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Il romanzo di Ferrara #6
L'odore del fieno
"L'odore del fieno" (1972) conclude "Il romanzo di Ferrara", il lungo ciclo di storie dedicate da Bassani alla sua città e alla comunità ebraica quale emblema della condizione esistenziale. Si tratta di una raccolta di racconti in cui ancora una volta l'autore utilizza come sfondo e scorcio di ambientazione la sua città d'origine, Ferrara, e in cui approfondisce il motivo, alla radice di tutta la sua scrittura, del perenne conflitto fra realtà e illusione, verità ed errore, cui solo la morte può portare tregua. L"'anno cruciale" del 1938, quello della promulgazione delle leggi razziali, e il 1943, l'anno della deportazione, scandiscono gli assi storici in cui si muovono le normali esistenze dei personaggi bassaniani, che si trovano ad agire in uno scenario che muta indipendentemente da loro. Come nell'emblematico "Altre notizie su Bruno Lattes", in cui il giovane protagonista, ebreo - già apparso nelle opere precedenti -, si trova a inseguire in Istria la desiderata Adriana, "vamp americana e ariana", dalla quale verrà respinto con indifferenza, grazie all'attiva collaborazione del fratellino, inconsapevolmente irretito dalla propaganda nazifascista. Completano il libro gli altri racconti "Due fiabe", "Ravenna", "Les neiges d'antan", "Tre apologhi" e "Laggiù in fondo al corridoio", lo scritto in cui Bassani svela la chiave per avvicinarsi al segreto racchiuso nell'intero ciclo del "Romanzo di Ferrara".
80 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1972
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About the author
Giorgio Bassani
65 books218 followersGiorgio Bassani was born in Bologna into a prosperous Jewish family of Ferrara, where he spent his childhood with his mother Dora, father Enrico (a doctor), brother Paolo, and sister Jenny. In 1934 he completed his studies at his secondary school, the liceo classico L. Ariosto in Ferrara. Music had been his first great passion and he considered a career as a pianist; however literature soon became the focus of his artistic interests.
In 1935 he enrolled in the Faculty of Letters of the University of Bologna. Commuting to lectures by train from Ferrara, he studied under the art historian Roberto Longhi. His ideal of the “free intellectual” was the Liberal historian and philosopher Benedetto Croce. Despite the anti-Semitic race laws which were introduced from 1938, he was able to graduate in 1939, writing a thesis on the nineteenth-century writer, journalist, radical and lexicographer Niccolò Tommaseo. As a Jew in 1939, however, work opportunities were now limited and he became a schoolteacher in the Jewish School of Ferrara in via Vignatagliata.
In 1940 his first book, Una città di pianura (“A City of the Plain”), was published under the pseudonym Giacomo Marchi in order to evade the race laws. During this period, along with friends he had made in Ferrara’s intellectual circle, he became a clandestine political activist. His activity in the anti-fascist resistance led to his arrest in May 1943; he was released on 26 July, the day after Benito Mussolini was ousted from power.
A little over a week later he married Valeria Sinigallia, whom he had met playing tennis. They moved to Florence for a brief period, living under assumed names, then at the end of the year, to Rome, where he would spend the rest of his life. His first volume of poems, Storie dei poveri amanti e altri versi, appeared in 1944; a second, Te lucis ante, followed in 1947. He edited the literary review Botteghe oscure for Princess Marguerite Caetani from its founding in 1948 until it halted publication in 1960.
In 1953 Passeggiata prima di cena appeared and in 1954 Gli ultimi anni di Clelia Trotti. In the same year he became editor of Paragone, a journal founded by Longhi and his wife Anna Banti. Bassani’s writings reached a wider audience in 1956 with the publication of the Premio Strega-winning book of short stories, Cinque storie Ferraresi.
As an editorial director of Feltrinelli Bassani was responsible for the posthumous publication in 1958 of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's Il Gattopardo, a novel which had been rejected by Elio Vittorini at Mondadori, and also by Einaudi, but which became one of the great successes of post-war Italian literature. Bassani’s enthusiastic editing of the text, following instructions from Elena Croce (daughter of Benedetto) who had offered him the manuscript, later became controversial however; recent editions have been published which follow the manuscript more closely.
