her knees toward her head. She thought that now it would all be over. Her father would come to get her and they would go and have supper. She thought that they would not speak again of that night, and that soon they would forget about it: she thought this because she was a child and couldn’t know.

Years pass.
It seems no one thinks about the war anymore; no one wants to remember.
But for Nina, and for Tito the war never ended.

But there was a whole world that had never emerged from the war, and was unable to fit in with that happy land.

Years pass. Two of the assassins have died under suspicious circumstances.

That is the only, the true reason you fought, because this was what you had in mind, to be revenged. And now you should be able to utter the word ‘revenge.’ You killed for revenge, you all killed for revenge, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s the only drug for pain there is, the only way not to go mad, the drug that enables us to fight. But it didn’t free you, it burned your entire life, it filled you with ghosts. In order to survive four years of war you burned your entire life…

Two of the three assassins are dead.
Tito is still alive, but for how long?

How dizzying time can be. Where am I? The man wondered. Here or there? Have I ever been in a moment that was not this one?

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

this man writes like deer run...

come to my blog!

[Berengaria · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars

short review for busy readers:
A novella about revenge after wartime, victims -- innocent and guilty -- and how the spectre of war looms on decades after hostilities cease. Written in a vague, distant style with poor world building and a lot left up to interpretation.

in detail:
I don't really know what to say about this novella. It certainly takes on some large, important topics, but, at least for me, in the most vague, shallow and unsatisfactory ways.

First off, it's not clear where nor when the story takes place. It's possibly meant to be a type of Everywhere, but even so, very little setting detail is given. Unfortunately, that gives the story a dreamy, unrealistic fantasy feel that jars when juxtaposed with the sharp and bloody reality of a civil war.

Secondly, it's not clear what either one of the main protagonists feels or is actually motivated by. Oh sure, we have what they *say,* but should we assume anyone in that position would tell the absolute truth? It's all coloured by personal bias. How do we know, for example that Nina killed El Gurre? We don't. Why exactly is Pedro crying? Not clear.

Thirdly, is the ending revenge or forgiveness? And why do male authors always seem to think sex with an attractive woman is the 100% effective insta-cure for all of a man's woes and his sure-fire way to salvation? Rather like seeing sex as a type of heavenly Christian redemption through one's penis.

I have always personally severely disliked this style of writing. Don't be vague. Don't play coy. I don't want to have to assume a conventional emotion out of a gesture, or play guessing games in the fog when reading a work of literature.

So maybe this 2 star rating is more a me thing. But, in the end, Me didn't find too much to love in this shallow reflecting pool of a novella. Shame.

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Baricco's short novel blasts opens in a brutal way, with an episode of gun violence that would have felt right at home in a bloody Spaghetti Western, before settling down into something more poignant. It's basically a tale on morality and revenge, with a totally unexpected finale, which sees a young girl, Nina, witness whilst hidden beneath the floorboards, the slaying of her father and brother by men who accuse the father of hideous war crimes.

Nina is found by one of the assassins, the youngest, Tito, but he spares her life, and the story moves forward in time to when as an older woman Nina tracks the elderly Tito down, and whilst in a cafe together they recall their lives lived in the shadow of their unforgettable shared memory. As Nina tells the story of her life after the horrific event years before, and of what happened to the other killers, I was just waiting for the moment when she pulls a pistol from her handbag and shoots him there and then. But there is an air of uncertainty for the reader as to whether Nina has sought Tito to seek revenge or forgive him, and that keeps things on tenterhooks in the second half of the narrative.

Baricco, who I hadn't read before, reflects movingly on the nature of war and savagery, and although it reads straightforward with a simple and effective prose, and had one moment in particular that came as a visceral shock, it also felt slightly odd. No particular time or place is ever mentioned, which I found strange, and it plays with too many Hollywood clichés that could have been picked from a number of thrillers, so Without Blood isn't in any way original or challenging enough.

Three stars is about right, it had some good moments, but I didn't like the ending.

[Issa Deerbany · Rating 3 out of 5]

رواية قصيرة من ٩٦ صفحة فقط. ولكنها جذابة وبدون مبالغات تصل الى الهدف من هذه الرواية. الوحشية والرغبة في الانتقام حتى بعد انتهاء الحرب فللمنتصر قانونه الخاص وهو يطبق القانون الذي يخالفه في قتل من خالفه في وقت من الأوقات حتى بدون محاكمة فهو منتصر والقانون معه.
وعندما سأل في نهاية الرواية لماذا فعلت ذلك اجاب ليكون العالم أفضل. ولكنه لم يتمكن من الإجابة عندما سؤل وهل اصبح أفضل.

