Alta Ifland's Blog: Notes on Books - Posts Tagged "italian"
Book Expo America 2011: Second Day, Tuesday, May 24th
I was happy to find some of my favorite publishers: New Directions, NYBR Books, Overlook Press and Europa Editions. (Speaking of Europa Editions, the book I am reading now is published by them: The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine by a young German novelist of Russian origin, Alina Bronsky. I haven’t been so totally immersed in a novel in a long time—this is a hilarious, engrossing novel, one of those rare books that can appeal to a very diverse readership.)
My best BEA moments today were two sessions, both on literature in translation: “Spanish and Latin American Fiction in Translation” and “Translating Italy.” In my experience, translators are the most interesting—definitely the most intelligent and knowledgeable—creatures one can meet at literary events. This is not by accident since a translator is, by definition, someone who attempts to inhabit someone else’s mind. By the way, at the session on Italian literature, the first question asked by the moderator was: “What is a translator?” Anne Goldstein’s definition was the one I liked best: a translator is someone who solves puzzles—but the puzzles don’t have a good or wrong answer; there could be a hundred good ways of solving a translation puzzle. The other two translators at the Italian session were Jonathan Galassi, who has recently published a much talked-about rendition of Leopardi, and Michael F. Moore. One piece of good news was that today, in Italy, the majority of books on the best-sellers lists are not only by authors of Italian origin, but also by writers of literary fiction (rather than genre fiction, as is usually the case).
The session on Spanish literature was very good too, though, unfortunately, I only caught the last half. Among the panelists were the ubiquitous Chad Post, editor of Three Percent (one of the best online literary magazines of reviews on books in translation), and celebrated translator Natasha Wimmer (who confessed that every single book she has translated was a book on which the publishers lost money, in spite of the fact that the authors were world-famous—this statement alone speaks volumes about the situation of books in translation in this country).
My best BEA moments today were two sessions, both on literature in translation: “Spanish and Latin American Fiction in Translation” and “Translating Italy.” In my experience, translators are the most interesting—definitely the most intelligent and knowledgeable—creatures one can meet at literary events. This is not by accident since a translator is, by definition, someone who attempts to inhabit someone else’s mind. By the way, at the session on Italian literature, the first question asked by the moderator was: “What is a translator?” Anne Goldstein’s definition was the one I liked best: a translator is someone who solves puzzles—but the puzzles don’t have a good or wrong answer; there could be a hundred good ways of solving a translation puzzle. The other two translators at the Italian session were Jonathan Galassi, who has recently published a much talked-about rendition of Leopardi, and Michael F. Moore. One piece of good news was that today, in Italy, the majority of books on the best-sellers lists are not only by authors of Italian origin, but also by writers of literary fiction (rather than genre fiction, as is usually the case).
The session on Spanish literature was very good too, though, unfortunately, I only caught the last half. Among the panelists were the ubiquitous Chad Post, editor of Three Percent (one of the best online literary magazines of reviews on books in translation), and celebrated translator Natasha Wimmer (who confessed that every single book she has translated was a book on which the publishers lost money, in spite of the fact that the authors were world-famous—this statement alone speaks volumes about the situation of books in translation in this country).
Book Expo America 2011: Third Day, Wednesday, May 25th
It turned out that, indeed, there was another area of the exhibit that had more publishers of literary fiction than the area I’d previously visited. By the end of the day I had a bag full of so many goodies I had to ship them home. First, I stopped (again) by Europa Editions’s table because I’d been told that they would give books away. I had the unexpected luck of meeting the publisher himself, Kent Caroll, who let me choose two novels. I picked The Worst Intentions by Alessandro Piperno and The Art of Losing by Rebecca Connell.
Then, I found Other Press, another publisher I like not only because of the authors they publish but also because they respect and promote their authors. I know a very good writer, Michelle Hoover, who had a great experience with them, and whose novel, The Quickening, I highly recommend. The people there were all friendly and let me pick whatever I wanted among their advanced reading copies. I took Alberto Moravia’s Two Friends, and the intriguing Calling Mr. King by Ronald de Feo, both forthcoming in September. And, finally, I made a discovery: Biblioasis, an independent publisher from Canada. They have just published The Accident by Mihail Sebastian, a very interesting Romanian writer from the first half of the 20th century.
