Giovanni Orelli (1928–2016)

[Klee was dead. He] would no longer draw the interminable, the radiant, that which is irreducible to a prime number; vertiginous, a cavity-unfathomability-hiding place for the innocent, before or after the devastations of life, to play hide-and-seek in; that softest, most delicate, heavenly spiral: Phryne's navel. [...] He was cured of life.

Take the impossible theatrics of the Circe chapter of Ulysses (minus the subconscious stuff), add a little 'futbol', as they call it in Europe, and a little World War II history, and a few philosophers and mathematicians (Schopenhauer, Berkeley, Bertrand Russell) and give them the Herculean task of pondering a lesser-known Paul Klee painting called Alphabet I, and you have this book.

It wasn't an easy read for me, especially not knowing my history or my Schopenhauer as well as I could (also his constant parentheticals in the middle of long sentences about a subject which I knew very little didn't make things any easier... I almost lost my Wille). But even for an ignoramus like me, it was entertaining. Just don't get overly bogged down in the details and enjoy the parts you enjoy. Orelli is very good at telling funny stories (sometimes true, sometimes fictional) in between more serious, somber ones, and he knows very well when to switch it up, so that between lively arguments, stories, quotes, asides, self-reflexive musings, futbol line-ups, and odd facts, the book (although lacking any narrative thrust) rarely slows down.

Also, there's a lot of politics here, but it never felt preachy or self-righteous. Just enough subtlety to be effective, I thought.

Just a few of the high points: Sindelar playing Rotten Egg as a kid but not picking up Bubi's handkerchief, border crossing cows of Pedrinate, Walaschek's and Klee's personal biographies, the futbol player who balanced the ball on his forehead and ran all the way to the goal, Sindelar's death, the part where Cesare Rossi and Giulia Sismondi deliver the ashes to Klee's widow.… (altro)