وباقي الكتاب محاضرة للمؤلف عن "بيع الحكي" فكل واقعة ممكن ان تكون مقبولة اذا عرفت كيف تؤلف حولها قصة. واستشهد على ذلك بقصة الاسكندر المقدوني. وكيف كان يقنع قواده وجنوده بإتباعه في حروبه لانه كان يغلف أهدافه بالحكي . ولكن توقف الجنود والقواد عن اتباعه بعد فشل في اختراع قصة وعاد.

جميلة .....

[Araz Goran · Rating 3 out of 5]

يطرح باريكو في هذه الرواية فكرة وجود الحكايا في حياة البشر، هل أن الحكايا هي التي تصنع الواقع أم الواقع هو الذي يصنع الحكايا، أي منهما يولد الآخر، وماذا لو اختلفت أصول الحكاية الواحدة وتشظت تفاصيلها، أي منها يمكن أن يكون الحقيقي، الحكايات كما يخبرنا باريكو ليست فقط تلك التي ينتجها الواقع، بل ربما أحياناً هي تصنع واقعاً، تجبرنا على الرضوخ لقوة الحكي، نتجاذب أطراف قصة واحدة لتؤلف فيما بعد قصصاً ووقائع لم تكن في الحسبان، كم من قصة صنعت واقعاً، وكم تأثرنا بقصصنا الخاصة، التي ظننا أنها هي الحقيقية والتي عشناها على شكل حقائق دامغة، في النهاية ربما كانت مجرد خزعبلات لا علاقة لها بحياتنا، ولكن النتيجة أن تلك الحكاية هي التي صنعت حياتنا بشكل أو بآخر، من الصعب أن يتمرد الواحد منا على قصته الخاصة، من الصعب أن يخرج من كيان صنعه لنفسه لسنوات، لكل واحدة منا حكاية، قد تكون كاذبة أو صادقة، ولكن لنعلم أنه هي من تصنع مستقبلنا وحياتنا القادمة، بعض الحكايات موجعة لدرجة أن الإنسان لا يخرج منها إلا بالموت ..

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Esta leitura entrou na minha vida na altura certa.
Mexeu comigo como poucas obras mexem, sobretudo obras tão pequenas como esta.
Tudo é fabuloso, incluindo o final que, para alguns leitores sabe a pouco, mas que, para mim, foi perfeito e poderosíssimo.

Não lhe dou a nota máxima, porque, se, por um lado, aceito aquilo que o autor me deu (e que foi tão significativo), por outro, queria mais... Como não querer mais?...

NOTA -09/10

Obrigada, Paulinha, mais uma vez.

Em breve, trago vídeo de opinião! Porque esta obra merece-o, por aquilo que referi e por muito mais, como, por exemplo, ter-me aberto caminho para a leitura que se lhe segue.

VÍDEO DE OPINIÃO NO MEU CANTINHO (a partir do minuto 01:43):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7uE5...

[Bea · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 stars.

I ADDED SPOILER TAGS BUT IF THEY DON’T WORK HERE’S A NOTICE THAT THERE’S A HUGE SPOILER OKAY BYE

This was a really weird read for sure. I was fairly confused in the first thirty or so pages since I wasn't sure about the reason for all the action (If you've read it you know what I'm talking about) and why a bunch of men were trying to kill what seemed like an innocent man and his children. The writing was fairly simple to read and I got through pages pretty quickly (I read this in Italian so whether the english version has a similar translation I don't know but I assume it would be pretty similar.)

If you want to read a book about death, mystery and reconciliation then I guess this is for you to try out. It's a bit hard to describe this book, so I suggest you read it for yourself and make your mind up.

[Ola Al-Najres · Rating 3 out of 5]

حاولتْ أن تتساءل من أين يأتي ذلك الإيمان العبثي بتلك الحرب البشعة ؟ و اكتشفت أن ليس لديها إجابات .

هذه الرواية لا تصوّر فقط وحشية الحروب والوقائع الدموية لكائنات لم تأخذ من البشرية سوى تصنيفها فقط ، و إنما تتعدى ذلك إلى الدوافع التي تحرك كل طرف ، و ما يؤمنون به و يغذي اندفاعهم المستميت إلى التصرفات المستبيحة لحدود الإنسانية و المنطق ...