With my bag full I headed for the autographing table of Carmela Ciuraru, author of Nom de Plume: A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms. As on Tuesday, the autographing area (which included about thirty tables) was swarming with dozens of passionate readers who were patiently waiting in line to get a signature from an author. I asked an organizer where I could buy the book and...I found out that the books were FREE. Well, that explained the passion of all those readers.The QuickeningNom de Plume: A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms
Then, I found Other Press, another publisher I like not only because of the authors they publish but also because they respect and promote their authors. I know a very good writer, Michelle Hoover, who had a great experience with them, and whose novel, The Quickening, I highly recommend. The people there were all friendly and let me pick whatever I wanted among their advanced reading copies. I took Alberto Moravia’s Two Friends, and the intriguing Calling Mr. King by Ronald de Feo, both forthcoming in September. And, finally, I made a discovery: Biblioasis, an independent publisher from Canada. They have just published The Accident by Mihail Sebastian, a very interesting Romanian writer from the first half of the 20th century.
With my bag full I headed for the autographing table of Carmela Ciuraru, author of Nom de Plume: A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms. As on Tuesday, the autographing area (which included about thirty tables) was swarming with dozens of passionate readers who were patiently waiting in line to get a signature from an author. I asked an organizer where I could buy the book and...I found out that the books were FREE. Well, that explained the passion of all those readers.The QuickeningNom de Plume: A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms
Europa Editions and Contemporary Italian Fiction
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. Europa Editions, 2012. Trans. from the Italian by Ann Goldstein.
Persecution by Alessandro Piperno. Europa Editions, 2012. Trans. from the Italian by Ann Goldstein.
Europa Editions has become in recent years one of the most important publishing houses of fiction in translation. Among its authors a privileged place is given to contemporary Italian novelists. Having already read and greatly enjoyed Elena Ferrante’s The Lost Daughter and Alessandro Piperno’s The Worst Intentions, I was thrilled to discover My Brilliant Friend and Persecution, both impeccably translated by Ann Goldstein and released this year.
My Brilliant Friend is the story of a friendship between two young Neapolitan women from pre-school age until they reach sixteen, and indirectly a history of Naples from the fifties until the present. I say “until the present” because the story is preceded by a phone conversation between the narrator (Elena) and one of the children of the narrator’s friend, Lila. Elena, who is now sixty-six, is informed that Lila has disappeared, and as a consequence, decides to write the story of their youth. But the novel never returns to the initial frame, and ends, abruptly, with a disturbing scene from Lila’s wedding. This semi-circle, or half-framing, which goes against our expectations as readers, may appear strange to some, but personally, I liked it.
The novel, focused mostly on the two girls growing up in a poor Neapolitan neighborhood and the local family dramas, is more suspenseful and full of excitement than a thriller. The reader is drawn entirely into this world of strong passions and conflicts whose intensity remind one of neorealist films. This coming-of-age story is also a novel about becoming a writer, and about the power of the double. Indeed, the two friends make for a fascinating couple, being opposite and similar at the same time; although with minds of their own, both are dependent on each other, and each thinks of the other as her “brilliant friend.” Lila is the one with a true “voice” and with a fierce sense of independence, and yet, she will remain attached to the same milieu, while Elena will be the one to tell their story.
Ferrante’s world is a violent world, a world in which parents beat their children and husbands their wives, brothers hit their sisters, and male friends feel obligated to engage in a fight each time another male looks at their female companions. Every single time Elena’s group of friends goes out, the outing ends with a fight. And yet, in spite of the violence, this is a deeply humane world.
Piperno’s Persecution is just as intense and, like My Brilliant Friend, has a masterful way of keeping the reader on edge. The novel is a contemporary family drama about a highly successful doctor, Leo Pontecorvo, who has it all: looks; a beautiful, devoted wife; two teenage boys; a great career and, of course, money. A man who’d always been watched over by Providence, Leo has made many enemies but nonchalantly ignored them until one summer day in 1986 when a TV news anchor accuses him of having tried to seduce his thirteen-year-old son’s girlfriend. This is the beginning of Leo’s downfall: eventually, he is accused of rape, but he is so puzzled and embarrassed that he doesn’t even attempt to defend himself before his family, and instead retreats into the house’s cellar.
