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A Silence Shared
A diamond-sharp, Italian classic about the mysterious relationships between two partisan couples in German-occupied Italy in the wintry mountains of Piemonte
This hauntingly beautiful, sharply modern novel of WWII is perfect for fans of Tove Ditlevsen, Rachel Cusk, and Lucia Berlin
Translated into English for the first time, A Silence Shared is a captivating classic novel that inhabits the silent spaces between historic events, depicting the mysterious luminosity of human relationships in extraordinary circumstances.
In prose of subtle, enigmatic atmospheres and acutely precise images, Lalla Romano evokes both the tension and the stillness of life in occupied Italy.
Sheltering from the war in a provincial town outside of Turin, Giulia and her husband Stefano feel an instant affinity with Ada and Paolo: she a spontaneous, vibrant young woman, he a sickly intellectual, a teacher and partisan in hiding.
As the Germans begin to occupy Italy, a subtle dance of attractions between the couples begins, intensified by their shared isolation and the muffled hum of threat over a long, hard winter.
This hauntingly beautiful, sharply modern novel of WWII is perfect for fans of Tove Ditlevsen, Rachel Cusk, and Lucia Berlin
Translated into English for the first time, A Silence Shared is a captivating classic novel that inhabits the silent spaces between historic events, depicting the mysterious luminosity of human relationships in extraordinary circumstances.
In prose of subtle, enigmatic atmospheres and acutely precise images, Lalla Romano evokes both the tension and the stillness of life in occupied Italy.
Sheltering from the war in a provincial town outside of Turin, Giulia and her husband Stefano feel an instant affinity with Ada and Paolo: she a spontaneous, vibrant young woman, he a sickly intellectual, a teacher and partisan in hiding.
As the Germans begin to occupy Italy, a subtle dance of attractions between the couples begins, intensified by their shared isolation and the muffled hum of threat over a long, hard winter.
200 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1957
16 people are currently reading
762 people want to read
About the author
Lalla Romano
49 books23 followers(Demonte, Cuneo, 1906 - Milano, 2001)
Dopo aver frequentato le elementari a Demonte, si trasferisce a Cuneo con la famiglia nel 1916, dove compie gli studi superiori. Conseguita la maturità nel ‘24, s’iscrive alla facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia dell’Università di Torino: tra i suoi professori, spiccano le figure di Ferdinando Neri e Lionello Venturi. Su indicazione di quest’ultimo, comincia a frequentare la scuola di pittura di Felice Casorati. Laureatasi nel 1928, continua a dedicarsi alla pittura ed alla poesia: ha, intanto, conosciuto scrittori e intellettuali del calibro di Cesare Pavese, Mario Soldati, Franco Antonicelli, Arnaldo Momigliano. Nel ‘32 sposa, a Cuneo, Innocenzo Monti, e nel ‘33 nasce il suo unico figlio, Pietro. Nel ‘35 raggiunge a Torino il marito, ivi trasferito per motivi di lavoro; successivamente, espone in mostre collettive ed in una personale. Spinta dal giudizio positivo espresso da Eugenio Montale su alcuni suoi versi, nel ‘41 pubblica da Frassinelli la sua prima raccolta di poesie, “Fiore”. Durante la guerra, aderisce al movimento “Giustizia e libertà” e, su invito di Pavese, nel ‘44 traduce per Einaudi i “Trois contes” di Flaubert. Nel ‘46 decide di abbandonare l’attività pittorica per dedicarsi completamente alla scrittura. Esordisce nella narrativa nel 1951 con una raccolta di brevi testi in prosa, “Le metamorfosi”, con presentazione di Vittorini; è del ‘53 il suo primo romanzo, “Maria”, elogiato da Montale sul “Corriere della Sera” e definito da Gianfranco Contini un “piccolo capolavoro”. Negli anni seguenti, escono il libro di poesie “L'autunno” (1955), i romanzi “Tetto murato” (1957) e “L'uomo che parlava solo” (1961) ed il libro di viaggi “Diario di Grecia” (1959). Bene accolto dalla critica e dal pubblico, il suo quarto romanzo, “La penombra che abbiamo attraversato” (1964), è “una rivisitazione di esperienze infantili e adolescenziali nella quale il rigore stilistico e l’esercizio dell’ analisi tengono a freno l’incombente compiacimento autobiografico” (S.Guglielmino). Il successo arride anche al successivo “Le parole tra noi leggère” (1969), che vince il premio Strega; seguono, tra le altre cose, il romanzo “L’ospite” (1973), la raccolta di poesie “Giovane è il tempo” (1974), il volume di racconti “La villeggiante” (1975), il romanzo “Una giovinezza inventata” (1979), le fiabe de “Lo stregone” (1979) . E’ dell’81 “Inseparabile”, dell’86 “La freccia di Tatiana” (con fotografie di Antonio Ria), dell’87 il romanzo “Nei mari estremi”, ove è rievocata la malattia e la morte del marito. Da segnalare, negli ultimi anni, “Le lune di Hvar” (1991), “In vacanza col buon samaritano” (1997), “Dall'ombra” (1999).