فالمفارقة أنّه في كل الحروب ، يكون الدافع لكل تلك الشناعات هو جعل العالم مكاناً أفضل .  



اقتباسات : 

لا بُدّ أن تكون لدى المرء ثقة بالعالم ، حتى يُقدم على إنجاب الأبناء ..

لا أعتقد أنّه فكر في تلك اللحظة فيما سيفقده ، بالتأكيد فكر فيما لم يستطع الفوز به .

إنّ الانتقام هو العلاج الوحيد ضد الألم ..
كل ما يمكن أن يفعله المرء حتى لا يفقد عقله ، إنّه المخدر الذي عندما يتناوله المرء يصبح قادراً على القتال .

لكي تنجحوا بعد أربعة أعوام من الحروب حرقتم حياتكم بأسرها ، و الآن لم تعودوا تتذكرون حتى ما معنى الحياة ..

[Chris_P · Rating 5 out of 5]

"C.
Ca.
Cal.
Cali.
Calif.
Califo.
Califor.
Californ.
Californi.
California.
California.
California.
California.
Darkness."

Perfect! Perfect story, perfect storytelling! Baricco's short novel "Without Blood" is like a song. His words flow like musical notes that form a haunting melody, destined to stay with you long after you've turned the last page.
Simply and poetically amazing!

[محمد خالد شريف · Rating 3 out of 5]

"لا بُد أن تكون لدى المرء ثقة بالعالم حتى يُقدم على إنجاب الأبناء."

التجربة الثانية لي مع "باريكو" بعد تجربة سيئة لمونولوج عازف البيانو، فكانت هذه التجربة أكثر جودة وجمالاً من الأولى.
رواية "بلا دماء" رغم قصرها تتناول قضية مهمة جداً، وهي قضية الحروب والانتقام، وأضاف لها "باريكو" نفسه بُعداً أخر بالمقال الطويل المُضاف إلى الرواية.

تنقسم الرواية إلى فصلين. فصل أول عنيف، قاسي، دموي، مليء بالدماء، والرصاصات الطائشة. وفصل ثاني، هادئ، فلسفي، حواري، بلا دماء، وكأن هذه المُفارقة من أجل أن تبين الفرق بين العنف والحوار، وكأنهما شيئين مُتضادين.
الفصل الأول يبدأ بحرب بين عصابتين؟ حزبين؟ فريقين؟ حكومة ومعارضة؟ لا فارق.. صدقني لا فارق ولم يُعطيها الكاتب أي أولوية للذكر، سواء البلد التي تقع فيها الأحداث أو كُنه الصراع، وماهيته، هو صراع أدى إلى حرب بشكلاً ما، وهو موجود في كُل مكان حولنا، لا يُهمنا اسبابه، ولكن ما يُهمنا هو وجوده الحتمي، وكيفية التعامل معه.

في الفصل الثاني، يلتقي مرة أخرى من تبقوا من حرب الفصل الأول، بعدما كبرا، وأجمل ما في الرواية، واقعيتها، وعلى الرغم من أن أحدهما يعلم أن الثاني يُريد قتله، ولكنه لم يُغير أقواله، هو مُقتنع بمبادئه حتى آخر رمق، سيُدافع عنها، وسيحاول تبريرها، ورغم أن كُل شخص فيهما لم يصل إلى نقطة اتفاق، لعلمه أن الثاني يرى الصراع من نقطة مُختلفة. ولكنهما، على الرغم من ذلك، اتفقا بشكلاً ما. أليس كذلك؟

الرواية مُلحق بها مقال عن الحكي أكثر من رائع، وعند قراءته رُبما تتشكل لك رؤية جديدة للرواية، أو للحياة عموماً.
قراءة جميلة ودافئة؛ ويُنصح بها.

[FernandoG · Rating 4 out of 5]

Novela corta, que engancha y atrapa al lector. Narración de lo que significa la guerra y como en nombre de un mundo mejor se cometen las grandes atrocidades y una de sus consecuencias: la Venganza. 4.5/5.0

[TK421 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alessandro Baricco is a storytelling poet. His words are honey for the mind. To say much of this slim novel would be to cheat future readers from experiencing what I just experienced. My heart is broken. My mind is vitalized. My soul feels as if it has been twisted. Ultimately, Baricco asks and answers a simple question (with a very complex answer): Can a person have revenge without shedding blood?

HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION

[Jean Ra · Rating 4 out of 5]

La verdad es que me gustaría comprender por qué leer a Baricco al mismo tiempo me produce momentos de vergüenza ajena y por otro lado bastante agrado. Me doy cuenta que la agilidad narrativa es una carta que juega a su favor, aunque le guste abordar temas universales y anclar en ellos sus historias, te das cuenta que puede despachar situaciones de forma razonable y rápida, no es de esos escritores que les gusta poner el microscopio en el trazo de una pincelada y de ahí sacar sesudas maquinaciones llenas de términos muy densos. Por contra se le podría achacar cierta frivolidad, pero esa sensación de ligereza también puede jugar en su favor porque a nivel dramático Baricco sabe resolver sus historias, sea con violencia, sea con situaciones eróticas.

Podría decirse que es una historia en dos actos. En el primero se centra en una noche en una granja situada en mitad de una llanura. Ha finalizado una guerra civil, no obstante tres tipos armados se presentan en el caserón del doctor Roca y reclaman su presencia. La guerra ha finalizado pero su sed de sangre persiste. En ese acto hay hechos notoriamente brutales.

El segundo acto ocurre décadas después, intervienen sólo algunos de los personajes y desde la distancia del tiempo la historia muta en una parábola acerca de la culpa y el odio. Si en el primer acto la venganza se hace de una forma más viril, en la segunda ese eje gira por completo y persiste un poso de melancolía, dónde aquellos fuegos se han convertido en unas brasas mortecinas. Parte de la pericia de Baricco incluye la capacidad para tomar giros inesperados, tanto en los diálogos como en las situaciones, de forma que el efecto sorpresa también afecta al lector, y en esta nouvelle esto no cambia. Si la primera parte de la historia podría sonorizarse con Le chant des partisans la segunda deriva hacia algún tema de Barry White. Efectivamente este tránsito no es algo que puedas prever en las primeras páginas.

Y aunque el último giro la verdad hizo que pusiera los ojos en blanco luego también he de admitir que es una forma más sabia y compasiva de cerrar ese círculo oscuro iniciado en el arranque de la novela. Sin duda se ha escrito con notable bonhomía, con una mirada más humanista, tanto como para jugársela con nociones del ridículo en el último acto, el más importante, y sin embargo no importarle.

En general he decir que encontré en esta lectura lo que busqué, un bocado rápido, un tonificante narrativo que me generara algún tipo de sensaciones más allá de las elucubraciones cerebrales e indagaciones en interminables cenefas intelectuales. Desde luego Baricco no pasará por un gigante de la intelectualidad y sin embargo su justa ración de sabiduría humanista unido a su habilidad narrativa sin duda han bastado en estas pocas horas que he necesitado para leer con agrado esta pequeña novelita.

[Philippe · Rating 3 out of 5]

According to Isaiah Berlin's famous typology, Baricco is a 'hedgehog' writer. In his work, he doggedly continues to explore the large variety of strategies deployed by human beings to deal with the predicament of being thrown into a chaotic and unfathomable world. We tell stories, create art, measure and quantify, play games and develop rituals. All this frenetic activity constitutes a 'symbolic' realm that is as vital for people to live together on this Earth as the air they breathe. The master builders and players amongst us may leave a lasting legacy of sublime creations. But the equivocal nature of these symbolic constructs leads to lots of misunderstandings and conflicts as well. Stories morph into ideologies; rituals turn into bondage; games into bloodshed. So, half blind and confused, and sometimes dumb and stubborn, we stumble along in this life.

Baricco's poetic imagination revolves around an 'aesthetic of the instant'. Very often his protagonists are confronted with an epiphany, a momentary suspension of non-sense, a tear in the symbolic veil that shields us from the inexpressible realness of the world. In Baricco's work these epiphanies occur in a great variety of settings: in nature, in interpersonal relationships, even in battle. Often the person who is touched by these revelations has something of the character of a 'holy fool'.

The background to this story is the legacy of war and the vicious cycle of revenge that breeds conflict upon conflict. Baricco shows his readers how this destructive dynamic is suspended by an image of purity and perfection that arises at the very moment of bloodshed. An aesthetic rupture that forces the protagonist out of the symbolic cycle of violence and onto the fulcrum of a moral dilemma ('to kill or not to kill'). To know how the dilemma is resolved you'll have to read the story.