For the narrator—a mysterious, omniscient voice—Leo is the victim of a disturbed teenage girl and of his family’s lack of faith in him. I would also speculate that this novel is a response to the contemporary cult of the victim, and to the tendency to give immediate credence to stories of abuse. Many European intellectuals regard with suspicious eyes the (primarily American) tendency to make into a hero any self-proclaimed victim, and see this as a consequence of the functioning of contemporary media, and of a perverted idea of “democracy” (basically, a revenge of the “masses” against those more fortunate).
Piperno and Ferrante display a flow and a naturalness of style that come from a vision of literature unhindered by artificial dualisms, such as “craft”/“plot” or “writing”/”story.” They are among that rare species of novelists who, gifted with a critical, analytical mind, are skilled enough to pretend that they simply inhabit their characters, though every once in a while they get out of character, gazing upon it with the critical eye of a god. These novelists prove that good novels are almost always a combination of the skill to entertain and to think critically, and that literary style isn’t simply the result of skillfully moving words around, but the result of being able to structure the world in a new way. After all, sentences are structures, not merely words strung together.
Persecution by Alessandro Piperno. Europa Editions, 2012. Trans. from the Italian by Ann Goldstein.
Europa Editions has become in recent years one of the most important publishing houses of fiction in translation. Among its authors a privileged place is given to contemporary Italian novelists. Having already read and greatly enjoyed Elena Ferrante’s The Lost Daughter and Alessandro Piperno’s The Worst Intentions, I was thrilled to discover My Brilliant Friend and Persecution, both impeccably translated by Ann Goldstein and released this year.
My Brilliant Friend is the story of a friendship between two young Neapolitan women from pre-school age until they reach sixteen, and indirectly a history of Naples from the fifties until the present. I say “until the present” because the story is preceded by a phone conversation between the narrator (Elena) and one of the children of the narrator’s friend, Lila. Elena, who is now sixty-six, is informed that Lila has disappeared, and as a consequence, decides to write the story of their youth. But the novel never returns to the initial frame, and ends, abruptly, with a disturbing scene from Lila’s wedding. This semi-circle, or half-framing, which goes against our expectations as readers, may appear strange to some, but personally, I liked it.
The novel, focused mostly on the two girls growing up in a poor Neapolitan neighborhood and the local family dramas, is more suspenseful and full of excitement than a thriller. The reader is drawn entirely into this world of strong passions and conflicts whose intensity remind one of neorealist films. This coming-of-age story is also a novel about becoming a writer, and about the power of the double. Indeed, the two friends make for a fascinating couple, being opposite and similar at the same time; although with minds of their own, both are dependent on each other, and each thinks of the other as her “brilliant friend.” Lila is the one with a true “voice” and with a fierce sense of independence, and yet, she will remain attached to the same milieu, while Elena will be the one to tell their story.
Ferrante’s world is a violent world, a world in which parents beat their children and husbands their wives, brothers hit their sisters, and male friends feel obligated to engage in a fight each time another male looks at their female companions. Every single time Elena’s group of friends goes out, the outing ends with a fight. And yet, in spite of the violence, this is a deeply humane world.
Piperno’s Persecution is just as intense and, like My Brilliant Friend, has a masterful way of keeping the reader on edge. The novel is a contemporary family drama about a highly successful doctor, Leo Pontecorvo, who has it all: looks; a beautiful, devoted wife; two teenage boys; a great career and, of course, money. A man who’d always been watched over by Providence, Leo has made many enemies but nonchalantly ignored them until one summer day in 1986 when a TV news anchor accuses him of having tried to seduce his thirteen-year-old son’s girlfriend. This is the beginning of Leo’s downfall: eventually, he is accused of rape, but he is so puzzled and embarrassed that he doesn’t even attempt to defend himself before his family, and instead retreats into the house’s cellar.
For the narrator—a mysterious, omniscient voice—Leo is the victim of a disturbed teenage girl and of his family’s lack of faith in him. I would also speculate that this novel is a response to the contemporary cult of the victim, and to the tendency to give immediate credence to stories of abuse. Many European intellectuals regard with suspicious eyes the (primarily American) tendency to make into a hero any self-proclaimed victim, and see this as a consequence of the functioning of contemporary media, and of a perverted idea of “democracy” (basically, a revenge of the “masses” against those more fortunate).