Dopo aver frequentato le elementari a Demonte, si trasferisce a Cuneo con la famiglia nel 1916, dove compie gli studi superiori. Conseguita la maturità nel ‘24, s’iscrive alla facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia dell’Università di Torino: tra i suoi professori, spiccano le figure di Ferdinando Neri e Lionello Venturi. Su indicazione di quest’ultimo, comincia a frequentare la scuola di pittura di Felice Casorati. Laureatasi nel 1928, continua a dedicarsi alla pittura ed alla poesia: ha, intanto, conosciuto scrittori e intellettuali del calibro di Cesare Pavese, Mario Soldati, Franco Antonicelli, Arnaldo Momigliano. Nel ‘32 sposa, a Cuneo, Innocenzo Monti, e nel ‘33 nasce il suo unico figlio, Pietro. Nel ‘35 raggiunge a Torino il marito, ivi trasferito per motivi di lavoro; successivamente, espone in mostre collettive ed in una personale. Spinta dal giudizio positivo espresso da Eugenio Montale su alcuni suoi versi, nel ‘41 pubblica da Frassinelli la sua prima raccolta di poesie, “Fiore”. Durante la guerra, aderisce al movimento “Giustizia e libertà” e, su invito di Pavese, nel ‘44 traduce per Einaudi i “Trois contes” di Flaubert. Nel ‘46 decide di abbandonare l’attività pittorica per dedicarsi completamente alla scrittura. Esordisce nella narrativa nel 1951 con una raccolta di brevi testi in prosa, “Le metamorfosi”, con presentazione di Vittorini; è del ‘53 il suo primo romanzo, “Maria”, elogiato da Montale sul “Corriere della Sera” e definito da Gianfranco Contini un “piccolo capolavoro”. Negli anni seguenti, escono il libro di poesie “L'autunno” (1955), i romanzi “Tetto murato” (1957) e “L'uomo che parlava solo” (1961) ed il libro di viaggi “Diario di Grecia” (1959). Bene accolto dalla critica e dal pubblico, il suo quarto romanzo, “La penombra che abbiamo attraversato” (1964), è “una rivisitazione di esperienze infantili e adolescenziali nella quale il rigore stilistico e l’esercizio dell’ analisi tengono a freno l’incombente compiacimento autobiografico” (S.Guglielmino). Il successo arride anche al successivo “Le parole tra noi leggère” (1969), che vince il premio Strega; seguono, tra le altre cose, il romanzo “L’ospite” (1973), la raccolta di poesie “Giovane è il tempo” (1974), il volume di racconti “La villeggiante” (1975), il romanzo “Una giovinezza inventata” (1979), le fiabe de “Lo stregone” (1979) . E’ dell’81 “Inseparabile”, dell’86 “La freccia di Tatiana” (con fotografie di Antonio Ria), dell’87 il romanzo “Nei mari estremi”, ove è rievocata la malattia e la morte del marito. Da segnalare, negli ultimi anni, “Le lune di Hvar” (1991), “In vacanza col buon samaritano” (1997), “Dall'ombra” (1999).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
April 3, 2023
Where there is love
Even silence
Is word
Lalla Romano
A silence shared is a brief, intimist and atmospheric novel by the Italian writer and painter Lalla (Graziella) Romano (1906-2001), in which she solidifies and transforms silence into words, soaked in melancholy, longing and quiet joy – lauding the strength and the solace not to say anything, the consoling feel of tears flowing gently like the thawing of snow, cleansing and washing away waste, the dribble of weakness.
Taking refuge from the bombings of Turin, perching with her cousins in a taciturn village in the countryside, Giulia, a young woman whose husband Stefano has stayed in Turin for work, befriends Ada and Paolo, a couple that equally fled to stay in the even more remote group of houses of Tetto Murato (the original title). Fascinated by this couple and their obvious differences (the vivid impulsiveness of Ada; the intellectuality and thoughtfulness of Paolo), Giulia, from offering them a helping hand, slips into the intimate orbit of the couple. Ada is an aristocrat of the imagination, a Grand Duchess from a fairy-tale. Communication between the couple Paolo and Ada is scarce, Ada alludes to how little Paolo shares of his thoughts or what he does with her. Soon the reader realises to be in the same position. Paolo is secretive– there are subtle allusions to his activities in the resistance. He stays an enigma to the reader, he leaves people wanting. Yet Giulia’s senses their kindredness, the Elective Affinities that connect her to Paolo, more than to her husband Stefano, whose temperament in turn rather echoes Ada’s than Giulia’s. Giulia’s daily walks to Tetto Murato through the wintry landscape seamlessly flow into her barely going back to her cousins at all, sitting at the couple’s table with other family members, sharing their meagre meals and even their conjugal bed. Isolated, unable to leave the hovel because of Paolo’s illness, cut off from the world physically and psychologically, they withdraw inwardly. The ongoing war, the patrolling of the fascists dissolve into the background, the intensity of unspoken emotions reduce the war and its atrocities to piped music that is not noticed anymore.
