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The Evening of the Holiday
In the words of Time magazine, " A near perfect novel...a small masterpiece " by the author of The Great Fire Passionate undercurrents sweep in and out of this eloquent novel about a love affair in a summer countryside in Italy and its inevitable end. It takes place in a setting of pastoral beauty during a time of celebration--a festival. Sophie, half English, half Italian, meets Tancredi, an Italian who is separated from his wife and family. In telling the story of their love affair, Shirley Hazzard punctures the placid surface of polite Italian society to reveal the intense yearnings and surprising responses in sophisticated people caught up in emotions they do not always understand.
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1966
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About the author
Shirley Hazzard
25 books313 followersShirley Hazzard was born in Australia, and as a child travelled the world due to her parents’ diplomatic postings. At age 16, she began working for British Combined Intelligence Services in Hong Kong, monitoring civil war in China. After her family moved to New York City, she worked for several years as a typist at the United Nations Secretariat in New York.
After leaving this post, she became a full-time writer and a passionate opponent of the United Nations, the subject of several of her nonfiction books.
Known for elegant and controlled writing, Hazzard’s works of fiction include five novels. Her last novel, The Great Fire, was shortlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize for Fiction and the 2005 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
After leaving this post, she became a full-time writer and a passionate opponent of the United Nations, the subject of several of her nonfiction books.
Known for elegant and controlled writing, Hazzard’s works of fiction include five novels. Her last novel, The Great Fire, was shortlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize for Fiction and the 2005 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 188 reviews
December 6, 2020
This is Shirley Hazzard's first novel and ostensibly occupies a small canvas. It's set in a town in Tuscany - a kind of cross between Siena and Lucca. A young English woman, Sophie meets a separated married Italian man, Tancredi and initially they don't much like each other. Before long though, continually brought together by circumstance, they are romantically bound. The evocation of Italy is one of this novel's high points. This is a writer who loves Italy and knows it intimately. The descriptive writing is always beautiful. She's a very writerly writer - so much craft goes into her every sentence. I don't think there's a lazy pointless sentence in the entire book. It's a novel that gets wiser and wiser as it goes on. Although the affair has an air of a holiday romance, we begin to see the entire course of the heroine's life is in the balance. It's a crossroads moment in her life which will irreparably determine the kind of person she will become. The choice should be easy: she's in love. But she is surrounded by unhappy history. And Sophie's reluctance to begin her life takes its fuel subtly from the stories of the world she finds herself in. Essentially this is a romance that makes you see how much weight there is in the choices we make when we are young. Thanks to Laura for drawing my attention to Hazzard. I now plan to read all her books. 4+ stars.
February 14, 2023
This is not the edition I have - my one is a 1969 paperback Penguin, badly worn around the edges with a picture of an ornate fountain backed by tall balconied buildings. When you take this book in your hand - it is so slim and small - just 138 narrow pages. Remarkable because - the author creates such a convincing world - a small Italian town and just three characters.
I read quite a lot of books in the last six weeks or so and as I've not had Internet - I've viewed them as a group - having not written up any reviews
Out of this group - I think I loved this one the most. It's a romantic but restrained love story - with a sad ending. The bitter-sweet scenario of lovers parting is reversed a little by the chaperone of an elderly aunt - Luisa - who suggests to the young Sophie - that there is really no reason for her to leave. Sophie returns to her aunt's house - at the end of the novel for Luisa's funeral - and there is clearly an opportunity for Sophie to renew the relationship with Tancredi - the man - whose wife has left.
I must state my hearty thanks to Violet who recommended - Hazzard - so, when I saw this in a second-hand shop I grabbed it. I will read all and everything I ever find by Ms Hazzard.
Here is a stunning description taken from when Tancredi and Sophie first meet - in Luisa's garden.
They passed on through the arbour draped with a great arch of wisteria, and out once more into the sun. They walked along more slowly still - almost idly, as if they had forgotten the fountain and had no destination.
They came upon it suddenly. It was, as he had said, well placed, in a slightly sunken paved court enclosed by flowering shrubs. The little court was circular and so were the two or three graded steps that formed the base of the fountain. The fountain itself was very old - of thick marble, veined and discoloured. On the shaft and at either side of the basin there were sculpted figures, loosely draped and apparently playing on instruments, from which all detail had been effaced. The bowl of the fountain was shallow and smooth and beautifully whitened, and brimmed with water that poured steadily into it through apertures beneath the figures grouped on either side.
Sophie walked up to the fountain without speaking, and Tancredi came and stood behind her. The basin was at the height of her elbow, and she extended her hand over the rounded edge to dip it in the water, splashing the surrounding marble with ripples of green light.
'How lovely,' she exclaimed. 'Oh, how lovely.'
The writing is straightforward, but as you read the description it is as if you have descended into that sunny, sleeping garden - just as Sophie and Tancredi slip into their world of love.
It is an early book by Hazzard, with a dedication to her husband - Francis - with whom I can only imagine she was very much in love.