Also in 1958 Bassani’s novel Gli occhiali d’oro was published, an examination, in part, of the marginalisation of Jews and homosexuals. Together with stories from Cinque storie ferraresi (reworked and under the new title Dentro le mura (1973)) it was to be form part of a series of works known collectively as Il romanzo di Ferrara which explored the town, with its Christian and Jewish elements, its perspectives and its landscapes. The series also includes: Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini (1962, Premio Viareggio prizewiner); Dietro la porta (1964); L'airone (1968) and L'odore del fieno (1972). These works realistically document the Italian Jewish community under Fascism in a style that manifests the difficulties of searching for truth in the meanderings of memory and moral conscience. In 1960 one of his novels was adapted as the film Long Night in 1943.
Bassani died in 2000, and was buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Ferrara. He was survived by his estranged wife Valeria and their two children.
In 1935 he enrolled in the Faculty of Letters of the University of Bologna. Commuting to lectures by train from Ferrara, he studied under the art historian Roberto Longhi. His ideal of the “free intellectual” was the Liberal historian and philosopher Benedetto Croce. Despite the anti-Semitic race laws which were introduced from 1938, he was able to graduate in 1939, writing a thesis on the nineteenth-century writer, journalist, radical and lexicographer Niccolò Tommaseo. As a Jew in 1939, however, work opportunities were now limited and he became a schoolteacher in the Jewish School of Ferrara in via Vignatagliata.
In 1940 his first book, Una città di pianura (“A City of the Plain”), was published under the pseudonym Giacomo Marchi in order to evade the race laws. During this period, along with friends he had made in Ferrara’s intellectual circle, he became a clandestine political activist. His activity in the anti-fascist resistance led to his arrest in May 1943; he was released on 26 July, the day after Benito Mussolini was ousted from power.
A little over a week later he married Valeria Sinigallia, whom he had met playing tennis. They moved to Florence for a brief period, living under assumed names, then at the end of the year, to Rome, where he would spend the rest of his life. His first volume of poems, Storie dei poveri amanti e altri versi, appeared in 1944; a second, Te lucis ante, followed in 1947. He edited the literary review Botteghe oscure for Princess Marguerite Caetani from its founding in 1948 until it halted publication in 1960.
In 1953 Passeggiata prima di cena appeared and in 1954 Gli ultimi anni di Clelia Trotti. In the same year he became editor of Paragone, a journal founded by Longhi and his wife Anna Banti. Bassani’s writings reached a wider audience in 1956 with the publication of the Premio Strega-winning book of short stories, Cinque storie Ferraresi.
As an editorial director of Feltrinelli Bassani was responsible for the posthumous publication in 1958 of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's Il Gattopardo, a novel which had been rejected by Elio Vittorini at Mondadori, and also by Einaudi, but which became one of the great successes of post-war Italian literature. Bassani’s enthusiastic editing of the text, following instructions from Elena Croce (daughter of Benedetto) who had offered him the manuscript, later became controversial however; recent editions have been published which follow the manuscript more closely.
Also in 1958 Bassani’s novel Gli occhiali d’oro was published, an examination, in part, of the marginalisation of Jews and homosexuals. Together with stories from Cinque storie ferraresi (reworked and under the new title Dentro le mura (1973)) it was to be form part of a series of works known collectively as Il romanzo di Ferrara which explored the town, with its Christian and Jewish elements, its perspectives and its landscapes. The series also includes: Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini (1962, Premio Viareggio prizewiner); Dietro la porta (1964); L'airone (1968) and L'odore del fieno (1972). These works realistically document the Italian Jewish community under Fascism in a style that manifests the difficulties of searching for truth in the meanderings of memory and moral conscience. In 1960 one of his novels was adapted as the film Long Night in 1943.
Bassani died in 2000, and was buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Ferrara. He was survived by his estranged wife Valeria and their two children.
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December 13, 2018This sixth volume in Giorgio Bassani's Ferrare cycle is a collection of short stories, essays, and interviews. The essays and interviews give a glimpse of a literary figure who has confidence in his body of work but who feels out of step with his generation, aware — and having been made aware by his contemporaries — that his writing style leans more towards the nineteenth century than towards the second half of the twentieth-century. There is a sense too that he felt hampered by the popular success of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, and that he would like to be remembered for his entire oeuvre, not just for that book alone. He distanced himself completely from the film version of the Finzi-Contini book when it came out because of various changes made to the story, particularly those relating to the destiny of the narrator's father. Bassani acknowledges that the story, though fictionalised, contains many autobiographical elements, and therefore he feels that anything relating to the narrator's family should not have been tampered with.
