Alta Ifland's Blog: Notes on Books - Posts Tagged "feminist"
The Art of Joy by Goliarda Sapienza (FSG, 2013). Trans. from the Italian by Anne Milano Appel
When I first saw the 670-page hardcopy of The Art of Joy I was convinced I wouldn't read more than a few pages, never mind finish the entire book. But once I opened it I couldn’t put it down: this isn’t merely a very good novel—an engaging bildungsroman/family saga with memorable characters, spanning the twentieth century from its beginning until the sixties; it is the kind of work that should be taught in schools, together with works by such authors as Simone de Beauvoir or Sibilla Aleramo (famous early twentieth century Italian feminist).
The daughter of two leftist intellectuals (her mother, Maria Giudice, is mentioned in the novel during the heated political discussions of the protagonists), Sapienza projects her unusual upbringing onto the fictional world she has created—a world in which the relations between men and women, the young and the elderly, the rich and the poor, and our idea of (romantic) love are questioned. And yet, to talk about The Art of Joy in ideological terms—i.e., to call it “feminist” or “radically leftist”—would be to cheapen it.
Sapienza has poured her free spirit into her protagonist, Modesta, creating one of the strongest female characters of twentieth-century literature. Early in the novel Modesta may be off-putting, as she resembles the “amoralists” of André Gide’s novels (she doesn’t shy away from anything, including murder), but after she becomes a Brandiforti, and from a dirt-poor orphan she enthrones herself as the leader of this aristocratic Sicilian family, her story becomes highly captivating. Her first love is a woman who happens to be the illegitimate daughter of the nun who had raised her; her second love, the father of said daughter; her third, the son of said father. You may say that this sounds like a soap opera, but it’s one of the most literary novels I’ve ever read. How does Sapienza pull this off? One of her narrative strategies is to write full chapters in dialogue, introducing characters and even events in this way, as if she moved from one dramatic scene to another. The result is that the drama is never separated from the world of ideas, and the characters take shape through their passions and ideas at the same time. Nothing sounds phony in the novel because nothing Modesta does is for shock-value; rather, she doesn’t seem bound by the moral laws of society; she never “transgresses” anything because she doesn’t recognize the law in the first place. Yet, paradoxically, she is very Italian, insofar as she always lets herself be driven by passion, but passion infused with extraordinary intelligence and strength of character.
It may be that the beginning of the novel—which includes the sexual initiation of Modesta as a little girl and a scene of incest—had scared away the publishers. Whatever the reason, The Art of Joy was unpublished for thirty years. Published for the first time in Italy in the late nineties, after the author’s death, it’s only recently that it has started to gather acclaim. True, it would have been even better had it been at least a hundred pages shorter, but don’t be deterred by its length: it’s the kind of novel that one doesn’t need to finish in order to enjoy.
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The daughter of two leftist intellectuals (her mother, Maria Giudice, is mentioned in the novel during the heated political discussions of the protagonists), Sapienza projects her unusual upbringing onto the fictional world she has created—a world in which the relations between men and women, the young and the elderly, the rich and the poor, and our idea of (romantic) love are questioned. And yet, to talk about The Art of Joy in ideological terms—i.e., to call it “feminist” or “radically leftist”—would be to cheapen it.
Sapienza has poured her free spirit into her protagonist, Modesta, creating one of the strongest female characters of twentieth-century literature. Early in the novel Modesta may be off-putting, as she resembles the “amoralists” of André Gide’s novels (she doesn’t shy away from anything, including murder), but after she becomes a Brandiforti, and from a dirt-poor orphan she enthrones herself as the leader of this aristocratic Sicilian family, her story becomes highly captivating. Her first love is a woman who happens to be the illegitimate daughter of the nun who had raised her; her second love, the father of said daughter; her third, the son of said father. You may say that this sounds like a soap opera, but it’s one of the most literary novels I’ve ever read. How does Sapienza pull this off? One of her narrative strategies is to write full chapters in dialogue, introducing characters and even events in this way, as if she moved from one dramatic scene to another. The result is that the drama is never separated from the world of ideas, and the characters take shape through their passions and ideas at the same time. Nothing sounds phony in the novel because nothing Modesta does is for shock-value; rather, she doesn’t seem bound by the moral laws of society; she never “transgresses” anything because she doesn’t recognize the law in the first place. Yet, paradoxically, she is very Italian, insofar as she always lets herself be driven by passion, but passion infused with extraordinary intelligence and strength of character.
It may be that the beginning of the novel—which includes the sexual initiation of Modesta as a little girl and a scene of incest—had scared away the publishers. Whatever the reason, The Art of Joy was unpublished for thirty years. Published for the first time in Italy in the late nineties, after the author’s death, it’s only recently that it has started to gather acclaim. True, it would have been even better had it been at least a hundred pages shorter, but don’t be deterred by its length: it’s the kind of novel that one doesn’t need to finish in order to enjoy.
View all my reviews
Notes on Books
Book reviews and occasional notes and thoughts on world literature and writers by an American writer of Eastern European origin.
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