I read quite a lot of books in the last six weeks or so and as I've not had Internet - I've viewed them as a group - having not written up any reviews
Out of this group - I think I loved this one the most. It's a romantic but restrained love story - with a sad ending. The bitter-sweet scenario of lovers parting is reversed a little by the chaperone of an elderly aunt - Luisa - who suggests to the young Sophie - that there is really no reason for her to leave. Sophie returns to her aunt's house - at the end of the novel for Luisa's funeral - and there is clearly an opportunity for Sophie to renew the relationship with Tancredi - the man - whose wife has left.
I must state my hearty thanks to Violet who recommended - Hazzard - so, when I saw this in a second-hand shop I grabbed it. I will read all and everything I ever find by Ms Hazzard.
Here is a stunning description taken from when Tancredi and Sophie first meet - in Luisa's garden.
They passed on through the arbour draped with a great arch of wisteria, and out once more into the sun. They walked along more slowly still - almost idly, as if they had forgotten the fountain and had no destination.
They came upon it suddenly. It was, as he had said, well placed, in a slightly sunken paved court enclosed by flowering shrubs. The little court was circular and so were the two or three graded steps that formed the base of the fountain. The fountain itself was very old - of thick marble, veined and discoloured. On the shaft and at either side of the basin there were sculpted figures, loosely draped and apparently playing on instruments, from which all detail had been effaced. The bowl of the fountain was shallow and smooth and beautifully whitened, and brimmed with water that poured steadily into it through apertures beneath the figures grouped on either side.
Sophie walked up to the fountain without speaking, and Tancredi came and stood behind her. The basin was at the height of her elbow, and she extended her hand over the rounded edge to dip it in the water, splashing the surrounding marble with ripples of green light.
'How lovely,' she exclaimed. 'Oh, how lovely.'
The writing is straightforward, but as you read the description it is as if you have descended into that sunny, sleeping garden - just as Sophie and Tancredi slip into their world of love.
It is an early book by Hazzard, with a dedication to her husband - Francis - with whom I can only imagine she was very much in love.
November 25, 2020
When you finish this book, pay no mind to the thought that the female main character's decision seems almost willful, without much to back it up. That aspect is not important to this short novel that gets stronger as it goes.
I'm always impressed when a novelist conveys characters' thought processes so well, but I'm even more impressed with Hazzard who can convey the thoughts of multiple characters by showing one's thoughts about another and then with one deft phrase, sometimes at the end of the same paragraph, show you the other character's thought, turning what you've already read completely around. That kind of writing makes me excited. In a way it's like The Upward Path by Renoir that she references in this work -- the figures in the painting are descending, but because of the title, you know they originally ascended.
The last paragraphs of the novel are a mastery of detachment, deflection and insight.
I'm always impressed when a novelist conveys characters' thought processes so well, but I'm even more impressed with Hazzard who can convey the thoughts of multiple characters by showing one's thoughts about another and then with one deft phrase, sometimes at the end of the same paragraph, show you the other character's thought, turning what you've already read completely around. That kind of writing makes me excited. In a way it's like The Upward Path by Renoir that she references in this work -- the figures in the painting are descending, but because of the title, you know they originally ascended.
The last paragraphs of the novel are a mastery of detachment, deflection and insight.
August 13, 2014
The first ninety pages or so kept making me think that this was the kind of novel Elizabeth Bowen or Rosamond Lehman might have written when they were thirteen or fourteen. Too much sensibility and too little sense. And very dated, considering it was written in 1966. Towards the end it did finally acquire a sense of purpose and some architectural finesse but all in all i found it flimsy and disappointing. The Great Fire, however, I liked a lot.
December 30, 2021
I freely admit to plucking this one off my shelf because I lacked one book in my reading challenge for the year, and knew that this novella could be read quickly. Besides that, the author is Shirley Hazzard, so despite the mere 150 pages I knew it would have some weight. She can say more in one sentence that any other writer I know. This was her first novel and is the story of a summer love affair in the Italian countryside.
The two main protagonists, Sophia and Tancredi, were actually not characters I could warm up to at all. They left me feeling detached from the action, I didn't care about their love or their grief when they had to part, or what the future held. However, there was an elderly aunt, Luisa, whose appearance in a scene was guaranteed to liven it up. We are treated to her thoughts, then immediately her dialog, which were two very different things. Her thoughts, of course, being the more interesting.
I read Shirley Hazzard because of her sentences, which are perfect. Her descriptions of the countryside, the gardens, the old and crumbling villas, and the city streets are works of art. By the final chapters, you realize this novel was about much more than the simple story it told, and Sophia and Tancredi are much more complicated than a mere summer romance.
"Although she had often been grieved by her own actions and those of others, she could hardly think of anything she wished undone."
This is not Hazzard's best book, but those sentences are gold.
The two main protagonists, Sophia and Tancredi, were actually not characters I could warm up to at all. They left me feeling detached from the action, I didn't care about their love or their grief when they had to part, or what the future held. However, there was an elderly aunt, Luisa, whose appearance in a scene was guaranteed to liven it up. We are treated to her thoughts, then immediately her dialog, which were two very different things. Her thoughts, of course, being the more interesting.
I read Shirley Hazzard because of her sentences, which are perfect. Her descriptions of the countryside, the gardens, the old and crumbling villas, and the city streets are works of art. By the final chapters, you realize this novel was about much more than the simple story it told, and Sophia and Tancredi are much more complicated than a mere summer romance.
