3.5 stars

Mountains exert a powerful fascination on the modern mind. They offer freedom, escape, wilderness, the shrugging-off of civilisation. They promise an elemental battle between humanity and nature. And they hold out the prospect of possession: peaks to be claimed and conquered. In this restrained and elegant novel, Paolo Cognetti tells the story of Pietro, a young boy from Milan whose life will be shaped by a childhood friendship formed in the high valleys of the Italian Alps. A tale of obsession, of fathers and sons, of friendship and of belonging, this is a poignant glimpse of a fading world.

Pietro’s parents met through a shared love of climbing and he grows up surrounded by the folklore of the mountains. It’s only during their alpine holidays that his difficult, short-tempered father seems to relax, as if returning to his natural habitat, and when Pietro is twelve, the family rents a little cabin in the hill-village of Grana. Here, Pietro’s father goes off on epic solo marches up into the mountains, savouring the clarity of the air and the challenges of the nearby glacier; Pietro’s mother turns with contentment to a simple rustic life; and Pietro himself goes out to explore and have fantasy adventures. Here, one day, he encounters Bruno Guglielmina, a local boy who herds his family’s cows and is similarly starved of friendship. From self-conscious beginnings, a close friendship develops: an almost fraternal bond that ties the two boys together.

The years pass, and each summer Pietro’s family returns to Grana. As he grows older, he begins to go walking with his father – and Bruno joins them as often as he can. Cognetti traces the impact of these simple, happy days throughout the boys’ lives, using them as a way to illuminate Pietro’s uneasy relationship with his father and his growing sense of his own place in the world. The book isn’t a narrative so much as a series of vignettes, showing us not only the boys growing into men, and their changing friendship, but also the changes in Grana itself. In emphasising the vast eternity of the mountains, the book illuminates the way that an ancient lifestyle can begin slowly to shift – and then, with the force and suddenness of an avalanche, crumble away.

I’ve seen the book compared to Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, but I’m not sure how far I would agree with this – beyond the fact, of course, that it focuses on a long-term Italian friendship. Cognetti’s book is more detached, more dreamlike, a tale of the mountains as much as of the boys themselves. There are times when it seems to drift rather than having the dynamism of Ferrante’s story. Yet it does share that elegiac sense of nostalgia: a picture of an Italy which is all the more moving because we know that it has been lost forever.

For the review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2017/12/22/the-eight-mountains-paolo-cognetti/

A gently told story of friendship among two Italian boys from different backgrounds, growing up and evolving in the Alps. With their strong attachments to the mountain life and solitude, The Eight Mountains by Paolo Cognetti, took me through a beautiful experience in the Italian alps. Vividly described landscapes with the lessons of friendships, attachments to the land, as well as priorities for life styles, taking their toll and shaping their lives. Mixed with sorrow and exhilarating experiences, this novel was a wonderful, reflective read. Thank you NetGalley, Atria Books, and Paolo Cognetti for this early edition copy to review.

As a young boy, Pietro vacations with his parents at a remote area that can barely be called a village in the Dolomites. With his father becoming more and more determined to scale the 4,000's (as the more challenging peaks are called), Pietro develops a friendship with Bruno, a local boy, largely through the encouragement of his mother. As the years progress and Pietro finds his way throughout the world, his connections to that village and Bruno remain a constant in his life. Cognetti's writing is glorious, and the symbolism of the eponymous mountains as challenges to be met and appreciated, rings true. Wonderful that this fine translation is finally available to English readers.

Loved the book eventually but had a hard time initially getting into it. Characters were very well written and sympathetic.

I haven't read anything by Fredrik Backman, but I can't recommend this book to fans of Elena Ferrante, not sure about Paulo Coelho though (considering the blurb).

Actually the comparison with Elena Ferrante drove me to request an ARC.

It is a very slow, melancholic, partly emotional, partly dull (I'm trying to avoid the word "boring", because it doesn't do the novel justice, but it is partly very close to my feeling), with beautiful deserted landscapes (mountains) and characters that are out of touch with reality (mountains men in heart and soul).