The portrait that comes across from the interviews is of a man constantly trapped between tensions of various kinds. A man not unlike Edgardo Limentani in The Heron.
The smell of hay of the title is the smell he associates with attending funerals in the Jewish cemetery in Ferrare in the summer time. Like the rest of his novels, the pieces here are in large part an attempt to record the traces of the once thriving Ferrarese Jewish community in order that their existence may not be forgotten.
The grave of Giorgio Bassani, 1916 - 2000, in the Jewish cemetery in Ferrara
The portrait that comes across from the interviews is of a man constantly trapped between tensions of various kinds. A man not unlike Edgardo Limentani in The Heron.
The smell of hay of the title is the smell he associates with attending funerals in the Jewish cemetery in Ferrare in the summer time. Like the rest of his novels, the pieces here are in large part an attempt to record the traces of the once thriving Ferrarese Jewish community in order that their existence may not be forgotten.
The grave of Giorgio Bassani, 1916 - 2000, in the Jewish cemetery in Ferrara
September 15, 2019
Of all the works in The Novel of Ferrara, this is the only one that is best read after you’ve read all the others. It seems to be a collection of fragments; though, fragments that seem, mostly, complete. Some pieces might’ve been parts of stories that never made it into a final version, and now read as background material. In “Further News of Bruno Lattes” the main character, who has his own story in Within the Walls, reads more like the first-person narrator of Bassani’s other works than a separate entity like he is in “The Final Days of Clelia Trotti.”
Some of these pieces are straight nonfiction, even mentioning Bassani’s wife and children; one in particular describes the couple’s drive from Ferrara to Rome. For me the best of The Smell Of Hay was the evocative title-piece) and at the very end when Bassani explains his writing process in an essay whose title comes from a line in his first short story. In the latter he describes how long it took to write the short stories that eventually comprised Within the Walls, and when and why he realized he had to include his “I” in his writing. The reader will have already noticed at what point that happened and it’s satisfying to see Bassani acknowledge it.
I deliberately used the word realized in the paragraph above since Bassani uses it deliberately as well. First, he explains that he never had trouble realizing a story in the sense that Cezanne means the term; he uses the word a second time when describing the encouragement Mario Soldati gave him, the older writer telling Bassani his story only needs “to be realized, to be set on its feet.” (I was attuned to the word realization as a theory of creativity, as it's a concept I first heard of via Walter Inglis Anderson’s art and writings.)
Some of these pieces are straight nonfiction, even mentioning Bassani’s wife and children; one in particular describes the couple’s drive from Ferrara to Rome. For me the best of The Smell Of Hay was the evocative title-piece) and at the very end when Bassani explains his writing process in an essay whose title comes from a line in his first short story. In the latter he describes how long it took to write the short stories that eventually comprised Within the Walls, and when and why he realized he had to include his “I” in his writing. The reader will have already noticed at what point that happened and it’s satisfying to see Bassani acknowledge it.
I deliberately used the word realized in the paragraph above since Bassani uses it deliberately as well. First, he explains that he never had trouble realizing a story in the sense that Cezanne means the term; he uses the word a second time when describing the encouragement Mario Soldati gave him, the older writer telling Bassani his story only needs “to be realized, to be set on its feet.” (I was attuned to the word realization as a theory of creativity, as it's a concept I first heard of via Walter Inglis Anderson’s art and writings.)
November 10, 2017
A collection of wonderful short stories, Bassani takes several rare excursions outside of Ferrara, other the cast of characters will remain familiar to those who have read his Ferrarese novels; the lachrymose and recalcitrant, the lonely and the jilted, Bassani is able to pain them all via his subtle bush-strokes, to render ruefully, their lives hopes and dreams.