"Although she had often been grieved by her own actions and those of others, she could hardly think of anything she wished undone."
This is not Hazzard's best book, but those sentences are gold.
March 7, 2024
This is very far a
field from my usual fare — it is a book in which much is hinted at that is not said directly,; it is about subtler moods and effects in the daily passages of human life. In this, it is very elegant, and sometimes quite moving. I’ve given it four stars because it’s very good at what it does in this; it is a love story of two people at different stations in life. Just as a matter of taste, I often grow impatient with stories like these, and I did with this one, too, although, in its finest moments, its insights penetrate deeply, and the aftereffects of them linger. The prose itself is first rate.
field from my usual fare — it is a book in which much is hinted at that is not said directly,; it is about subtler moods and effects in the daily passages of human life. In this, it is very elegant, and sometimes quite moving. I’ve given it four stars because it’s very good at what it does in this; it is a love story of two people at different stations in life. Just as a matter of taste, I often grow impatient with stories like these, and I did with this one, too, although, in its finest moments, its insights penetrate deeply, and the aftereffects of them linger. The prose itself is first rate.
February 21, 2018
Every now and then I read a novel that, halfway through, I realize is simply not designed for me, and The Evening of the Holiday, alas, was one of them. It's a short piece but I found it exceptionally hard going.
In an unnamed Italian town, rich Tancredi, estranged from his wife, falls in love with the visiting half-English, half-Italian Sophie, and in due course, rather reluctantly, she returns that love. They have an affair that we're told is rather passionate, even though there's no real evidence of this, until Sophie decides it's time for the romance to end, no matter how painful this might be for both of them.
And, er, that's about it. I suppose I should have put a spoiler alert in front of the preceding paragraph but, really, what is there to spoil?
In books such as this one we can reasonably, in lieu of plot complications or drama, hope for evocative writing, nuances of observation, windows to the human soul -- something like that. This is where I came to the conclusion the book was intended for readers other than myself -- and my copy comes plastered with raves from the New York Times Book Review, New York Review of Books and Chicago Tribune, so clearly plenty of readers found depths invisible to me. But the writing didn't evoke, so far as I was concerned, the place or the passion; and I felt no wiser nor more understanding of the human condition than I had at the outset. A disappointment.
ASIDE: There was one textual trick that Hazzard played that I much admired and enjoyed. Here's an example of it, from page 100:
The trick is to show a character having what seems to them like a shaft of insight, only then to have events turn the tables and reveal it as a fatuity. It's a clever narrative maneuver, and I'll almost certainly steal it at some point.
In an unnamed Italian town, rich Tancredi, estranged from his wife, falls in love with the visiting half-English, half-Italian Sophie, and in due course, rather reluctantly, she returns that love. They have an affair that we're told is rather passionate, even though there's no real evidence of this, until Sophie decides it's time for the romance to end, no matter how painful this might be for both of them.
And, er, that's about it. I suppose I should have put a spoiler alert in front of the preceding paragraph but, really, what is there to spoil?
In books such as this one we can reasonably, in lieu of plot complications or drama, hope for evocative writing, nuances of observation, windows to the human soul -- something like that. This is where I came to the conclusion the book was intended for readers other than myself -- and my copy comes plastered with raves from the New York Times Book Review, New York Review of Books and Chicago Tribune, so clearly plenty of readers found depths invisible to me. But the writing didn't evoke, so far as I was concerned, the place or the passion; and I felt no wiser nor more understanding of the human condition than I had at the outset. A disappointment.
ASIDE: There was one textual trick that Hazzard played that I much admired and enjoyed. Here's an example of it, from page 100:
He thought: She has a streak of ruthlessness. He looked at her to chart this new discovery but found after all only the desire to be with him. When people say 'a streak' like that, he reflected -- 'So-and-so has a streak of something' -- it is always in a pejorative sense: a streak of cruelty, of cowardice, of dishonesty. Kindness, sympathy, affection were considered more pervasive, apparently did not come in streaks.
'Otherwise,' he went on, 'she was as always.'
[To which Sophie says:] 'She has a noble streak.'
The trick is to show a character having what seems to them like a shaft of insight, only then to have events turn the tables and reveal it as a fatuity. It's a clever narrative maneuver, and I'll almost certainly steal it at some point.
January 24, 2021
A perfect little novella.
This language in this languid setting! The less I can say, the better. If only this quality of inquiry and observing conversations could have found a place or time to so settle in my own life. Not even close.
Luisa's thoughts alone! How could Hazzard discern them so young? All I have known never seem to approach this ability until over 60.
Beauty and truth, I know you when I see you.
Very seldom do we get snatches of real "now". This is one of them. Future always lives in the house of tomorrow and there may not be a road to ever arrive. Only a few of us truly know that.
This language in this languid setting! The less I can say, the better. If only this quality of inquiry and observing conversations could have found a place or time to so settle in my own life. Not even close.
Luisa's thoughts alone! How could Hazzard discern them so young? All I have known never seem to approach this ability until over 60.
