Woman at War

by Dacia Maraini, Mara Benetti (Translator), Elspeth Spottiswood (Translator)

"Woman at War" is the diary of a woman's growing self-awareness. Beginning as a passively absent narrator, Vannina encounters a fascinating array of characters during the holiday she takes on an island in the Bay of Naples with her husband, Giacinto. When he returns to work in a garage in Rome, Vannina travels to Naples with Suna, a friend she has made on vacation. This startling character opens Vannina to the possibility of finding love through other women and helps her reject the role of serving coffee to the men who would change the world through violence. Back in Rome, Vannina rejects her former life and moves toward complete, if difficult, independence. Maraini's writing is superb. Its warm and sensual style gives life to the food of the Mediterranean, the smell of its herbs, the acts of making coffee and making love, the step-by-step journey of an individual to self-awareness, self-reliance and independence. Everything is vivid and vibrant. Maraini's women grow in strength beyond the clamor of political slogans. The values of understanding, intuition and compassion effect real change that transcends the wearisome struggle between the chauvinisms of the political Right and the political correctness of the Left. A milestone in Italian literature.

Genres: Fiction, Italy, Italian Literature, Feminism

290 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Dacia Maraini is an Italian writer. She is the daughter of Sicilian Princess Topazia Alliata di Salaparuta, an artist and art dealer, and of Fosco Maraini, a Florentine ethnologist and mountaineer of mixed Ticinese, English and Polish background who wrote in particular on Tibet and Japan. Maraini's work focuses on women’s issues, and she has written numerous plays and novels.

Alberto Moravia was her partner from 1962 until 1983.

Reviews

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know I shouldn’t use this work to describe a book but here it is: “interesting.” It’s hard for me to characterize the style of writing in this book. The term “naturalism” used to be in vogue to describe this kind of exaggerated realism although I note from a web search that the word now seems to have so many competing meanings that it has become useless.

To borrow from the blurbs, this is basically a story about a married Italian woman who gradually moves from self-awareness to self-reliance to independence. The story is written by an Italian author who is a leading feminist.



Most of the story revolves around a woman from northern Italy who goes on a month-long vacation with her husband to a beach resort near Naples. She’s a teacher; he runs an auto repair shop. Although her husband appears to love her, he’s your typical male chauvinist. He spends his time spear fishing and hanging out with young boys from the village who come over the house. The woman cooks for all of them and waits on them.

Here’s are some example of why I call the style “exaggerated realism:”

When the woman has conversation with these young teenagers - boys and one girl - conversation repeatedly goes like this: “How much do you make? Does your husband love you? Does your husband satisfy you?” She answers these questions truthfully.

She and her husband are invited to dinner at the home of one of the boys where the father brags about his four sons raping a female German tourist. He eggs on the four boys to tell the story while their mother serves them the meal and clucks her tongue to express mild disapproval.

The main character makes friends with two local women. Among other things, they break into the home of a woman who has just died and rob her possessions.

She gets involved with a group of young people who are active in a radical political group and she ends up attending an interrogation of a senior political official they have kidnapped and bound. She expresses no concern about being at this event. [The politics in this book are dated as it was published in Italy in 1975.]

The main character initiates a sexual affair with a 14-year-old boy. She tells her husband of the affair and he beats her.

There’s also a homoerotic theme. The man seems more concerned about his young male fishing friends than he does about his wife, although there is no explicit affection between him and these boys. The main character has a lesbian affair with a young woman who is physically disabled.

The author sees the repression of women and politics as interrelated. In one scene, a young boy at the table spouts off radical liberal viewpoints about equality while he snaps his fingers and points to his empty coffee cup. The woman fills it for him with no comment.

Wikipedia describes the author’s feminist viewpoint as follows: Many reoccurring themes evident in Maraini's work are: personal freedom for women, exposing the use and abuse of power and its effects on women, women breaking free of traditional gender roles to explore their sexuality and social activism, the silencing of women in society and their appearance in the fashion-system, the seclusion and isolation of women as a result of women seeking their independence and freedom, motherhood as a form of confinement for women, and thus abortion as their only option, violence against and rape of women, women breaking free from being seen as sex objects, and characters' experience with homosexuality, pedophilia, and group sex.



It’s a read that kept my attention as it walks a line between hard-core realism and fantasy. 3.5 rounded up to 4.

photo of Naples from amalficoastdestinations.com
photo of the author in 2012 from Wiki - G. M. Ireneo Alessi (Sinix) from Roma, Italia - on Flickr

[Roberta Tabanelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would give 3 and a half. Very important book for Italian feminism, great story of self-awareness, excellent depiction of Italy in the 1970s. However, the style is somehow flat and the narrative power is at times weak. But a must-read for all those who are interested in women's studies, writing and history.

[Weronika · Rating 2 out of 5]

1,5⭐️

[Rebecca Boliandi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sicuramente un romanzo storico, di tutto rispetto, ma se già si ha avuto a che fare con romanzi che narrano la corruzione, la mafia, la violenza, poco aggiunge. Trigger warning: scene di abuso.