Lalla Romano wrote that For me, to write has always been to pluck from the dense and complex fabric of life some image, from the noise of the world some note, and surround them in silence. The English translation took its title from the epigraph Lalla Romano derived from the friend who played an important part in her transition from painting to writing novels, Cesare Pavese (1908-1950): The only true silence is a silence shared.
Written with subtle elegance, melancholic, unsentimental and detached, reminiscent of Natalia Ginzburg’s recount of her own family’s refuge to the countryside during World War II in the essay Winter in the Abruzzi, A Silence shared is a quiet and sensory study of the impact of unexpected seclusion on relationships and a wonderful tribute to the beauty of life.
Thanks to NetGalley and Pushkin Press for kindly offering an advanced reading copy of this book.
(*** ½)
Even silence
Is word
Lalla Romano
A silence shared is a brief, intimist and atmospheric novel by the Italian writer and painter Lalla (Graziella) Romano (1906-2001), in which she solidifies and transforms silence into words, soaked in melancholy, longing and quiet joy – lauding the strength and the solace not to say anything, the consoling feel of tears flowing gently like the thawing of snow, cleansing and washing away waste, the dribble of weakness.
Taking refuge from the bombings of Turin, perching with her cousins in a taciturn village in the countryside, Giulia, a young woman whose husband Stefano has stayed in Turin for work, befriends Ada and Paolo, a couple that equally fled to stay in the even more remote group of houses of Tetto Murato (the original title). Fascinated by this couple and their obvious differences (the vivid impulsiveness of Ada; the intellectuality and thoughtfulness of Paolo), Giulia, from offering them a helping hand, slips into the intimate orbit of the couple. Ada is an aristocrat of the imagination, a Grand Duchess from a fairy-tale. Communication between the couple Paolo and Ada is scarce, Ada alludes to how little Paolo shares of his thoughts or what he does with her. Soon the reader realises to be in the same position. Paolo is secretive– there are subtle allusions to his activities in the resistance. He stays an enigma to the reader, he leaves people wanting. Yet Giulia’s senses their kindredness, the Elective Affinities that connect her to Paolo, more than to her husband Stefano, whose temperament in turn rather echoes Ada’s than Giulia’s. Giulia’s daily walks to Tetto Murato through the wintry landscape seamlessly flow into her barely going back to her cousins at all, sitting at the couple’s table with other family members, sharing their meagre meals and even their conjugal bed. Isolated, unable to leave the hovel because of Paolo’s illness, cut off from the world physically and psychologically, they withdraw inwardly. The ongoing war, the patrolling of the fascists dissolve into the background, the intensity of unspoken emotions reduce the war and its atrocities to piped music that is not noticed anymore.
Lalla Romano wrote that For me, to write has always been to pluck from the dense and complex fabric of life some image, from the noise of the world some note, and surround them in silence. The English translation took its title from the epigraph Lalla Romano derived from the friend who played an important part in her transition from painting to writing novels, Cesare Pavese (1908-1950): The only true silence is a silence shared.
Written with subtle elegance, melancholic, unsentimental and detached, reminiscent of Natalia Ginzburg’s recount of her own family’s refuge to the countryside during World War II in the essay Winter in the Abruzzi, A Silence shared is a quiet and sensory study of the impact of unexpected seclusion on relationships and a wonderful tribute to the beauty of life.
Thanks to NetGalley and Pushkin Press for kindly offering an advanced reading copy of this book.
(*** ½)
February 10, 2023
This a beautifully written book set in Italy 1943-45. The narrator, Giulia is living in the country with her cousins while her husband works in the city. She becomes intrigued by a couple, Ada and Paolo, suspected of being part of the resistance. She becomes friends with them and forms an intimate bond, staying overnight including in their bed. Paolo is recovering from some illness, perhaps a brain injury and Giulia visits every day. What’s going on in the rest of the country is only mentioned briefly here and there, the focus is on the relationships and for me this was its weakness. While I found it a very easy read and was fascinated by the characters, I’m not sure how much I will remember of this quiet storyline.
January 1, 2023
A very welcome side-effect of the success of Elena Ferrante is the re-issuing of so-called ‘rediscovered masterpieces’ by post-war female Italian writers and poets. Famous ones, like Elsa Morante and Natalia Ginzburg, but also lesser known authors such as Alba de Cespedes (of which I read the outstanding Forbidden Notebook last month), Anna Maria Ortese and now Lalla Romano.