Beauty and truth, I know you when I see you.
Very seldom do we get snatches of real "now". This is one of them. Future always lives in the house of tomorrow and there may not be a road to ever arrive. Only a few of us truly know that.
November 21, 2020
This is the longest short book I have ever read. My partner kept asking me what is this about? Honestly, I cannot answer him because I just don't know nor do I care. An utter disappointment; discovered when I read Writers & Lovers.
December 3, 2020
Utterly perfect.
December 8, 2025
A very readable and engaging novella about an Italian love affair over a languid summer. Lovely writing.
May 9, 2024
Unsure how I can simultaneously want to give this book 5 and 2 stars. the writing is sparse and gorgeous and the depiction of place is unlike anything I have read. It slips effortlessly between points of view which allows you to feel enmeshed in the love story.
That being said, the ‘love story’ was my biggest issue. Why. Just why. A poor story, well told (thanks Julian for that turn of phrase).
3.3⭐️
That being said, the ‘love story’ was my biggest issue. Why. Just why. A poor story, well told (thanks Julian for that turn of phrase).
3.3⭐️
April 7, 2013
This is almost a long short story, a novella, I guess, and it is slighter and more narrowly focused the other Hazzard novels I've read, even The Bay of Noon, which in some ways is a twin to this book. Nonetheless, Hazzard's craftsmanship is extraordinary, as always. Also, the book is as much a love letter to the Tuscan countryside as anything else (the real Tuscan countryside, inhabited by actual people, if of a generation ago - not the sticky-sweet droll comic confection of latter-day best-selling memoirs), and as such, a delight for anyone with memories of those landscapes and hilltop towns.
As I said, there are common themes with the Bay of Noon, the love affair between younger foreign woman and middle-aged Italian man certainly, but both books are also extended meditations on the peculiar relationship of being a foreigner, but not a tourist, in Italy, with access to "real" Italians and facility with the language, but no permanent place in the society and no decoder key for the subtleties that go beyond language. As an ex-expatriate, this is a theme that particularly interests me. In this book, as in Bay of Noon, Hazzard has a real gift for depicting the subtle intergenerational relationships as well as class relationships (the scene where Tancredi and Sophie visit the family of farm laborers is intense and brilliant, without ever being heavy handed) that make up the traditional web of Italian life.
My GR friend Teresa commented that Sophie's choice (ulp! can't help that one) may seem inexplicable or sudden to some readers. And there is something about her stubborn refusal to reconsider that is frustrating to the romantically minded (me included). But couple of thoughts on that choice: Early on, Sophie notes that she doesn't quite seem real to her Italian lover and friends (I have to come back with the exact quote but she says something to the effect that when you are a traveler, no one gets that you are someone who pays bills, who has friends and relatives), and I understand very well that sense of suspended reality, and the tug that the real (if less passionate and happy) life of home can have. And, another observation that made Sophie's decision have sense for me -- when I was living in Sicily, I became very close friends with an older American woman who had married a Sicilian she met while working in Rome in the early 70s. He had left his wife and children for her, and in the ensuing fall out, they returned together to his ancestral town in Sicily to live on love, art, wine and landscapes. Anyway, one afternoon over coffee on her terrace, I said something to Silvia about how I loved living there, and had my friends, and boyfriend, but sometimes felt out of place, and she looked at me very intently and said, "I have lived here for 35 years, and I am still a foreigner to them. I will be "the American woman who married Edilio" until I die." And she was.
That gap between the surface acceptance, the benignity (no one ever comments harshly or judgingly on Sophie and Tancredi's relationhip) and really belonging (as the 3 generations of farmworkers living in 2 rooms belong) is part of Hazzard's book. Indeed, the title "The Evening of the Holiday" taken from a Leopardi poem (la sera del di' di festa) reminds us that the central scene of the book is the night of the town's "festa"/holiday (reminded me of the Palio in Siena without the horses - not sure if that was the model or something else), when Sophie spends the festival alone, perched on a stair above the crowds, clearly a foreigner in the tight family/guild groups that fill the street. Indeed, the crowds are almost threatening to her. When, in the evening, she meets Tancredi - to become his lover (off stage) for the first time - they meet outside the gates, away from the crowds and the traditional celebration of the town. That wonderful formal geography (so beautifully Hazzard in its architecture) sums up Sophie's relationship to the society, and the place their relationship has in that society.
I'll be back later with some quotes. As always, Hazzard's sentences leave you saying "Ah!"
As I said, there are common themes with the Bay of Noon, the love affair between younger foreign woman and middle-aged Italian man certainly, but both books are also extended meditations on the peculiar relationship of being a foreigner, but not a tourist, in Italy, with access to "real" Italians and facility with the language, but no permanent place in the society and no decoder key for the subtleties that go beyond language. As an ex-expatriate, this is a theme that particularly interests me. In this book, as in Bay of Noon, Hazzard has a real gift for depicting the subtle intergenerational relationships as well as class relationships (the scene where Tancredi and Sophie visit the family of farm laborers is intense and brilliant, without ever being heavy handed) that make up the traditional web of Italian life.