Piperno and Ferrante display a flow and a naturalness of style that come from a vision of literature unhindered by artificial dualisms, such as “craft”/“plot” or “writing”/”story.” They are among that rare species of novelists who, gifted with a critical, analytical mind, are skilled enough to pretend that they simply inhabit their characters, though every once in a while they get out of character, gazing upon it with the critical eye of a god. These novelists prove that good novels are almost always a combination of the skill to entertain and to think critically, and that literary style isn’t simply the result of skillfully moving words around, but the result of being able to structure the world in a new way. After all, sentences are structures, not merely words strung together.
Blindly by Claudio Magris (Yale UP, 2012. Trans. from the Italian by Anne Milano Appel)
Claudio Magris, one of the most respected contemporary European intellectuals, is virtually unknown in the US—that’s why the publication of his novel, Blindly, in Anne Milano Appel’s very skilful translation, is a welcome change.
As all the reviewers have observed, it is hard to identify who the narrator in this novel is: is he “Comrade Cippico,” a Communist (not “anti-Communist,” as the book jacket wrongly states!) of Italian origin, who ends up, together with other Italian comrades in Tito’s gulag on the island of Goli Otok? Or is he Jorgen Jorgenson, a nineteenth-century adventurer with a twisted background, who is condemned to forced labor in Australia? As it becomes clear from early on, he is both: Magris creates a speaker of mixed identities and a listener (the man to whom he confesses, who might be a psychiatrist) equally ambiguous.
Blindly is a challenging, intriguing and beautifully written novel, but, above all, it is a novel of ideas—hence the question: what’s the book’s message? A novel needn’t have a message, but this one clearly has one; the problem is that, although the ideas in it are easy to identify, the overall message is not. Since Comrade Cippico has been interned at Dachau before Goli Otok, we can assume that he represents the little man crushed by history from all sides, right and left, Nazis and Communists. But Cippico, who, like his comrades, is in search of “the golden fleece,” doesn’t abandon his search and his belief in communism, even after his horrific tortures in Tito’s gulag, and this is where the novel’s ambiguity becomes problematic. We don’t get the sense the Magris deconstructs this search, but rather, that he presents Cippico simply as a victim of, let’s call them some bad manipulators of history. Also, consider this reflection: “Those who want to keep man enslaved—like the Fascists, the Nazis, the capitalists…” Statements like this made me less enthusiastic than I might have been about this novel. I’m no fan of “the capitalists,” but to list them next to the Nazis, especially after having called Dachau “the apocalypse,” is the kind of rushed talk one expects from a righteous freshman, and not from someone with Magris’s credentials. (I am aware that the narrator isn't Magris, but it seems to me that in some cases, like this one, the author identifies with the character. True, I might be wrong, and this identification may be a false impression).
A technique Magris uses is the contemporary rewriting of Greek myths and characters (the golden fleece is one of them). By inserting them in a contemporary setting he demystifies them and attempts to achieve some kind of universalization of his own characters and events: “the same old Charon going by the name of Daniel O’Leary; the ruse is successful, a facelift that makes him seem much younger…” This technique was very popular before WWII, in particular among French playwrights, such as Giraudoux—but today, this might a bit outdated.
Luckily, I was patient enough to read until the end, and at page 316, I stumbled upon this great passage:
"The fleece suffocates, it brings death to whoever touches it. . . . Every previous possessor, robbed by a subsequent one, is in turn a usurper who appropriated it unlawfully [aha! We are getting to the ‘lesson’!] Give it back to the animal, killed and flayed in homage to the gods always thirsting for blood; only on the sheep’s back was the fleece in its rightful place [Italics mine].”
I confess, I wasn’t expecting this! This is definitely better than Giraudoux!
As all the reviewers have observed, it is hard to identify who the narrator in this novel is: is he “Comrade Cippico,” a Communist (not “anti-Communist,” as the book jacket wrongly states!) of Italian origin, who ends up, together with other Italian comrades in Tito’s gulag on the island of Goli Otok? Or is he Jorgen Jorgenson, a nineteenth-century adventurer with a twisted background, who is condemned to forced labor in Australia? As it becomes clear from early on, he is both: Magris creates a speaker of mixed identities and a listener (the man to whom he confesses, who might be a psychiatrist) equally ambiguous.