A Silence Shared is an odd little novella though, set in the Piedmont countryside during World War II. Giulia, the first person narrator, is a young woman who has had to flee Turin and now lives with two old cousins in a large family house. Her husband has to remain in the city for work and Giulia befriends a married couple: the outgoing and enthusiastic Ada and the sickly, intelligent and mysterious Paolo. A triangle relation of some sort develops between Giulia, Ada and Paolo, which could only have developed in that way because of the extraordinary circumstances in which they find themselves. It stays platonic and perhaps that makes it even stranger.
I found the historical background interesting (1943-1945, surviving on little food and fuel in cold winters, but also the relation between former fascists and partisans and the backdrop of the occupying and slowly retreating Germans after the fall of Mussolini), but the novella is primarily concerned with the development of human relationships between evacuees.
A Silence Shared is an odd little novella though, set in the Piedmont countryside during World War II. Giulia, the first person narrator, is a young woman who has had to flee Turin and now lives with two old cousins in a large family house. Her husband has to remain in the city for work and Giulia befriends a married couple: the outgoing and enthusiastic Ada and the sickly, intelligent and mysterious Paolo. A triangle relation of some sort develops between Giulia, Ada and Paolo, which could only have developed in that way because of the extraordinary circumstances in which they find themselves. It stays platonic and perhaps that makes it even stranger.
I found the historical background interesting (1943-1945, surviving on little food and fuel in cold winters, but also the relation between former fascists and partisans and the backdrop of the occupying and slowly retreating Germans after the fall of Mussolini), but the novella is primarily concerned with the development of human relationships between evacuees.
June 5, 2023
A slim novel centered on the mingled relationships of two couples during Nazi-occupied Italy.
Quote from Romano, who was also a painter: “For me, to write has always been to pluck from the dense and complex fabric of life some image, from the noise of the world some note, and surround them in silence.”
That’s what Romano does in this novel, a quiet, artful, meticulously written story full of silences and—literally, visually, with the extremely short chapters—white space. It was captivating. I read it hungrily, with great pleasure. It was both porous and nuanced, working on what Claire Keegan calls the “level of suggestion.” It yields riches for readers who enjoy using their imaginations to go beyond their conscious selves.
I’m very grateful to the ongoing trend of translated fiction, which feels now no longer like a trend but a permanent thing. It’s such a delight to continue to discover great writers, who are as good as the authors we grew up knowing and who we thought belonged in their own small echelon as THE “literary giants.” Turns out readers are spoilt: literature is full of giants – littered with brilliant artists.
I can now add Lalla Romano to the 20th century Italian giants I discovered in the last few years. A Silence Shared is beautifully written, fabulously subtle, and—as described by Natalia Ginzburg—simultaneously “clear and full of shadows, concrete and out of reach.”
Quote from Romano, who was also a painter: “For me, to write has always been to pluck from the dense and complex fabric of life some image, from the noise of the world some note, and surround them in silence.”
That’s what Romano does in this novel, a quiet, artful, meticulously written story full of silences and—literally, visually, with the extremely short chapters—white space. It was captivating. I read it hungrily, with great pleasure. It was both porous and nuanced, working on what Claire Keegan calls the “level of suggestion.” It yields riches for readers who enjoy using their imaginations to go beyond their conscious selves.
I’m very grateful to the ongoing trend of translated fiction, which feels now no longer like a trend but a permanent thing. It’s such a delight to continue to discover great writers, who are as good as the authors we grew up knowing and who we thought belonged in their own small echelon as THE “literary giants.” Turns out readers are spoilt: literature is full of giants – littered with brilliant artists.
I can now add Lalla Romano to the 20th century Italian giants I discovered in the last few years. A Silence Shared is beautifully written, fabulously subtle, and—as described by Natalia Ginzburg—simultaneously “clear and full of shadows, concrete and out of reach.”
July 24, 2025
Wonderfully done — manages to be both methodical and delicate, which is so difficult to do; usually books in which the prose is this cleanly hewn can be overly rigorous, guarded, detached. Romano's structure here is compact and refined, but not airtight, which allows moments of poetic intrusion and aporetic poise, which are never forced or unwelcome. Paced in that unhurried but irremediable way that devastatingly measures out our captivity in time. Loved it.
January 21, 2023
** Note: This book is to be enjoyed more like a piece of art than a historical fiction, because if you're coming at it from that angle, it probably isn't going to work for you.**
3.75 stars
This novella is a love letter to human relationships, to noticing the varying smiles on a friends face, to finding warmth around a table of shared food when it is snowing outside. To the white sun and shimmering mountains. To stillness. The prose feels like a still life painting come to life. The kind of painting that doesn't ask anything of you, doesn't want you to find a deeper meaning, just lets you enjoy being there with it.
I'd never heard of author Lalla Romano before. She is an Italian poet, artist and journalist (born in 1906 and lived to the ripe old age of 95), whose works have barely been translated into English until now. In this story/memoir (she likes to be sure you know she has taken creative license) written in the 90's, she writes about sheltering from the action of WWII in a little Italian town with a married couple whom become her dear friends.