My GR friend Teresa commented that Sophie's choice (ulp! can't help that one) may seem inexplicable or sudden to some readers. And there is something about her stubborn refusal to reconsider that is frustrating to the romantically minded (me included). But couple of thoughts on that choice: Early on, Sophie notes that she doesn't quite seem real to her Italian lover and friends (I have to come back with the exact quote but she says something to the effect that when you are a traveler, no one gets that you are someone who pays bills, who has friends and relatives), and I understand very well that sense of suspended reality, and the tug that the real (if less passionate and happy) life of home can have. And, another observation that made Sophie's decision have sense for me -- when I was living in Sicily, I became very close friends with an older American woman who had married a Sicilian she met while working in Rome in the early 70s. He had left his wife and children for her, and in the ensuing fall out, they returned together to his ancestral town in Sicily to live on love, art, wine and landscapes. Anyway, one afternoon over coffee on her terrace, I said something to Silvia about how I loved living there, and had my friends, and boyfriend, but sometimes felt out of place, and she looked at me very intently and said, "I have lived here for 35 years, and I am still a foreigner to them. I will be "the American woman who married Edilio" until I die." And she was.
That gap between the surface acceptance, the benignity (no one ever comments harshly or judgingly on Sophie and Tancredi's relationhip) and really belonging (as the 3 generations of farmworkers living in 2 rooms belong) is part of Hazzard's book. Indeed, the title "The Evening of the Holiday" taken from a Leopardi poem (la sera del di' di festa) reminds us that the central scene of the book is the night of the town's "festa"/holiday (reminded me of the Palio in Siena without the horses - not sure if that was the model or something else), when Sophie spends the festival alone, perched on a stair above the crowds, clearly a foreigner in the tight family/guild groups that fill the street. Indeed, the crowds are almost threatening to her. When, in the evening, she meets Tancredi - to become his lover (off stage) for the first time - they meet outside the gates, away from the crowds and the traditional celebration of the town. That wonderful formal geography (so beautifully Hazzard in its architecture) sums up Sophie's relationship to the society, and the place their relationship has in that society.
I'll be back later with some quotes. As always, Hazzard's sentences leave you saying "Ah!"
February 19, 2020
“The Evening of the Holiday”, by Shirley Hazzard (1996), was mentioned as a favorite by two characters in Lily King’s wonderful new novel, “Writers & Lovers” (2020). Thus intrigued, I noted that it was set in Italy, Tuscany specifically (my favorite place), and it is short (my paperback copy has ~140 pages.) So I bought it to save for when I needed a short book between “tomes”.
I thought of it as historical fiction of the 1960s in Europe. The story of a summer “affair” is told by an omniscient narrator making the reader privy to the two main character’s inner thoughts, which happen to be 1960s-style sexist and racist! But the 1960s setting also informs the ending which is different than it would be in 2020. It’s elegantly written and proved to be quite a satisfying short read.
I thought of it as historical fiction of the 1960s in Europe. The story of a summer “affair” is told by an omniscient narrator making the reader privy to the two main character’s inner thoughts, which happen to be 1960s-style sexist and racist! But the 1960s setting also informs the ending which is different than it would be in 2020. It’s elegantly written and proved to be quite a satisfying short read.
November 15, 2012
Discovering a book or an author is one of the treats more likely to happen to you in foreign climes: you take your chances, pick something up that one wouldn't if inundated with a choice.
The plain fact is I'm not sure about this book. I don't understand the characters at all, especially the girl. And yet it was still an engaging - moving - read, this against a backdrop of Italy described as only a person who had a most intimate acquaintance with it could provide.
Maybe my uncertainty is the sign of a good book. I hope so, it is what the fourth star is for.
The plain fact is I'm not sure about this book. I don't understand the characters at all, especially the girl. And yet it was still an engaging - moving - read, this against a backdrop of Italy described as only a person who had a most intimate acquaintance with it could provide.
Maybe my uncertainty is the sign of a good book. I hope so, it is what the fourth star is for.
January 25, 2025
Second book in 2025
This was Shirely Hazzard’s debut novel. Back in the early 2000s, I read two of her novels. Both were for reading groups. Bay of Noon was her third and I found it dreamy and literary, not great but not bad. The Great Fire was her 5th and final novel. I found that one beautiful and satisfying. It won the National Book Award in 2004.
The Evening of the Holiday is short, and I felt rather bored for the first half. More description than action and the young English woman who is visiting her aunt in Italy just dithers on for days about an older man she met in her aunt’s garden. She keeps meeting up with the man and finally they start an affair. Then she falls in love with him. I can’t say more without it being a spoiler.
I love to read debut novels but sometimes they are not great. Shirley Hazzard kept that descriptive writing skill but managed to include more action and deeper emotion in her later novels
This was Shirely Hazzard’s debut novel. Back in the early 2000s, I read two of her novels. Both were for reading groups. Bay of Noon was her third and I found it dreamy and literary, not great but not bad. The Great Fire was her 5th and final novel. I found that one beautiful and satisfying. It won the National Book Award in 2004.
The Evening of the Holiday is short, and I felt rather bored for the first half. More description than action and the young English woman who is visiting her aunt in Italy just dithers on for days about an older man she met in her aunt’s garden. She keeps meeting up with the man and finally they start an affair. Then she falls in love with him. I can’t say more without it being a spoiler.