Although the stories are loosely connected, a deeper thematic connection runs between them of identity; class, racial, politics and religious, from a jilted lover obsessing over the creation of the racial laws which he feels have separated him from his former lover, to familial political divisions, Bassani explores the arbitrary and artificial social divisions we impose on ourselves, how the define us and our relationships with others and how, as with the Jewish characters they can change over time, subject to the whims of wider society or time, which reduced the once popular and handsome Marco Giori into a portly pessimist with dark, leathery skin. More than this Bassani is able to capture the small, such as the colour of a lamp in a hotel room, to re-create and bring to life the literary world his characters inhabit;
"In the violet sky of the evening (as the sun set behind the shoreline woods, in thrust blades of most poignant green light between the ancient trunks) little silvery fighter planes made trials and loops."
Love, hatred, life and death are the key components of Bassani's short stories, which act more as snapshots, picture perfect explorations of the trials, tribulations and happiness of the cast of characters who inhabit his stories.
Although the stories are loosely connected, a deeper thematic connection runs between them of identity; class, racial, politics and religious, from a jilted lover obsessing over the creation of the racial laws which he feels have separated him from his former lover, to familial political divisions, Bassani explores the arbitrary and artificial social divisions we impose on ourselves, how the define us and our relationships with others and how, as with the Jewish characters they can change over time, subject to the whims of wider society or time, which reduced the once popular and handsome Marco Giori into a portly pessimist with dark, leathery skin. More than this Bassani is able to capture the small, such as the colour of a lamp in a hotel room, to re-create and bring to life the literary world his characters inhabit;
"In the violet sky of the evening (as the sun set behind the shoreline woods, in thrust blades of most poignant green light between the ancient trunks) little silvery fighter planes made trials and loops."
Love, hatred, life and death are the key components of Bassani's short stories, which act more as snapshots, picture perfect explorations of the trials, tribulations and happiness of the cast of characters who inhabit his stories.
April 2, 2023
Breve raccolta di racconti ferraresi, la prosa delicata e quotidiana di Bassani ammanta di poesia anche le storie più semplici.
September 4, 2022
Il passato non è morto, non muore mai. Si allontana, bensì: ad ogni istante. Recuperare il passato dunque è possibile. Bisogna, tuttavia, se proprio si ha voglia di recuperarlo, percorrere una specie di corridoio ad ogni istante più lungo. Laggiù, in fondo al remoto, soleggiato punto di convergenza delle nere pareti del corridoio, sta la vita, vivida e palpitante come una volta, quando primamente si produsse. Eterna, allora? Eterna. E nondimeno sempre più lontana, sempre più sfuggente, sempre più restia a lasciarsi di nuovo possedere.
Con questi racconti concludo la lettura del ciclo “Il romanzo di Ferrara”, iniziata quarant’anni fa con “Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini”. Per temi e stile, Bassani è tra i miei preferiti. Averne sempre di scrittori così.
Cinque storie ferraresi. Dentro le mura ****
Gli occhiali d’oro ****
Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini *****
Dietro la porta ****
L’airone ****
L’odore del fieno ***
Ci sposammo nell’agosto del ’43, durante il periodo badogliano.
Mentre i carri armati tedeschi calavano da nord sempre più numerosi e i bombardamenti alleati si moltiplicavano, noi passavamo la nostra luna di miele tra Ravenna, Marina di Ravenna, Cervia, Rimini. Ero stato io a scegliere quei posti. Desideravo mostrarli a Val, che li conosceva poco e male. Il futuro era così incerto! Bisognava che glieli facessi vedere adesso, subito.
A Marina di Ravenna restammo otto giorni filati, ospiti in casa di un macellaio socialista assieme col quale, la sera, sotto la lampada di un afoso tinello, facevo lunghe , noiose discussioni politiche. Ma durante il giorno eravamo sempre per mare. Su, giù, avanti, indietro. Con una batàna presa a nolo per poche lire arrivammo una volta fino a Cesenatico, un’altra addirittura a Comacchio.
Veleggiavamo abitualmente a due, tre chilometri di distanza dalla riva, con gli occhi sempre rivolti alle foreste di pini che si levavano come bruni spalti dietro il bianco profilo ondulato delle dune. Dal largo di Marina, attraverso il varco del porto-canale, poteva anche succedere che, velati per la lontananza, riuscissimo a scorgere i tetti delle case di Ravenna, le tozze torri campanarie e le larghe cupole delle sue chiese.
