"Curiously enough," wrote Nabokov, "one cannot read a book; one can only reread it." A maxim worth keeping in mind when tackling the work of novelist and Italian cultural philosopher Claudio Magris. In a non-linear narrative that freewheels across two centuries, asylum inmate and militant anti-communist Comrade Cippico relates the story of his life. Or rather lives  for Cippico also believes himself to be Jørgen Jørgensen, 19th-century adventurer and one-time king of Iceland. The stories overlap and intertwine  often within the same paragraph  as history is presented as a bloody series of prisons, revolutions, sea journeys and shipwrecks. It is heady, disorientating stuff. Thankfully, you are always left with the language to cling to. And herein lies the novel's real strength: the translation by Anne Milano Appel is sublime, the prose rich and lyrical, creating a dreamlike intensity that makes even the more impenetrable passages a joy to wade through. Yes, this is an infuriatingly difficult read. It also might be a work of flawed genius. But such grandiose claims are still a reread away