It is quiet, subtle, melancholy at times, and beautiful. You can tell has been written by an artist. I recommend it to readers who like gentle stories and memoirs that focus on atmosphere and the delicate nuances of people and relationships. I personally really enjoyed it. It felt easy to read, refreshing, intimate, whilst ever so peaceful.
3.75 stars
This novella is a love letter to human relationships, to noticing the varying smiles on a friends face, to finding warmth around a table of shared food when it is snowing outside. To the white sun and shimmering mountains. To stillness. The prose feels like a still life painting come to life. The kind of painting that doesn't ask anything of you, doesn't want you to find a deeper meaning, just lets you enjoy being there with it.
I'd never heard of author Lalla Romano before. She is an Italian poet, artist and journalist (born in 1906 and lived to the ripe old age of 95), whose works have barely been translated into English until now. In this story/memoir (she likes to be sure you know she has taken creative license) written in the 90's, she writes about sheltering from the action of WWII in a little Italian town with a married couple whom become her dear friends.
It is quiet, subtle, melancholy at times, and beautiful. You can tell has been written by an artist. I recommend it to readers who like gentle stories and memoirs that focus on atmosphere and the delicate nuances of people and relationships. I personally really enjoyed it. It felt easy to read, refreshing, intimate, whilst ever so peaceful.
December 16, 2025
Probably the most perfect, beautiful, and meaningful novel I've read in a while. If you want it to have a higher political significance: this is a portrait of revolutionary tenderness. Something to think about.
November 27, 2025
This is a ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ sort of book. I should have known when it was compared to Natalia Ginsburg as I didn’t particularly get on with the (admittedly only one) book of hers that read, which in turn was compared with Sally Rooney, and well, let’s just not go there.. It is beautifully written (and coincidentally also very seasonal) and you can see both the artist and the poet in her at work, but I just didn’t really understand the characters. At points something minor would happen and the narrator would comment along the lines of ‘well we all know what that means’ and I would read and reread and still think ‘no, I have no idea what that means’... I felt that I was on a beautifully curated journey but that by the end looking back I was realising that I hadn’t really experienced anything at all. At one point Romano describes a scene as a tableau vivante coming to life and I think for me there were lots of really quite wonderful tableau vivante but not so much coming to life. This is all obviously part of the atmosphere that Romano wanted to portray and others have loved it - but I’m learning that it’s just not the kind of writing that ultimately works for me.
November 3, 2023
this was SUCH a beautiful read (fuck it, i just changed my rating from four to five). the prose in this novel was fucking gorgeous and full and bursting with flavour. it's not really about much except the intimacy of sharing silences and the rawness of what they mean. it's set during ww2 in Italy and has only just recently been translated from Italian this YEAR. it makes me sad and wistful about how many amazing books im missing out on because im not fucking multilingual.
this is basically a snapshot between two couples and i can't even really say that much about it, because its only so recently been translated to english i can't find a lot of conversation about it. lalla romano, the author seemed like a boss ass lady. she started as a painter and gradually wrote more poems and prose. and i think that's why i find her writing so striking (and she even talks about this in her foreword) she just sees the world through such a disjointed, scintillating lens. the way (and i really love this in authors) but the way she describes moments within moments is wonderful and beautiful. miss romano is a big fan of her hyphens and i am HERE for it. so much of this book was lovely, and bright but also so so sad because war sucks but lalla romano is the queen of anti fascism. if u see this on a shelf anywhere, i would 10/10 rec if u love nice prose.
anyway time for me to drop some of my favourite bits hehe.
"ada was lying down on the bed. i was looking at her, contemplating her beauty, which seemed almost incorporeal, almost “risen from the sea” - to the point that, maybe, with a simple touch, she would come undone"
"her nature had been constrained - certainly not snuffed out, but a bit stifled - in a world that was too serious for her."
"the harshest thing they said was that all faults are reciprocal and, between people who love each other, involuntary."
:')
that's it, that's everything i have to say.
this is basically a snapshot between two couples and i can't even really say that much about it, because its only so recently been translated to english i can't find a lot of conversation about it. lalla romano, the author seemed like a boss ass lady. she started as a painter and gradually wrote more poems and prose. and i think that's why i find her writing so striking (and she even talks about this in her foreword) she just sees the world through such a disjointed, scintillating lens. the way (and i really love this in authors) but the way she describes moments within moments is wonderful and beautiful. miss romano is a big fan of her hyphens and i am HERE for it. so much of this book was lovely, and bright but also so so sad because war sucks but lalla romano is the queen of anti fascism. if u see this on a shelf anywhere, i would 10/10 rec if u love nice prose.
anyway time for me to drop some of my favourite bits hehe.
"ada was lying down on the bed. i was looking at her, contemplating her beauty, which seemed almost incorporeal, almost “risen from the sea” - to the point that, maybe, with a simple touch, she would come undone"
"her nature had been constrained - certainly not snuffed out, but a bit stifled - in a world that was too serious for her."