Nel cielo violetto della sera (tramontato alle spalle delle selve litoranee, il sole infilava tra gli scabri tronchi secolari spade di una luce verde, dolcissima), piccoli, argentei aeroplani da caccia facevano evoluzioni di prova. Talora, e non si sarebbero rialzati che all’ultimo istante, scendevano giù in picchiata, puntando decisi sulla nostra piccola vela. E il loro rombo lacerante, quando sfrecciavano sulle nostre teste accostate, ci riempiva di un’allegria infantile, alla quale, in me, seguiva una segreta tristezza tutta intrisa d’addio.
Con questi racconti concludo la lettura del ciclo “Il romanzo di Ferrara”, iniziata quarant’anni fa con “Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini”. Per temi e stile, Bassani è tra i miei preferiti. Averne sempre di scrittori così.
Cinque storie ferraresi. Dentro le mura ****
Gli occhiali d’oro ****
Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini *****
Dietro la porta ****
L’airone ****
L’odore del fieno ***
Ci sposammo nell’agosto del ’43, durante il periodo badogliano.
Mentre i carri armati tedeschi calavano da nord sempre più numerosi e i bombardamenti alleati si moltiplicavano, noi passavamo la nostra luna di miele tra Ravenna, Marina di Ravenna, Cervia, Rimini. Ero stato io a scegliere quei posti. Desideravo mostrarli a Val, che li conosceva poco e male. Il futuro era così incerto! Bisognava che glieli facessi vedere adesso, subito.
A Marina di Ravenna restammo otto giorni filati, ospiti in casa di un macellaio socialista assieme col quale, la sera, sotto la lampada di un afoso tinello, facevo lunghe , noiose discussioni politiche. Ma durante il giorno eravamo sempre per mare. Su, giù, avanti, indietro. Con una batàna presa a nolo per poche lire arrivammo una volta fino a Cesenatico, un’altra addirittura a Comacchio.
Veleggiavamo abitualmente a due, tre chilometri di distanza dalla riva, con gli occhi sempre rivolti alle foreste di pini che si levavano come bruni spalti dietro il bianco profilo ondulato delle dune. Dal largo di Marina, attraverso il varco del porto-canale, poteva anche succedere che, velati per la lontananza, riuscissimo a scorgere i tetti delle case di Ravenna, le tozze torri campanarie e le larghe cupole delle sue chiese.
Nel cielo violetto della sera (tramontato alle spalle delle selve litoranee, il sole infilava tra gli scabri tronchi secolari spade di una luce verde, dolcissima), piccoli, argentei aeroplani da caccia facevano evoluzioni di prova. Talora, e non si sarebbero rialzati che all’ultimo istante, scendevano giù in picchiata, puntando decisi sulla nostra piccola vela. E il loro rombo lacerante, quando sfrecciavano sulle nostre teste accostate, ci riempiva di un’allegria infantile, alla quale, in me, seguiva una segreta tristezza tutta intrisa d’addio.
April 11, 2019
The past is not dead - the very structure of the story asserted - it never dies. Although it moves further away: at every passing moment.
This final volume of the Ferrara stories is a mixed collection of stories - some feel mere fragments - plus Bassani's own ruminations on his books and his literary engagement with the concept of history in fiction. It's thus not the place for new readers to enter his oeuvre and is perhaps only necessary for completists. It's nice to revisit Brun0 Lattes, for example, but the most compelling piece, for me, is Bassani looking back at how the Ferrara stories come to be.
March 27, 2019
Çok ince bir kitap çeşitli öykülerden oluşan basit ama güzel öyküler hepsini beğenmesemde çoğu fena değildi.
July 3, 2021
Unfortunately, this 6th and final volume of Bassani's omnibus collection of his prose fiction goes out with more of a whimper than a bang. It's a hodgepodge of disconnected short anecdotes, autobiographical material, and character sketches that really don't add up to much. There are a few lovely passages, but nothing like the grand summation I was hoping for/expecting. PS ... not a clue what the title means .... there is no reference to such in any of the sections.