Without Blood is not Baricco's at his best, but it is worth rereading every ten years or so. City, Silk, Mr Gwyn and Questa Storia remain my favourites.

[Iuliana Mihaela · Rating 5 out of 5]

4,5⭐️

[Sarah ~ · Rating 4 out of 5]

بلا دماء - أليساندرو باريكو

في هذه النوفيلا يكتب أليساندرو باريكو عن الوحشيّة والبشاعة، كما لم أر أو أقرأ من قبل قطْ .

[Beatrice · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Allora pensò che per quanto la vita sia incomprensibile, probabilmente noi la attraversiamo con l'unico desiderio di ritornare all'inferno che ci ha generati, e di abitarvi al fianco di chi, una volta, da quell'inferno, ci ha salvato. Provò a chiedersi da dove venisse quell'assurda fedeltà all'orrore, ma scoprì di non avere risposte. Capiva solo che nulla è più forte di quell'istinto a tornare dove ci hanno spezzato, e a replicare quell'istante per anni. Solo pensando che chi ci ha salvati una volta lo possa poi fare per sempre."

Ah, signor Baricco, non so cosa farei senza di lei.

[Fatima · Rating 4 out of 5]

المراجعة ربما لاحقا

[Sportyrod · Rating 5 out of 5]

A war is over, but revenge and retribution are not. A car load of people storm a house in the countryside to exact revenge on the person they deemed responsible for their own losses.

The household owner, the head doctor of the hospital, knew the gig was up. What he underestimated were the lengths the intruders would go to. When he saw their car coming up the driveway, he sent his kids hiding…

The book skips ahead to old age. The four year old sole survivor of the ambush, now much older, finally catches up with the last living attacker. They have a coffee in public and discuss the events of that night and what has happened between. The attacker is resigned to his fate. He knows he must die for his past deeds. Besides, the mysterious and strange deaths of the other attackers years before was clue enough that he would be next. I won’t spoil how the final revenge scene went but it’s good.

The sole survivor’s quest for revenge was patient and calculated and yet intimate and loving. It was kind of like, “is there anything I can do for you before I kill you?” I loved it.

I’m sure there’s some bigger message here and it may be a bit deep for me to fully decipher. But I think it might be that the cycle of revenge lives on until someone breaks it. You get revenge. But then the family of the that person gets revenge on you and so on.

I recommend this to anyone who likes short, punchy, hypothetical scenarios involving high stakes. With a bit of mentally warped rationale thrown in for good measure.

[Ruth A secas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A VER COMO OS LO EXPLICO, ¡ESTE LIBRO ES UNA JODIDA MARAVILLA!.
Segundo libro que leo del autor y segundo libro que me fascina, pero ¿cómo puede transmitir tanto en tan poquitas páginas?.
No tenía ni idea de que me iba a encontrar entre sus páginas -como siempre, menuda novedad que os estoy contando ¡eh! lo flipáteis jajaja- y nos encontramos a una familia normal en período de postguerra, esta familia está en su casa hasta que aparecen unos señores y paaaaaaaaaaam empiezan a ocurrir un montón de acontecimientos que no te espera, como asesinatos a sangre fría, una niña escondida y personas huyendo y quemando una casa -ahí lo dejo que luego os tiráis a mi yugular por el tema de los spoilers-.
El libro solamente tiene dos capítulos, en el primero la historia es narrada cuándo nuestra protagonista Nina es una niña y está escondida en su casa por que su padre se lo ha pedido, y en el segundo capítulo transcurren 50 años a partir del capítulo anterior, este capítulo es mi favorito sin duda alguna ¡para qué engañaros!... Y ese final qué ¡qué! OMG no me lo espera así para nada enserio.
Una cosa que me ha gustado mucho de este libro es que te hace plantearte muchas cosas y pensar mucho mucho.
Os lo recomiendo mazo ;P

[Inna · Rating 5 out of 5]

“You can’t understand.”

“I can understand, you explain and I’ll understand.”

“ . . . ”

“ . . . ”

“You can’t sow without plowing first. First you have to break up the earth.”

“ . . . ”

“First there has to be a time of suffering, do you understand?”

“No.”