[Andrea Ramploud · Rating 5 out of 5]

Manifesto politico.
Anticipa molte azioni del movimento femminista italiano.

[Chiara Cls · Rating 4 out of 5]

Se devo essere sincera il romanzo non mi ha colpita fin da subito, ma solo nell'ultima parte. Decisivo per me è stato il momento in cui i due personaggi chiave, Vannina e Suna, l'una remissiva e debole, l'altra determinata ed energica, tendono a scambiare i propri ruoli. Suna soggiace alle proprie debolezze, mentre Vannina trova la forza di ribellarsi. Piccoli indizi di un tale cambio di rotta sono sparsi nel corso di tutta la storia, e rendono le due donne tridimensionali, realistiche, ricche di sfaccettature. Non è un mondo manicheo quello della Maraini, nonostante a volte sembri crearlo. Tutto ha una superficie e un lato nascosto che, con delicatezza, ci viene sempre rivelato.

[Obione_TdG · Rating 3 out of 5]

L'atmosfera che il romanzo vuole dare funziona decisamente. E' uno spaccato molto interessante sull'ignoranza generale e l'immobilismo della popolazione italiana negli anni 70. Purtroppo quanto descritto e' ancora estremamente attuale al giorno d'oggi, con la gente che o ancora sopporta senza muovere un dito, o e' costretta ad emigrare all'estero (non sempre purtroppo riuscendoci a causa di visti e restrizioni) per fuggire dal sottosviluppo e poter vivere in una societa' migliore, avere un lavoro decente, sostenere la famiglia rimasta in patria e offrire un'educazione ed un futuro migliore ai figli.
Se il messaggio e lo spirito di denuncia sono corretti e appropriati, il romanzo ha purtroppo molte pecche. E' troppo lungo e ripetitivo, le stesse situazioni si susseguono in continuazione, con solo talvolta fiacchi colpi di scena per recuperare l'attenzione. Il sesso e' inserito quasi ad ogni pagina in modo molto irritante. E' il finale e' trito e ritrito, la parte del ritorno a Roma poteva essere tranquillamente tagliata con una nuova diversa chiusura.

[Maria Chiara Maestri · Rating 4 out of 5]

E' il racconto dell'emancipazione di una donna. Grazie alle amicizie di un'estate con due signore e l'incontro con un militante socialista, la protagonista capisce l'importanza della sua individualità e decide di emanciparsi dal marito-padrone.

[Amandina · Rating 5 out of 5]

just read it

[Ash · Rating 4 out of 5]

Complicated and uncomfortable. But still so good

[Vivian Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

The awakening of a traditional, conventional woman to self awareness and feminism. It takes place in Italy but can be transponded to any Latin country.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this first in college, and decided it was time for a reread now that I am a wife and mother. A few different themes stood out to me this time, but it is still an excellebt book.

[Elisa Belotti · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Per uscire dall'inferno bisogna buttare giù la porta di ferro che da solo nessuno può aprire, bisogna essere in tanti".

[Madeleine Afonso · Rating 4 out of 5]

scrittrice molta brava

[Giulia Abrans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Per uscire dall'inferno bisogna buttare giú la porta di ferro che da solo nessuno può aprire, bisogna essere in tanti.

[Judith Detert-Moriarty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in almost diary form, this novel about the development of simple individual, as well as, feminist self-awareness is very engaging. Vannina, a woman living in Naples who is abiding by social and familiar norms of her age, travels with a friend and then sees the ever wider possibilities of a more full and engaging life as she rejects the world of men and the violence they reap on the world. Her personal evolution to go beyond the emotional, mental, and physical limitations of the Italian society in which she lives is revealing and, for readers today, a narrative to understand what is possible to achieve for their own lives.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The epistolary novel Woman at War concentrates on the life of Italian women and how they are trying to break free from gender roles and social norms. The protagonist Vannina meets and interacts with various people and ultimately develops her own personal model of women's rights. The novel can be slow at times but the descriptions the author gives are very intriguing and detailed. Anyone looking to study women's rights or civil rights in general should give this a try.

[Jaime · Rating 3 out of 5]

Raccontato come il giornale intimo di Giovanna, questo romanzo chiede molti delle più importanti domande del femminismo italiano degli anni 70, ma non è solo quello che lo fa un bel lavoro. La voce un po troppo semplice (qualche volte anche po noiosa) de Giovanna è un cenno. Lì non hanno voci più autorizzati delle altri però voci che domandano e mostrano una realità brutta. Un pasticcio. Capolavoro de Maraini.

[Special Way · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps leaning a little too heavily on the political podium, Donna in guerra is still full of South Italian oddities and curiosities in the summer. Writing with a feminist edge, Maraini purposes the only unsullied love affair a woman can have is with someone who is not yet a man.

Re-read 2016 nov

[Elise · Rating 4 out of 5]

The words flowed like music. Beautiful and sad, it will forever live as a great example of feminist literature.

[incipit mania]

Incipit

Giacinto è andato a pescare ...
Donna in guerra incipitmania.com

[Stefanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A revelatory journey of one woman's awakening and independence. A sense of Italy is palpable!