January 8, 2024
Bassani's last book in what later was grouped as Il romanzo di Ferrara (The novel of Ferrara) is made up of short stories that feature some of the characters we have met in his earlier works, like The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles and The Garden of the Finzi-Contini and the last text is about the process of becoming a writer. There is not much to be said but to enjoy them.
September 5, 2024
Per te, o Poesia, così consumandomi vissi;
così, Vita, mia povera vita, mai t'ho vissuta.
In questa raccolta ci sono racconti ferraresi e racconti autobiografici e, a chiudere, Bassani scrive di come è cominciata la sua avventura di romanziere. Completano idealmente, e degnamente, il ciclo delle storie di Ferrara.
Ciò che amo di questo autore è la sua capacità di farti entrare subito in sintonia coi personaggi. Sono così vividi, sembrano uscire fuori dalla pagina ed è difficile dimenticarsi di loro.
Come dice lui stesso, scrivendo le sue storie apre un corridoio sul passato che diventa sempre più lontano e sfuggente, ma che nondimeno è sempre lì ad attendere che qualcuno apra la porta e si affacci su un mondo che non c'è più. Ed è esattamente questa la sensazione che mi lascia. Quella di percorrere strade e vite che non ci sono più e non ritorneranno, se non attraverso il potere immaginifico della scrittura.
Col le sue storie mi ha fatto innamorare di Ferrara, nessun altro autore mi ha mai fatto questo effetto.
April 26, 2017
Bassani's "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" is one of my favourite novels, and since finding out it is part of a larger cycle "Il romanzo di Ferrara", I have wanted to read the rest. This short volume of stories is the concluding part, and seems slight by comparison but still well-written and shedding new light on the author, his home city and his life.
July 17, 2020
Het interessantst aan De geur van hooi is het verhaal over de totstandkoming van de vijf korte verhalen die zijn gebundeld in Binnen de muren. Daarnaast nog een aantal persoonlijke verhalen. Geen must-read maar nadat ik alles van Bassani had gelezen leek het me aardig hier mee af te sluiten. En met 3 sterren ben ik royaal.
Voor wie nog nooit iets heeft gelezen van deze schrijver zou ik aanraden te beginnen met De tuin van de familie Finzi-Contini. Zijn capolavoro! Ook De gouden bril, Achter de deur en De reiger (in die volgorde) zijn erg goed. Ze vormen samen een prachtig portret van het Joodse leven in Ferrara rond de jaren ’30 en ’40.
Voor wie nog nooit iets heeft gelezen van deze schrijver zou ik aanraden te beginnen met De tuin van de familie Finzi-Contini. Zijn capolavoro! Ook De gouden bril, Achter de deur en De reiger (in die volgorde) zijn erg goed. Ze vormen samen een prachtig portret van het Joodse leven in Ferrara rond de jaren ’30 en ’40.
April 19, 2020
Kankim tam anlayamadım sen yahudi miydin??.
September 14, 2019
"You can snort all the white dust you like, f*** till you slip a disc, you can even aspire to the occasional act of sodomy. But after all that? What really counts, even in such things, is that ever overlooked and undervalued attribute-sheer graft," writes Bassani. Among other lessons, is life really all about money, which may have enabled many Jews of Ferrara to survive Fascism and Hitler? Pretty much. Alone, I can't see this working, hence my 3 star rating: with the rest, it's a good epilogue.
March 11, 2016
Sadly this book feels like left over or added on chapters to Bassani's other great books. A disappointment.
June 28, 2018
Another half dozen short stories from the pen of Giorgio Bassani, the last of which is an essay on composition by the author, which gives some insights into the creative process as experienced by Bassani.
Having read these and noted the resonances to the earlier stories in Romanzo di Ferrara series, one wants to go back to the beginning and read them all again. These are not world shaking tales, their very attraction is the ambiguity and what remains unsaid when they have been read. Certainly Ferrara the city, takes on a life of its own, against which the characters seem projected as shadows, but in a sense capturing the past, which is what Bassani seems to be trying to do, requires the ability to wander down a long dark corridor with the hope of glimpsing the life and light at the end.
Having read these and noted the resonances to the earlier stories in Romanzo di Ferrara series, one wants to go back to the beginning and read them all again. These are not world shaking tales, their very attraction is the ambiguity and what remains unsaid when they have been read. Certainly Ferrara the city, takes on a life of its own, against which the characters seem projected as shadows, but in a sense capturing the past, which is what Bassani seems to be trying to do, requires the ability to wander down a long dark corridor with the hope of glimpsing the life and light at the end.