"the harshest thing they said was that all faults are reciprocal and, between people who love each other, involuntary."
:')
that's it, that's everything i have to say.
June 7, 2025
Ik had wat tijd nodig om erin te komen, in dit trage, stille boek, maar heb me toch gewonnen moeten geven...het is alsof je een film bekijkt zoals ik die graag heb, inzoemend op de kleine bewegingen, uitdrukkingen van de personages en van de manier waarop ze met elkaar omgaan...zonder een heel duidelijk antwoord te krijgen op de vraag wat er achter de stilte verborgen is. Paolo en Ada vormen een sterk koppel in moeilijke tijden van ziekte en ondergedoken leven, maar Giulia en Stefano lijken een noodzakelijke aanvulling om ze niet te doen wankelen. Mooi!
February 7, 2023
a dreamlike, wintry, oddly sexy little novella.
really appreciated the translator’s and author’s notes, which bookend the novel with just the right amount of context to understand the thread of disquiet that comes from the novel’s engagement with occupation/the war.
with thanks to netgalley and pushkin for the arc!
really appreciated the translator’s and author’s notes, which bookend the novel with just the right amount of context to understand the thread of disquiet that comes from the novel’s engagement with occupation/the war.
with thanks to netgalley and pushkin for the arc!
November 28, 2023
The best book ive read so far this year its a masterpiece!!!
August 7, 2025
Heel uniek boek.
January 6, 2023
3.5/5
I'd first like to say thank you to NetGalley for giving me an opportunity to read this novel. Although it wasn't one of my favorite books, it held my interest to keep reading. And it wasn't the fact of the characters, but the setting; the time period it took place in. The trauma the characters had to watch as their country was in the middle of WWII. But mostly the struggles that we read about throughout the novel with the main character and his issues that I assume were caused by the war. I might be mistaken, but I believe I'm right. All in all, this novel I would recommend to people who love historical fiction, along with war novels. It might not talk much about the war itself; the effects are prominent throughout.
I'd first like to say thank you to NetGalley for giving me an opportunity to read this novel. Although it wasn't one of my favorite books, it held my interest to keep reading. And it wasn't the fact of the characters, but the setting; the time period it took place in. The trauma the characters had to watch as their country was in the middle of WWII. But mostly the struggles that we read about throughout the novel with the main character and his issues that I assume were caused by the war. I might be mistaken, but I believe I'm right. All in all, this novel I would recommend to people who love historical fiction, along with war novels. It might not talk much about the war itself; the effects are prominent throughout.
April 15, 2023
There's something haunting about this book. Perhaps it's the evocative silence that hovers over the pages, adding weight to the conversations and characters. It seems that there is as much left unsaid as there is said, and the reader is left to fill in the gaps, adding their own voice to the silence (and sharing it, as it were, with the main characters).
Set in Italy during the end of WWII, three friends weather the season of change together. Ada is strong, elegant, and joyful in the face of hardship. Her husband, Paolo, is more taciturn, hiding his suffering well, never truly letting on just how ill he is. And finally, Giulia is the faithful friend. With her own husband away, she becomes the support that Ada and Paolo didn't know they needed.
This is not a fast-paced novel. It's largely set in the bedroom of Paolo and Ada, where the three share a bed to keep warm in the harsh Italian winter. Giulia alternates between staying at her cousins' place in another town and visiting her friends in Tetto Murato, and the novel depicts her traveling over the landscape toward her friends with ice and snow beneath her feet, the empty silence of the land giving way to the dilapidated home of Paolo and Ada, where Giulia trades the coldness of her walk with the warmth of three friends going through hardship together.
This book was originally written in 1957 and was only recently translated into English. It's a deep, thoughtful, dreamlike novel. It slips through your fingers a bit like water, and in the end, silence remains. But this silence is between characters, between author and reader, and we learn that "the only true silence is a silence shared."
Set in Italy during the end of WWII, three friends weather the season of change together. Ada is strong, elegant, and joyful in the face of hardship. Her husband, Paolo, is more taciturn, hiding his suffering well, never truly letting on just how ill he is. And finally, Giulia is the faithful friend. With her own husband away, she becomes the support that Ada and Paolo didn't know they needed.
This is not a fast-paced novel. It's largely set in the bedroom of Paolo and Ada, where the three share a bed to keep warm in the harsh Italian winter. Giulia alternates between staying at her cousins' place in another town and visiting her friends in Tetto Murato, and the novel depicts her traveling over the landscape toward her friends with ice and snow beneath her feet, the empty silence of the land giving way to the dilapidated home of Paolo and Ada, where Giulia trades the coldness of her walk with the warmth of three friends going through hardship together.
This book was originally written in 1957 and was only recently translated into English. It's a deep, thoughtful, dreamlike novel. It slips through your fingers a bit like water, and in the end, silence remains. But this silence is between characters, between author and reader, and we learn that "the only true silence is a silence shared."
dnf
June 18, 2023DNF 40%. I got tired of Pablo's tyrannical behaviour over the two women but it’s a well-written war piece about the relationships between people forced to spend time in close proximity.