“There were a lot of things that we had to destroy in order to build what we wanted, there was no other way, we had to be able to suffer and to inflict suffering, whoever could endure more pain would win, you cannot dream of a better world and think that it will be delivered just because you ask for it. The others would never have given in, we had to fight, and once you understood that it no longer made any difference if they were old people or children, your friends or your enemies, you were breaking up the earth—then there was nothing but to do it, and there was no way to do it that didn’t hurt. And when everything seemed too horrific, we had our dream that protected us, we knew that however great the price the reward would be immense, because we were not fighting for money, or a field to work, or a flag. We were doing it for a better world, do you understand what that means?, we were restoring to millions of men a decent life, and the possibility of happiness, of living and dying with dignity, without being trampled or scorned, we were nothing, they were everything, millions of men, we were there for them. What’s a boy who dies against a wall, or ten boys, or a hundred, we had to break up the earth and we did, millions of other children were waiting for us to do it, and we did, maybe you should . . . ”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Of course I believe it.”

“After all these years you still believe it?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“You won the war. Does this seem to you a better world?”

“I have never asked myself.”

“It’s not true. You have asked yourself a thousand times, but you’re afraid to answer. Just as you have asked yourself a thousand times what you were doing that night at Mato Rujo, fighting when the war was over, killing a man in cold blood whom you had never even seen before, without giving him the right to a trial, simply killing him, for the sole reason that by now you had begun to murder and were no longer capable of stopping. And in all these years you have asked yourself a thousand times why you got involved in the war, and the whole time your better world is spinning around in your head, so that you will not have to think of the day when they brought you the eyes of your father, or see again all the other murdered men who then, as now, filled your mind, an intolerable memory. That is the only, the true reason you fought, because this was what you had in mind, to be revenged. And now you should be able to utter the word ‘revenge.’ You killed for revenge, you all killed for revenge, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s the only drug for pain there is, the only way not to go mad, the drug that enables us to fight. But it didn’t free you, it burned your entire life, it filled you with ghosts. In order to survive four years of war you burned your entire life, and you no longer even know—”

“It’s not true.”

“You no longer even remember what life is.”

[Candleflame23 · Rating 4 out of 5]

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هنا الكثير من الغضب ، القهر ، الخوف ، الترقب ،
والرغبة بالإنتقام الممزوجة بالكثير من الأسئلة ، لماذا ؟
وكيف ؟.

‏

رواية للكاتب الإيطالي آليساندرو باريكو تدور أحداثها
في بلد ما لم يُفصح الكاتب عن إسمه ولكن أسماء
الشخصيات و ألقابها توحي بأنها دول من أمريكا اللاتينية
وبعض الزملاء قال بأنها أسبانية أكثر.

المشهد الرئيسي في الرواية والتي يبني حوله باريكو قصته هو
جريمة قتل بدم بارد راح ضحيتها طبيب أُتهم بتعاونه
مع السلطات في تعذيب معارضيها وما أن وضعت
الحرب أوزارها ، انطلقت رغبة الإنتقام كالثور الهائج و كان
رأس الدكتور على قائمة المطلوبين لدى هؤلاء الذين صنفوا
أنفسهم قضاة وحكام يسعون لحياة وعالم أفضل .!


بمشهد أقرب ما يكون إليه هو أفلام " رعاة البقر " الأمريكية
قُتل الدكتور " مانويل روكا " و ابنه بينما بقيت طفلته
وحيدة تواجه مصيرها في هذه الحياة .

ويستمر السرد في الجزء الثاني ولكن بنقلة نوعية اذا اختلف
المشهد كلياً من كوخ خشبي في قرية جبلية بالفصل الأول إلى
مدينة كبيرة مكتظة بالسكان ومتسارعة تظهر لنا شخصية
"نينا " وتيتو " وجهاً لوجه ، هنا لم تكن الأمور واضحة لي تماماً
فتارة شعرت بأن نينا تعاني من متلازمة "ستوكهولم" وعزز هذا
الشعور لدي المشهد الأخير الذي جمعها بتيتو أحد أفراد
تلك العصابة ، وتارة شعرت أنها كانت مجرد خدعة ليصدق
بعدها حدس تيتو وهو يُدير لها ظهره ...!


مالذي حدث لهؤلاء القتلة ، هل تم القصاص منهم ؟
ماذا حدث بالطفلة ، هل عاشت حياتها بشكل سوي بعيدًا
عن ذكريات مقتل والدها وشقيقها ؟ وهل من الممكن حقاً
أن يعيش المرء بعالم مثالي سعيد لا حروب به ولا دماء ؟
الإجابات في الرواية .