April 26, 2019
Bassani ile bu denli anlaşamayacağımızı tahmin etmemiştim.
October 5, 2021
"L'odore del fieno", sesto e ultimo capitolo de "Il Romanzo di Ferrara", è una raccolta di racconti brevi, spesso tronchi... le pennellate finali che poco aggiungono al grande quadro dedicato da Bassani alla sua città.
April 7, 2020
4,5/5
December 18, 2021
"L'aveva spiegata adagio con le dita, fino a quando al centro di essa non aveva veduto apparire un piccolo, inequivocabile segno nero: una svastica.
"E questa?" aveva chiesto, levando gli occhi e accennando col mento. "Perché ce la tieni, qui?"
"Oh niente," era stata risposta di Cesarino.
Gli aveva mostrato in un sorriso i denti forti e bianchissimi da cane giovane. Quindi, alzando la spalla aguzza, aveva soggiunto: "Così, per bellezza"
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"L'odore del fieno" è una raccolta di racconti di Giorgio Bassani pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1972 da Mondadori.
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L'opera conclude Il Romanzo di Ferrara il ciclo di sei storie dedicate da Bassani alla sua città e alla comunità ebraica.
"L'odore del fieno" è stato il mio personalissimo souvenir del soggiorno a Ferrara e ritrovare tra le pagine posti che avevo effettivamente visto mi ha piacevolmente colpito.
In cinque racconti si narra: la storia della comunità ebraica, che a Ferrara vanta origini antichissime e di cui si conservano molte testimonianze; delle difficoltà; dei fraintendimenti; dei grandi amori e grandi sogni spesso infranti dove perfino "l'odore acuto del fieno tagliato soppragiunge a rianimare..."
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In tutte queste storie c'è Ferrara. La città non fa solo da sfondo ne è protagonista parla, cresce e si mostra, come in un viaggio...
#libriintreno
"E questa?" aveva chiesto, levando gli occhi e accennando col mento. "Perché ce la tieni, qui?"
"Oh niente," era stata risposta di Cesarino.
Gli aveva mostrato in un sorriso i denti forti e bianchissimi da cane giovane. Quindi, alzando la spalla aguzza, aveva soggiunto: "Così, per bellezza"
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"L'odore del fieno" è una raccolta di racconti di Giorgio Bassani pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1972 da Mondadori.
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L'opera conclude Il Romanzo di Ferrara il ciclo di sei storie dedicate da Bassani alla sua città e alla comunità ebraica.
"L'odore del fieno" è stato il mio personalissimo souvenir del soggiorno a Ferrara e ritrovare tra le pagine posti che avevo effettivamente visto mi ha piacevolmente colpito.
In cinque racconti si narra: la storia della comunità ebraica, che a Ferrara vanta origini antichissime e di cui si conservano molte testimonianze; delle difficoltà; dei fraintendimenti; dei grandi amori e grandi sogni spesso infranti dove perfino "l'odore acuto del fieno tagliato soppragiunge a rianimare..."
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In tutte queste storie c'è Ferrara. La città non fa solo da sfondo ne è protagonista parla, cresce e si mostra, come in un viaggio...
#libriintreno
August 14, 2024
A collection of short stories focussing on the Italian Jewish community of 1930s Ferrara, ‘The Smell of Hay’ is the sixth book of Giorgio Bassani’s ‘The Novel of Ferarra.’ Although it can be read as a standalone collection, the context provided by the five earlier books would undoubtedly be useful. Whilst several of these short stories were enthralling in their descriptive and historical powers (one story in particular focusing on a funeral in the Jewish cemetery comes to mind), others lacked purpose and depth, adding very little to the collection. To criticise this series of stories excessively for lacking depth would be to miss the point of them; they are intended to provide a snapshot of a community at a particular point in time, not to craft an intricate plot revolving around a set cast of characters. Nonetheless, I failed to engage completely ‘The Smell of Hay’ due to its literary patchiness and very short length (just shy of a hundred pages), but certainly will not rule out reading the five preceding books in ‘The Novel of Ferarra’. I have no doubt that Bassani has much more to offer as a writer than this nondescript collection.