I love to read debut novels but sometimes they are not great. Shirley Hazzard kept that descriptive writing skill but managed to include more action and deeper emotion in her later novels
August 1, 2020
This lovely novella, is as a Time magazine review claimed, near perfect.
The writing is clear and precise and oh so gorgeous. It feels like every word has been selected with so much care, and so much is said with so little. As an English woman and an Italian man fall in love in Italy, I was seduced by the beautiful language.
I’m so glad the the main character from King’s ‘Writers and lovers’ ,who loved this book, put it on my radar. Loved it!
The writing is clear and precise and oh so gorgeous. It feels like every word has been selected with so much care, and so much is said with so little. As an English woman and an Italian man fall in love in Italy, I was seduced by the beautiful language.
I’m so glad the the main character from King’s ‘Writers and lovers’ ,who loved this book, put it on my radar. Loved it!
September 20, 2020
3.5 The strength of this book for me is the sense of place. Hazzard's beautiful writing brings into clear focus the surroundings, including a thrilling storm. Written in the 1960s it has that (obviously authentic) old-school feel and is without a doubt a product of it's time so in reading it from a 2020 lens keep that in mind. Characters are rather unlikeable but that never bothers me, makes them much more interesting in fact. Very short so a quick read.
I discovered this book while reading Writers & Lovers by Lily King in which I don't seem to be alone in discovering this little gem.
I discovered this book while reading Writers & Lovers by Lily King in which I don't seem to be alone in discovering this little gem.
January 28, 2023
Love is the subject of this slim wonderful novel, avoiding it, falling into it, finding it, losing it, along with memory and desire. The Italian setting, the objects she highlights, are loaded with great emotional weight that burst at times into flames. Hazzard is a marvel.
July 22, 2022
Boring. That was disappointing.
February 10, 2009
This is a lovely little book, scarcely more than a novella, that tells the story of a young woman who meets a controlling and self-important idle riche on a holiday in Italy and proceeds to fall in love with him against her better judgment.
Like Hazzard's other novels it takes as its starting point the stuff of dime novel romance, but as everyone knows the tale is in the telling. Unlike her later novels, which are largely concerned with men, here Hazzard allows access to both the male and female parties of a relationship, allowing for an elaborate series of ironic contrasts between the shallow Italian convinced that he is drawing a girl into the great romance of her life, and the young Englishwoman who is at best only mildly enthusiastic, and whose eventual surrender to her lover arises less out of some great passion than a sort of entropy coupled with insecurity due to her sense of alienation in the midst of the Italian countryside.
Something that's particularly interesting about The Evening of the Holiday is the manner in which it deals with Hazzard's insecurities about being an Australian emigre living in Europe and America. While The Transit of Venus and The Great Fire are more explicit about this, presenting actual Australian characters, here Hazzard instead aligns her anxieties with those of the young Englishwoman - and thus avoids dragging this simple story of relationships into the political domain of her later work.
So, I quite enjoyed this - a beautifully written examination of the gaps between individuals and cultures, which may not say anything particularly new but which does say it all very well.
Like Hazzard's other novels it takes as its starting point the stuff of dime novel romance, but as everyone knows the tale is in the telling. Unlike her later novels, which are largely concerned with men, here Hazzard allows access to both the male and female parties of a relationship, allowing for an elaborate series of ironic contrasts between the shallow Italian convinced that he is drawing a girl into the great romance of her life, and the young Englishwoman who is at best only mildly enthusiastic, and whose eventual surrender to her lover arises less out of some great passion than a sort of entropy coupled with insecurity due to her sense of alienation in the midst of the Italian countryside.
Something that's particularly interesting about The Evening of the Holiday is the manner in which it deals with Hazzard's insecurities about being an Australian emigre living in Europe and America. While The Transit of Venus and The Great Fire are more explicit about this, presenting actual Australian characters, here Hazzard instead aligns her anxieties with those of the young Englishwoman - and thus avoids dragging this simple story of relationships into the political domain of her later work.
So, I quite enjoyed this - a beautifully written examination of the gaps between individuals and cultures, which may not say anything particularly new but which does say it all very well.
November 26, 2025
Our two protagonists seem barely interested in one another in the opening scene. The ensuing love affair feels driven by actions each is taking almost against their will (especially in Sophie’s case), not out of any overwhelming passion but just a sense of inevitability. Which I liked about it. They don’t understand it, we don’t quite understand it, and logic doesn’t seem able to fully penetrate their Italian summer existence. Until it does.
I just don’t think I like Tancredi. Sophie’s got a man back home I just know it.
Great writing. In the face of this almost fairytale escape, the details of the decaying or storm-ravaged gardens and the dry and sharp fields and the ants along the stone walls remind you they are living in the real world.
3.5 stars probably but rounding down to 3.
—
Yet, oddly, as she strolled along, she thought of Tancredi only indirectly. She was thinking, rather, of a man she had loved when she was a schoolgirl, and she saw herself walking up and down with him in a garden, anxiously listening to his complicated exposition of the reasons why he could not love her in return. It must be the carnations, she thought suddenly - the smell of the carnations - that brought that far-off garden and that other summer into her mind. She had not thought of it for years, and was glad now to be reminded of the intricate, lasting nature of any form of love.