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ماذا بعد قراءة الرواية ؟

يقول فولتير في كتابه " رسالة في التسامح " :
"إن التسامح لم يتسبب في إثارة الفتن والحروب الأهلية في
حين أن عدم التسامح قد عمّم المذابح على وجه الأرض "

فولتير على حق ، لكن من يُقنع النفوس البشرية بهذا ؟!

هذا هو السؤال ...📚🌸

ع الهامش : احتوى الكتاب أيضا على ترجمة لمحاضرة
تحدث بها الكاتب عن " الحكي والحقيقة والسعادة "
يعني زيادة الخير خيرين ☺️
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شكراً مرة أخرى للطائر اللطيف على هذا الإهداء ~
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#تمت
#أبجدية_فرح 4/5
#رواية #بلا_دماء للكاتب #آليساندرو_باريكو
صادرة عن #منشورات_الجمل 🌸📚
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#رواية_من_الأدب_الإيطالي ~

[Maksym Karpovets · Rating 3 out of 5]

Постать Алесандро Барікко може бути відома завдяки популярній стрічці 1900 (Тисяча дев’ятисотий) Джузеппе Торнаторре, що отримала Оскара як кращий іноземний фільм. На встановлення стилю письма Барікко мали вплив два фактори – філософська та музична освіта. Можна сказати, що знанная „музичної грамоти” додає романам Барікко мелодійності, легкості і ритму, а філософія – глибини і чіткості думки. Крім літературної діяльності, Барріко в Італії відомий як музичний критик, ведучий і журналіст. Найбільш популярним романом серед невеликого творчого доробку Барікко є Море-океан, який за свій маленький обсяг часто називають повістю, або й навіть оповіданням. Втім, автор наполягає, що це роман і сприймати його треба як епічний твір із широкою панорамою історій.

Події роману-повісті „Без крові” розгортаються в післявоєнній Італії, де на одній фермі стається жорстоке вбивство. Розправляються із власником ферми і його маленкьим сином, але в погребі рятується від кровавої бійні маленька донька. Втім, один із вбивць знаходить її там, однак не в змозі вбити беззахисну дівчинку. Ніна обіцяє знайти причетних в смерті своєї сім’ї і покарати їх. Поступово, один за одним вона віднаходить убивць, і нарешті зустрінеться зі своїм рятівником віч на віч, щоб завершити раз і назважди історію помсти. Або розпочати іншу.

На мій погляд, роман виграє (і водночас програє) поряд із основними бестселлерами Баріко високою концентрованістю жорстокості і гіперреальності подій, автоматично вписуючи себе в категорію "правда жизни". Однак та ж сама проста історія, лінійний сюжет і чітко прописані персонажі нагадають нам типовий стиль Барікко, який, можливо, не вирізняється складними психологічними узорами (Альберто Моравіа) і тяжковідчутними культурними (Умберто Еко) чи міфологічними алюзіями/ілюзіями (Діно Буццаті), але має талант до створення цікавої історії, яку хочеться перечитувати час від часу. Просто хоча б для того, щоб нагадати нам про основне.

3/5

[Evan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, this took an hour to read, very short, 97 pages, more like a short story...

It moves along at lightning speed, Baricco interweaves philosophical musings on war, violence, politics, the nature of truth, etc., as the story moves apace...

The book begins with a straightforward account of a traumatic moment of wartime, actually a scene occurring after the war is over. The war is not specified, but it's obviously WWII and the place is Italy. Vengeance seekers from the winning side are after a doctor accused of atrocities (apparently in league with the fascist side). In the aftermath of this scene, the doctor's little girl is spared, thanks to an act of mercy by the youngest member of the group.

It also sets in motion a lifelong circle of mutual vengeance by the survivors of the incident. The protagonists from the beginning of the book meet and, each being an unreliable narrator, or having tried to piece together their stories from unreliable sources in the past, begin to relate their life stories to each other, particularly hers.

Tension mounts as the story unfolds. Will there be more bloodshed, even now, so long after the end of the war?

It was a nifty little story. The ending could have gone two ways, it's the kind of ending that is not going to please everybody, because the story is set up so that no ending will be truly satisfactory. But the lesson is learned, a lesson of peace.

I checked this out only because Baricco's "Silk" was not available at the library. I'd recommend this if you're looking for a quick read, but it didn't really blow me away.