Maybe because I read a lot of gay fiction, I was longing for those two men become more than just two friends. Up to the very tragic end. In vain. No, I'm not totally convinced here. There were for sure more between them, but we would never know.

What a strange book! Sad and strange...And in a strange way strangely captivating...

Finally, some much overdue international reading. Winner of the prestigious Italian Strega Prize and a bestseller in its native land, this is a lovely tale of friendship and mountains...or friendship in the mountains. I'd never climb a mountain, would never want to, but reading Cognetti, you can easily see how one might (literally or metaphorically), what such an accomplishment might do to enhance one's very existence. Cognetti writes (and presumably the translators did this one justice, because it reads so well) with a competence and assurance of a first rate author, though his characters consistently get upstaged by the scenery. So this in fact for me was a nature book more so than a dramatic story. Cognetti's descriptions are gorgeous, stunningly vivid, lovingly detailed...it's practically like walking along the Italian mountains without leaving your personal cozy reading space, completely transporting experience. He is much more reticent when it comes to his characters, a quintessential mountain man and his nomadic lifelong friend. Theirs is a genuine friendship, that very precise camaraderie that stands the test of time and changes, but inevitably the differences weight in too heavily...ultimately their world are just of two different sizes and their discontent souls roam those boundaries in their own ways. It's a quiet fanfare free almost understated sort of story elevated to great altitudes (mountains puns, I know, irresistible) by the sheer beauty of language and descriptions. It's possibly all a metaphor, the mountains as grand yet surmountable challenges, much as life, much as relationships, peaks and valleys of it all, search for those elusive moments of grace. Very enjoyable and quick read. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

A beautiful narration of a bond of friendship and understanding that forms in the mountains between two young boys Bruno and Pietro.

The story is narrated to us from Pietro’s point of view and through him, the author weaves a tale about family, loss, love and wanderlust in generations that came before him. Pietro’s Father loves hiking and climbing mountains and it is his company during these excursions that later on inspires Pietro to travel the world in search of mountain peaks, community stories and glaciers. At one point when they were making their way to Grana, his father turned to him and asked him“In your opinion, can the past happen again?
His inability to provide the right answers or later on, to fully immerse himself in climbing these mountain peaks leads to a falling out with his father. At thirty one, he finds himself going back into the mountain in search of the man he loved but also didn’t get along with and this is where Pietro comes into the awareness of life, loss, love, aspirations and the question posted to him by his father back then comes back to him and for a moment he believes “…in certain lives, there are mountains to which we may never return.

I loved how the story unfolded for the writing is very beautiful and simple making this an enjoyable read. The characters are also as dynamic and some though constant like Bruno’s Uncle, you get the feeling that they seem resigned to the life they lead and cannot fault them for that.
I also felt that the introduction of Lara, Pietro’s ex and then Bruno’s wife- was symbolic in that she tried to change the “mountain man” that was Bruno, into a business man and when that failed, she left him carrying along with her their daughter Anita. I however do not know if this was one of the many tragedies that haunted Bruno; the first one being the question that “what would he have become if his parents would have let him proceed to Milan for further studies?”
I was challenged by Pietro and Bruno’s friendship because thirty years is quite the time to be friends.

I’d recommend this book to avid readers of well woven tales that involve a bit of mysticism, wanderlust and if you have read Paulo Coelho’s books and traveled with him on those life changing journeys, then this book is right in your path.
Thank you NetGalley and the Publisher.

3 stars

This book is filled with wonderful and breathtaking descriptions of the mountains, the countryside and their meaning to the inhabitants living near the Dolomite Mountains. The relationship between the two boys in the novel was typical though well described.

The rest of the book, that is those parts away from the mountains, was rather mundane and became a little tedious.

I want to thank NetGalley and Atria Books for forwarding to me a copy of this interesting book for me to read and enjoy.