Blindly is a challenging, intriguing and beautifully written novel, but, above all, it is a novel of ideas—hence the question: what’s the book’s message? A novel needn’t have a message, but this one clearly has one; the problem is that, although the ideas in it are easy to identify, the overall message is not. Since Comrade Cippico has been interned at Dachau before Goli Otok, we can assume that he represents the little man crushed by history from all sides, right and left, Nazis and Communists. But Cippico, who, like his comrades, is in search of “the golden fleece,” doesn’t abandon his search and his belief in communism, even after his horrific tortures in Tito’s gulag, and this is where the novel’s ambiguity becomes problematic. We don’t get the sense the Magris deconstructs this search, but rather, that he presents Cippico simply as a victim of, let’s call them some bad manipulators of history. Also, consider this reflection: “Those who want to keep man enslaved—like the Fascists, the Nazis, the capitalists…” Statements like this made me less enthusiastic than I might have been about this novel. I’m no fan of “the capitalists,” but to list them next to the Nazis, especially after having called Dachau “the apocalypse,” is the kind of rushed talk one expects from a righteous freshman, and not from someone with Magris’s credentials. (I am aware that the narrator isn't Magris, but it seems to me that in some cases, like this one, the author identifies with the character. True, I might be wrong, and this identification may be a false impression).
A technique Magris uses is the contemporary rewriting of Greek myths and characters (the golden fleece is one of them). By inserting them in a contemporary setting he demystifies them and attempts to achieve some kind of universalization of his own characters and events: “the same old Charon going by the name of Daniel O’Leary; the ruse is successful, a facelift that makes him seem much younger…” This technique was very popular before WWII, in particular among French playwrights, such as Giraudoux—but today, this might a bit outdated.
Luckily, I was patient enough to read until the end, and at page 316, I stumbled upon this great passage:
"The fleece suffocates, it brings death to whoever touches it. . . . Every previous possessor, robbed by a subsequent one, is in turn a usurper who appropriated it unlawfully [aha! We are getting to the ‘lesson’!] Give it back to the animal, killed and flayed in homage to the gods always thirsting for blood; only on the sheep’s back was the fleece in its rightful place [Italics mine].”
I confess, I wasn’t expecting this! This is definitely better than Giraudoux!
Three Thrillers
Three thrillers with a political/historical background were released in English translation in 2013: The Mehlis Report by Rabee Jaber (New Directions. Translated from the Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid), I Will Have Vengeance by Maurizio de Giovanni (Europa Editions. Translated from the Italian by Anne Milano Appel) and The Mongolian Conspiracy by the Mexican writer Rafael Bernal (New Directions. Translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver). Of these three, The Mehlis Report is a thriller only for marketing purposes. Set in Beirut in 2004-2005, the novel is centered on the report drawn by the German prosecutor, Mehlis, on the assassination of the Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. While the description of Beirut is extremely vivid, and the reader can feel, on the one hand, the fear that permeates everyday life in a city ravaged by bombs, and on the other, the charm of a complex, multicultural society, the novel doesn’t really come to life. There is something stagnant about it, in spite of its premise—the anxious expectation of the report—, and the idea of having dead people contact the world of the living via cell phones is rather embarrassing (notwithstanding the author’s obvious symbolic intentions; besides, what are the dead supposed to symbolize here? I’m sure the author himself could only give a muddled answer.) This is a very uneven novel (for one thing, it probably has one of the worst beginnings in the history of literature, and I doubt that the editors of New Directions would have ever published it had it been written by an American writer), a novel with potential, but maybe the author, who already wrote fifteen novels before reaching forty, should have taken more than just a few months to write it.
Set in the 1930s, during the Fascist era in Italy, I Will Have Vengeance moves beyond the classical form of the thriller. It is evident that the author has not only commercial aspirations, but also literary, and to some degree he succeeds. The victim being a famous opera singer, the novel includes reflections on music, art, love, and social injustice. The title itself, “I Will Have Vengeance,” is from one of the operas performed by the victim—though I wonder why the translator (or the publisher?) didn’t use the literal translation of “Io voglio sangue,” “I want blood,” which is stronger and more compelling. As in The Mehlis Report, there is a “paranormal” element in this otherwise serious book, which, as far as I am concerned, infuses these books with a layer of kitsch: here, the detective can see dead people from his past talking to him and giving him clues about the crime. Luckily, there is a twist at the end, and although the crime is indeed, motivated by “passion,” the reason is slightly more complicated.