She made no attempt to give him her hand or to speak casually. She came and sat beside him on the sofa with her head slightly lowered and her hands in her lap.
'Don't be annoyed,' he said.
I'm going away soon.'
'Because of me?'
She glanced up and half smiled. 'You're a threat to me.' He said seriously: 'You must forgive me for that.'
'You don't deny it,' she observed.
'Are you always like this?'
'Like what?'
'Following the score instead of listening to the music?' She shook her head, but not in answer to his question.
He lifted her hand on to his knee and laid his own hand over it. 'You won't leave,' he said.
She stayed in her slack, acquiescent attitude - like a defeated general, not accounting for the errors that led to this predicament.
He thought, with an almost comic sense of his own situation: How absurd it is to propose to us that our actions are altogether composed of influences and the effects of our circumstances; that we are irrevocably cut off from our own will. There comes a moment when one must utter a single sentence, and the immense effort involved in that utterance is unmistakably the expenditure of will. He looked at her closely, still hoping to detect some justifying fault. But as before, when he had examined her face for a trace of callousness, she defeated him, and he could only see her as she was to appear in his memory. It was, so to speak, the reverse of saying to oneself: 'I shall remember this'; he felt rather that here was a recollection, which must first be lived through. Since his nostalgia for her was inevitable, he preferred to embark on it as soon as possible - even in her presence.
Sophie went on, in this foreigner's voice that had mastered the grammar but not the shape of the words: I'm going away. There's nothing else to do. Her words, which expressed the lack of an alternative, might also have referred to the completion of an experience.
Tancredi's car was parked outside the post office. Sophie saw it at once - it was so much what she had been expecting that she glanced at the number to be sure it was his.
Standing still on the post-office steps, she could see possessions of his scattered on the back seat, things she had never seen before because they belonged to the winter: a woollen scarf, a pair of brown leather gloves, a green felt hat - little clues to a daily life that she did not wish to imagine. Moved by the pain of seeing these things, she came slowly down the steps and stood beside the car. He must be very near, and she must go away before he came.
For a second she closed her eyes trying to reconcile those two things. The knowledge of his proximity, the sight of his possessions compelled her to remember his face, his person, and the sound of his voice. Even the gloves on the seat of the car were shaped to his gesture.
I just don’t think I like Tancredi. Sophie’s got a man back home I just know it.
Great writing. In the face of this almost fairytale escape, the details of the decaying or storm-ravaged gardens and the dry and sharp fields and the ants along the stone walls remind you they are living in the real world.
3.5 stars probably but rounding down to 3.
—
Yet, oddly, as she strolled along, she thought of Tancredi only indirectly. She was thinking, rather, of a man she had loved when she was a schoolgirl, and she saw herself walking up and down with him in a garden, anxiously listening to his complicated exposition of the reasons why he could not love her in return. It must be the carnations, she thought suddenly - the smell of the carnations - that brought that far-off garden and that other summer into her mind. She had not thought of it for years, and was glad now to be reminded of the intricate, lasting nature of any form of love.
She made no attempt to give him her hand or to speak casually. She came and sat beside him on the sofa with her head slightly lowered and her hands in her lap.
'Don't be annoyed,' he said.
I'm going away soon.'
'Because of me?'
She glanced up and half smiled. 'You're a threat to me.' He said seriously: 'You must forgive me for that.'
'You don't deny it,' she observed.
'Are you always like this?'
'Like what?'
'Following the score instead of listening to the music?' She shook her head, but not in answer to his question.
He lifted her hand on to his knee and laid his own hand over it. 'You won't leave,' he said.
She stayed in her slack, acquiescent attitude - like a defeated general, not accounting for the errors that led to this predicament.
He thought, with an almost comic sense of his own situation: How absurd it is to propose to us that our actions are altogether composed of influences and the effects of our circumstances; that we are irrevocably cut off from our own will. There comes a moment when one must utter a single sentence, and the immense effort involved in that utterance is unmistakably the expenditure of will. He looked at her closely, still hoping to detect some justifying fault. But as before, when he had examined her face for a trace of callousness, she defeated him, and he could only see her as she was to appear in his memory. It was, so to speak, the reverse of saying to oneself: 'I shall remember this'; he felt rather that here was a recollection, which must first be lived through. Since his nostalgia for her was inevitable, he preferred to embark on it as soon as possible - even in her presence.
Sophie went on, in this foreigner's voice that had mastered the grammar but not the shape of the words: I'm going away. There's nothing else to do. Her words, which expressed the lack of an alternative, might also have referred to the completion of an experience.
Tancredi's car was parked outside the post office. Sophie saw it at once - it was so much what she had been expecting that she glanced at the number to be sure it was his.
Standing still on the post-office steps, she could see possessions of his scattered on the back seat, things she had never seen before because they belonged to the winter: a woollen scarf, a pair of brown leather gloves, a green felt hat - little clues to a daily life that she did not wish to imagine. Moved by the pain of seeing these things, she came slowly down the steps and stood beside the car. He must be very near, and she must go away before he came.
