Gramsci’s Fall

by Nora Bossong, Alexander Booth (Translation)

A novel at once about social justice, romance, and Gramsci.

Is it possible to fight for social justice if you’ve never really loved another person? Can you save a country if you’re in love? Forty-six-year-old Anton Stöver’s marriage is broken. His affairs are a thing of the past, and his career at the university has reached a dead end. One day he is offered the chance to go to Rome to conduct research on Antonio Gramsci, at one time the leading figure of Italian communism. Once there, he falls obsessively in love with a young woman he has met while continuing to focus his attention on the the frail and feverish Gramsci recovering in a Soviet sanatorium. Though Gramsci is supposed to save Italy from Mussolini’s seizure of power, he falls in love with a Russian comrade instead. With a subtle sense of the absurd, Nora Bossong explores the conflicts between having intense feelings for another and fighting for great ideals.

272 pages, Hardcover

Published April 4, 2020

About the author

Bossong studied literature at the German Institute for Literature, as well as cultural studies, philosophy and comparative literature at the Humboldt University of Berlin, the University of Potsdam, and the Sapienza University of Rome. She was a 2001 Fellow of the first Wolfenbüttel literature laboratory.

Bossong's poetry and prose have been published in individual newspapers, anthologies and literary journals. In 2006, she published her debut novel. In 2022, she published a non-fiction book about her generation, Die Geschmeidigen: Meine Generation und der neue Ernst des Lebens (The Smooth Ones: My generation and life's new seriousness).

An advocate for democracy, peace and human rights, Bossong was also a member of the presidium of the PEN Centre Germany for two years.

Reviews

[Rahul Singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a gem of a book! It is the story about a German professor obsessed with Gramsci’s life and his works. It is also the story about the Italian political thinker Antonio Gramsci. In alternating chapters, the book intrudes into their personal lives and provides us a picture of the troubled marriages and struggling lives they lead. On one hand, we find the professor drifting apart willingly from his wife and his child and on the other we see Gramsci being torn apart reluctantly from his wife and children. They are fighting a battle; a battle to protect what’s closest and intimate to them. In this drama of struggle and conflict, the author guides us into their lives, their thirst for social change, the pursuit of knowledge, and their only wish; to be with the one they love. It was a beautiful read, indeed, both in terms of the story and the writing style. Of course, the credit goes to the translator as well for making the story as smooth as possible to read. What made me pick this book was also my introduction to Gramsci’s thoughts this semester for a course. I was in some sense prepared for what’s coming and hence, it was a page-turner read for me. It was heartbreaking yet beautiful to see how his life turned out to be. There were moments I wanted to stop reading and simply sit and admire the kind of man he was; his attitude toward love, his relation to the State, the people whom he thought he owed something, his life, actually. The author was successful in fleshing out a character of Gramsci that reflects in the political works he has written and I do appreciate that a lot. Although he died young and in agony, the book and his works are a reminder that Gramsci still lives, and he will continue to live among the readers of his works and among people in whom he inspires a spirit to revolt against any form of authority. The book, despite all its political nature, is a book on love and a life spent in loving.

[withdrawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two stories running in parallel here. I never really felt that they had much to do with each other.

One story dealt with Gramsci, mostly with his dying days in Mussolini’s prisons. The character was reasonably well developed, as a dedicated communist and as a husband and father. I felt invested in him as everything faded away, leaving him with nothing as he faced death. I felt saddened for the character and, by extension, for the real world Gramsci.

The other story dealt with a rather unsympathetic failed modern day German scholar who has travelled to Rome in hopes of locating a missing notebook from Gramsci’s prison writings. He is a philanderer who has left behind his wife and son on Germany. His marriage is falling apart and going to Rome provides a means of escape. (Some basically well written argument scenarios between husband and wife. Quite nasty and, I suppose, realistic.) Basically, I never cared for the character - I can’t recall his name. I just wanted him off the stage. Perhaps that was the author’s intention but in the final scenes, I paid little attention to him. I simply did not care.

Perhaps I just judge philandering fictional male characters too harshly.

[Daniel KML · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read. The chapters on Gramsci's life were more interesting and could be a book on its own - the last chapter was a very nice closure. The plot with the professor was less inspiring as I could not care about his existential and egotistical malaise.
I was first interested on this book because I wanted to read Nora Bossong's work and it seems this is the only of her works available in translation. I wonder whether that book is representative of her overall oeuvre. Also, I was surprised by the lack of coverage about this book in the English-speaking media - it is very hard to find any review or mention about it.

[Gautam Bhatia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this out of my interest in Gramsci, and because I like novels that shift between eras. I was disappointed. Insofar as the book is set in 1930s Italy, and tells us of Gramsci’s last years, it’s a gripping read; but when, every chapter, it shifts to the present day, tracing a rather insipid German professor’s quest to recover a “lost” Gramsci manuscript while navigating the wreckage of an unsuccessful marriage, it was tedious in the extreme.

I must say, that although I have a very small sample size, I don’t know what it is with Germans and terrible writing about sex and romantic relationships. I loved Jenny Erpenbeck’s End of Days, but Kairos - my god! - 287 pages about a tedious relationship between a 19-year-old woman and a 54-year-old man (why!). And here too. If you’re a Gramsci obsessive, get this book, but otherwise give it a miss, honestly.