The Mongolian Conspiracy is the closest to a traditional thriller, which, in theory, should make it the least literary; in fact, it is the best from all points of view: written in a highly economical style, witty, politically astute, with an existentialist touch at the end. The original was published in 1969, at the height of Sartre’s fame, of whom this reply is reminiscent: “When you kill…you are forever condemned to solitude.” The reply belongs to the protagonist, a hired gunman, and it is addressed to his former employer. The background is the cold war, and the premise the potential assassination of the American president during his visit to Mexico. But the twist at the end, very intelligent, takes us in a very different direction.
Set in the 1930s, during the Fascist era in Italy, I Will Have Vengeance moves beyond the classical form of the thriller. It is evident that the author has not only commercial aspirations, but also literary, and to some degree he succeeds. The victim being a famous opera singer, the novel includes reflections on music, art, love, and social injustice. The title itself, “I Will Have Vengeance,” is from one of the operas performed by the victim—though I wonder why the translator (or the publisher?) didn’t use the literal translation of “Io voglio sangue,” “I want blood,” which is stronger and more compelling. As in The Mehlis Report, there is a “paranormal” element in this otherwise serious book, which, as far as I am concerned, infuses these books with a layer of kitsch: here, the detective can see dead people from his past talking to him and giving him clues about the crime. Luckily, there is a twist at the end, and although the crime is indeed, motivated by “passion,” the reason is slightly more complicated.
The Mongolian Conspiracy is the closest to a traditional thriller, which, in theory, should make it the least literary; in fact, it is the best from all points of view: written in a highly economical style, witty, politically astute, with an existentialist touch at the end. The original was published in 1969, at the height of Sartre’s fame, of whom this reply is reminiscent: “When you kill…you are forever condemned to solitude.” The reply belongs to the protagonist, a hired gunman, and it is addressed to his former employer. The background is the cold war, and the premise the potential assassination of the American president during his visit to Mexico. But the twist at the end, very intelligent, takes us in a very different direction.
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.
View all my reviews
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
My Top Ten Fiction Books for 2014
1. The Art of Joy by Goliarda Sapienza (2013, Italian)
2. The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante (2005, Italian)
3. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante (2014, Italian)
4. The Bridge over the Neroch by Leonid Tsypkin (2012, Russian)
5. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka (2006, British)
6. Christopher and Columbus by Elizabeth von Arnim (1995, 1919, British)
7. Child of My Heart by Alice McDermott (2003, 1984, American)
8. Kinder than Solitude by Yiyun Li (2014, American-Chinese)
9. Slow Homecoming by Peter Handke (2009, Austrian)
10. The Time Regulation Institute by Ahmet Hamdi Tampinar (2014, Turkish)
2. The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante (2005, Italian)
3. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante (2014, Italian)
4. The Bridge over the Neroch by Leonid Tsypkin (2012, Russian)
5. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka (2006, British)
6. Christopher and Columbus by Elizabeth von Arnim (1995, 1919, British)
7. Child of My Heart by Alice McDermott (2003, 1984, American)
8. Kinder than Solitude by Yiyun Li (2014, American-Chinese)
9. Slow Homecoming by Peter Handke (2009, Austrian)
10. The Time Regulation Institute by Ahmet Hamdi Tampinar (2014, Turkish)
Three Light-Years by Andrea Canobbio
In Andrea Canobbio’s Three Light-Years, the narrator (who makes several discreet appearances at the beginning and the ending of the novel) imagines the three years, which led to his birth, before his mother’s pregnancy. This is the frame, or rather, the pretext of the drama involving two main characters: his father, Claudio, and the woman he falls in love with, Cecilia—both doctors in the same hospital. In intelligent, thoughtful prose—for which we have to thank the translator, Anne Milano Appel—Canobbio takes us through the daily lives of these characters. For a while, Claudio, who is unattached, seems both like a hopeless lover and a voyeur into Cecilia’s life, a recently divorced woman with two growing children. Then, the balance shifts, and Cecilia responds to Claudio’s attentions. When, finally, the reader is led to believe that a relationship between the two is possible, fate intervenes: Claudio is introduced to Silvia, Cecilia’s eccentric sister. The novel’s ending is somewhat ambiguous, yet the narrator gives us subtle hints about how he grew up and who raised him, so we can imagine the outcome of the drama between Claudio, Cecilia and Silvia. This is a novel about contemporary couples, which should resonate with readers everywhere.
Notes on Books
Book reviews and occasional notes and thoughts on world literature and writers by an American writer of Eastern European origin.
- Alta Ifland's profile
- 172 followers