For a second she closed her eyes trying to reconcile those two things. The knowledge of his proximity, the sight of his possessions compelled her to remember his face, his person, and the sound of his voice. Even the gloves on the seat of the car were shaped to his gesture.
May 2, 2020
Set in the beautiful Tuscan countryside, this novel follows the brief, secretive love affair between the two central characters, Sophie and Tancredi. She, young and barely interested and he, married and in hot pursuit. Throughout the novel, Sophie controls the levers in this ill-fated relationship. Beautiful prose transported me to another time and place. Hard to believe the timeframe of the affair was the mid-1960s as the tone overall felt much more Victorian. Eloquent and lovely, Shirley Hazzard created a wonderful balance between what each of the characters were thinking throughout the book.
“If someone had reminded him that he could have kept away from her, that this need not have developed, it would have been meaningless to him - as if an immunization had been discovered for a mortal disease he had already contracted.”
The Evening of the Holiday- Shirley Hazzard
“If someone had reminded him that he could have kept away from her, that this need not have developed, it would have been meaningless to him - as if an immunization had been discovered for a mortal disease he had already contracted.”
The Evening of the Holiday- Shirley Hazzard
August 7, 2023
* 3,5
December 29, 2018
Finished: 29.12.2018
Genre: fiction
Rating: C
#AWW2018
Conclusion:
My Thoughts
Genre: fiction
Rating: C
#AWW2018
Conclusion:
My Thoughts
December 10, 2021
So atmospheric it convinced me to buy a workbook to learn Italian so I can move to Italy this summer and order cappuccinos on a terrace
July 12, 2022
The Evening of the Holiday is a love story where the emphasis is on the intimate analysis of feelings. We don't so much witness Sophie and Tancredi's passion in romantic scenes, as we read about their subtle changes in feelings and thoughts as they fall in love and reflect on the slight alterations to their lives that gradually become significant shifts in the way they live. Hanging over their affair is the knowledge that they must part - Tancredi is married, but separated and cannot commit for life. (The novel was written in 1966). The heat of the Italian summer adds to the feeling of paralysis. Not much happens: most of the novel is conversation and their inner thoughts, but the end result is that, after reading it, you might feel like you just had a summer affair with a middle aged married Italian, it's that intense.
I personally really enjoyed this novel, but I think it might not be for everyone, since it's so cerebral. Most people like an affair that is more physical, and that's as it should be. But if you are also interested in contemplating the feelings of love, the random occurrences that result in an affair, the retrospective idea that it could only have happened the way it happened, you might enjoy The Evening of the Holiday
I personally really enjoyed this novel, but I think it might not be for everyone, since it's so cerebral. Most people like an affair that is more physical, and that's as it should be. But if you are also interested in contemplating the feelings of love, the random occurrences that result in an affair, the retrospective idea that it could only have happened the way it happened, you might enjoy The Evening of the Holiday
January 5, 2022
After reading The Transit of Venus and this, her first novella, I've come to greatly admire Shirley Hazzard's understated style, her conflicted characters who share their confusion and disappointment in the merest touch or glance, her care and craft in creating both beautiful descriptive scenic passages and minimalist but highly expository conversations. This story is ostensibly about a summer romance between the half-English, half-Italian woman protagonist, Sophie, and the married Tancredi, but it is so much more than that: a rumination on how to countenance impossible relationships, a look at aging and death from the perspective of the young and in-love, and a careful study of how a young woman finds a way to make needed decisions in her life that might seem to contradict her best interests, or even her willpower. Hazzard's writing is exquisite; don't miss out.
August 29, 2017
I almost gave this short novel three stars--saying to myself that I don't generally read this type book, how can I say "I really liked it." But, I did. I don't recall reading another romance novel, one about Italy, or seeing a movie about Tuscany or wherever. But this brief love affair--and a May-December one at that--is so beautifully written about in a few pages, that I wished I was reclined on the veranda chaise with a cool, crisp glass of wine within reach along with perhaps some cheese and chocolates. Instead, I was housebound due to a hurricane, reading much of it by flashlight. Talk about escaping through reading! The language of Shirley Hazzard is the key to falling in love with this little tale. This was a summer's delight.
August 17, 2008
"The blue-tiled floor had been trodden into slight undulations, the shutters were the colour of red earth, and the furnishings were few and massive"... Shirley Hazzard's beautiful way with words took me to Italy in the summertime. As I read of Tancredi and Sophie's love affair I forgot it was winter and that I am in Melbourne.
"He thought, as he watched her, that in all his life he had never seen a more seductive thing than the unconsidered gesture with which she folded back her sleeve. He saw the brown outer skin of her arm, as she turned her wrist, the surprising vulnerable white of the inward flesh and the veined curve inside the elbow."
Tempted?
"He thought, as he watched her, that in all his life he had never seen a more seductive thing than the unconsidered gesture with which she folded back her sleeve. He saw the brown outer skin of her arm, as she turned her wrist, the surprising vulnerable white of the inward flesh and the veined curve inside the elbow."
Tempted?
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