August 2, 2024
An intimate book.
June 21, 2023
Over the past few years, there has been a resurgence of interest in Italian women writers from the mid-20th century, largely focusing on Natalia Ginzburg, whose work I very much enjoy. (Her essay collection The Little Virtues is easily one of my standout reads of the year so far.) Other female writers are also being rediscovered, from Alba de Cespedes and Anna Maria Ortese to Elsa Morante and Iris Origo. (Whilst Origo wasn’t born in Italy, she lived there for many years, documenting the events of WW2 from her home in Val d’Orcia, Tuscany.)
Now we can add the Italian writer, poet and artist Lalla Romano to that list, courtesy of this beautiful reissue of her 1957 novella A Silence Shared – freshly translated by Brian Robert Moore and recently published by Pushkin Press. It’s a gorgeous, enigmatic novella, like an ode to stillness and silence, all expressed in Romano’s subtle, poetic prose.
The story takes place deep in the midst of the Italian countryside during the autumn and winter months of 1943. Giulia, the young woman who narrates the novel, has left her home in Turin to stay with two of her mother’s elderly cousins, leaving behind her husband, Stefano, who works in the city. With bombings continuing across Northern and Central Italy, the cousins’ rural home is a place of relative safety, particularly given the tense atmosphere in Turin.
Shortly after her arrival, Giulia becomes intrigued by an enigmatic married couple also sheltering in the hills – the lively, spontaneous Ada and her distant, pre-occupied husband, Paolo. The pair have been driven into hiding at the secluded Tetto Murato (which literally means ‘walled roof’) mostly due to Paolo’s activities in the resistance – a situation compounded by severe asthma, which frequently lays him low.
I had heard people talk about them [Paolo and Ada], the way locals talk about out-of-towners: as something suspicious, if not outright scandalous.
He, a teacher and intellectual, sent to that isolated town near the border as if in a kind of exile; she, proud, aristocratic. No one knew how they managed to get by: they didn’t give lessons, and yet no one could say they had racked up any debts. Worst of all was that they “didn’t go to church”. (p. 15)
As the weeks slip by, Giulia is increasingly drawn to Paolo and Ada at Tetto Murato, walking there and back each day to spend time in the couple’s orbit while helping with Paolo’s care. A sense of connection swiftly develops between Giulia and Paolo, a kind of affinity or unspoken bond which flourishes in their shared silences, enhancing the rarefied atmosphere in the house. Similarly, when Stefano pays the occasional visit to Giulia, he is often drawn to Ada – not in a sexual way but in a spiritual sense, like two kindred spirits coming together as one.
There is something dreamlike and hypnotic about this novel, as if the reader is viewing every development through a light, gauzy curtain, rendering everything with a hazy, shimmering glow. Romano excels in creating an intimate, emotionally charged atmosphere, highlighting the developing relationships between Giulia, Paolo and Ada – not forgetting Stefano during his occasional visits to the house.
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2023...
Now we can add the Italian writer, poet and artist Lalla Romano to that list, courtesy of this beautiful reissue of her 1957 novella A Silence Shared – freshly translated by Brian Robert Moore and recently published by Pushkin Press. It’s a gorgeous, enigmatic novella, like an ode to stillness and silence, all expressed in Romano’s subtle, poetic prose.
The story takes place deep in the midst of the Italian countryside during the autumn and winter months of 1943. Giulia, the young woman who narrates the novel, has left her home in Turin to stay with two of her mother’s elderly cousins, leaving behind her husband, Stefano, who works in the city. With bombings continuing across Northern and Central Italy, the cousins’ rural home is a place of relative safety, particularly given the tense atmosphere in Turin.
Shortly after her arrival, Giulia becomes intrigued by an enigmatic married couple also sheltering in the hills – the lively, spontaneous Ada and her distant, pre-occupied husband, Paolo. The pair have been driven into hiding at the secluded Tetto Murato (which literally means ‘walled roof’) mostly due to Paolo’s activities in the resistance – a situation compounded by severe asthma, which frequently lays him low.
I had heard people talk about them [Paolo and Ada], the way locals talk about out-of-towners: as something suspicious, if not outright scandalous.
He, a teacher and intellectual, sent to that isolated town near the border as if in a kind of exile; she, proud, aristocratic. No one knew how they managed to get by: they didn’t give lessons, and yet no one could say they had racked up any debts. Worst of all was that they “didn’t go to church”. (p. 15)
As the weeks slip by, Giulia is increasingly drawn to Paolo and Ada at Tetto Murato, walking there and back each day to spend time in the couple’s orbit while helping with Paolo’s care. A sense of connection swiftly develops between Giulia and Paolo, a kind of affinity or unspoken bond which flourishes in their shared silences, enhancing the rarefied atmosphere in the house. Similarly, when Stefano pays the occasional visit to Giulia, he is often drawn to Ada – not in a sexual way but in a spiritual sense, like two kindred spirits coming together as one.