March 30, 2020
Ho amato molto anche questo altro capitolo del romanzo di Ferrara di Bassani, seppure presenta una struttura meno forte degli altri, in cui lo scrittore fa venire meglio fuori il personaggio di Bruno Lattes, l'alter ego letterario che gli somiglia di più fra gli alter ego letterari. Bassani lo amo per molti motivi. Uno di questi è la capacità di far sentire il lettore parte dei luoghi da lui raccontati, di riuscire a richiamarli con pochissime parole. In Bassani le storie sono imprescindibili dai luoghi, e Ferrara è un altro personaggio del romanzo, il personaggio più importante. Nei brevissimi capitoli che compongono questo testo, oltre a Ferrara, possiamo dare uno sguardo con gli occhi di Bruno, che sono quelli di Giorgio, al suo contado e alle città di confine, quelle di terra e quelle di mare, Bologna, Ravenna, Marina di Ravenna, Rimini, Riccione, la riviera romagnola. Un bellissimo viaggio con l'immaginazione, lento, in bicicletta.
September 22, 2018
In De geur van hooi memoreert Giorgio Bassani zijn eigen leven. Hij verhaalt over de mensen die hij heeft ontmoet, de vakanties aan zee, en het geluk, het verdriet en de jaloezie die zijn leven hebben bepaald. Het is een verhaal over slechte hotels, armoedige dorpsfeesten, het hoofdkantoor van de politie en de joodse begraafplaats in Ferrara. Maar het is bovenal een herinnering aan de jaren dertig in Italië en het opkomende fascisme van Mussolini.
"Schrijven heeft me van begin af aan altijd de grootste moeite gekost. Nee, de spreekwoordelijke ‘gave’ heb ik helaas nooit gehad. Nog steeds struikel ik over ieder woord, halverwege elke zin dreig ik de kluts kwijt te raken. Ik schrijf, streep door, herschrijf, streep weer door. Tot in het oneindige."
6 verhalen die duidelijk maken dat deze man kan schrijven, maar ik heb graag een verhaal. Ik ga wel nog andere dingen van hem lezen.
"Schrijven heeft me van begin af aan altijd de grootste moeite gekost. Nee, de spreekwoordelijke ‘gave’ heb ik helaas nooit gehad. Nog steeds struikel ik over ieder woord, halverwege elke zin dreig ik de kluts kwijt te raken. Ik schrijf, streep door, herschrijf, streep weer door. Tot in het oneindige."
6 verhalen die duidelijk maken dat deze man kan schrijven, maar ik heb graag een verhaal. Ik ga wel nog andere dingen van hem lezen.
December 15, 2019
A collection of afterthoughts, it seems. Perhaps Bassani felt the need to frame the "Novel of Ferrara", to see it from a different angle. Chronologically and geographically, these stories are beyond the cycle, sketchy and, also, more personal. Altogether, reading the six volumes was quite an experience. Hard as it is to single out one volume and call it a masterpiece, the whole bundle is worth reading.
December 13, 2020
A short collection of stories, most of which are intriguing, but all are undeveloped. As other reviewers suggest, these read more like fragments that were never expanded into a full story. I read this for the sake of completeness, as it is the last installment of the six volumes of The Novel of Ferrara, but it is clearly inferior to the others. Readers would be well advised to wait until they've read the rest of Bassani's other works before picking it up.
2.5/5
2.5/5
December 26, 2023
Rereading Bassani after many many years and remembering how much I've admired his writing (even visiting Ferrara years ago.). The life of small town Italy, shortly before WW II and the deportation and death of the Jewish community - such quiet (and sometimes not such quiet) grief in his stories.
March 10, 2025
Nok ikke Bassinis allerstørste værk, men "Lugten af hø" giver stadig god indsigt i stemningen og dagligdagen for Ferraras jødiske samfund og de udfordringer de blev udsat for under og efter 2. verdenskrig.
February 8, 2018
Raccolta di storie in perfetto stile Bassani. ho letto questo libro con piacere ma non è tra i miei preferiti
October 20, 2019
Some of these stories were a bit perplexing, but at least two or three are very good. Just not as good as Within the Walls (and very different).
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