There is something dreamlike and hypnotic about this novel, as if the reader is viewing every development through a light, gauzy curtain, rendering everything with a hazy, shimmering glow. Romano excels in creating an intimate, emotionally charged atmosphere, highlighting the developing relationships between Giulia, Paolo and Ada – not forgetting Stefano during his occasional visits to the house.
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2023...
August 7, 2023
The only true silence is a silence shared
- Cesare Pavese
This is a book of quiet intimacies and barely avoided transgressions. Companionship whilst waiting out the war in the mountains near Turin.
Be warned, this is not a novel with any sort of plot. More, it is a snapshot of short conversations and observations. It focuses on Giulia visiting her friends Paolo the contemplative and sardonic (who is worn down with some terrible affliction) and Ada the bright and bubbly who cares for him. Giulia's husband Stefano gets a mention here and there but the real focus is this trio.
It's unfair of me, and I'm imposing modern sensibilities on an older time, but the whole time I was reading this I couldn't figure out what they were doing all day. Giulia takes a very long and lovely walk to see Ada & Paolo in Tetto Murato and then the servants make dinner and they eat with the others in the house. And then they stay up late talking. And that's it. Occasionally Giulia talks about her classical translation work but for the period of the novel it seems to be largely on hiatus.
So this is a quiet period of surviving illness, food scarcity (but barely), and the elements (but also, barely). And that's fine. But it's also weirdly immature: none of them have any obligations outside of themselves. There are hints that Paolo has had some heavy involvement in the Resistance but not anymore. I.. struggled to care for the characters because of this.
If they were teenagers, the apathy to their surroundings and the lounging around could have made some sense? A shock response, a recuperation over winter before action in the spring? But they're not. To be blunt: it reads like the spoiled middle-class hanging out while the war happens to other people.
I'm being very harsh in this assessment. Whether this is your judgement of Giulia and her friends or not the book has a LOT going for it. The writing is short and gripping. I may try and pick this up in the original language at some point as I thought the translation was fine but I'd like to see how it feels in Italian. There are the quiet moments and moments of tension. The ending is perfect. I saw it coming and it still made me cry. It's sad girl winter in a historical Italian setting.
So, I'll leave this at a 3 stars because it was a little too comfortable but I think it did what it set out to do well.
February 27, 2023
It's World War Two Italy, at a time when Mussolini was on the way out but the Nazi soldiers of the German army were not quite. The menfolk are perhaps collaborators but here more commonly are the resistance – going off to places unknown, doing things untold, and coming back if at all at an unspecified future time. But one of them isn't – Paolo, a friend of our narrator Giulia, is very ill. In a cold rural winter, he finds help from Giulia and his wife Ada – is any of this put on, does it take advantage of Giulia's husband's absence, and will he get to see the war out happily?
What with the help of the author's note, and the blurb, I can kind of see better what this book is doing – trying for the visual, impactful pauses and stillnesses and images of the situation. What that means in plainspeak is that not a lot happens. And that note was also of, well, note, in quoting what seemed like serious journalistic reviews, because I would have said that as of 2023, certainly in British tastes, this would lack something for both the broadsheets and for the common or garden reader like me. The War does less with the plot than you'd expect, the love aspect comes in in much more of a minor way, too – in fact we do seem to be missing some oomph all round. Roadblocks in wartime are just ignorable here, and even when characters have a chance to be catty with each other there is little to result from it.
Still, as a fairly extraordinary situation arises – the three sharing the bed for warmth, comfort and through insomnia in some instances – there is just about enough to make this worth a look for some readers. It was never a sinful waste of time, but never did I feel this engaged as well as it might. Logic says if 66 years is what it took before someone was interested in translating it, it's got to be dreadful. Many people will happily find that logic at fault in this instance.
What with the help of the author's note, and the blurb, I can kind of see better what this book is doing – trying for the visual, impactful pauses and stillnesses and images of the situation. What that means in plainspeak is that not a lot happens. And that note was also of, well, note, in quoting what seemed like serious journalistic reviews, because I would have said that as of 2023, certainly in British tastes, this would lack something for both the broadsheets and for the common or garden reader like me. The War does less with the plot than you'd expect, the love aspect comes in in much more of a minor way, too – in fact we do seem to be missing some oomph all round. Roadblocks in wartime are just ignorable here, and even when characters have a chance to be catty with each other there is little to result from it.
Still, as a fairly extraordinary situation arises – the three sharing the bed for warmth, comfort and through insomnia in some instances – there is just about enough to make this worth a look for some readers. It was never a sinful waste of time, but never did I feel this engaged as well as it might. Logic says if 66 years is what it took before someone was interested in translating it, it's got to be dreadful. Many people will happily find that logic at fault in this instance.
March 14, 2023
The protagonist Giulia leaves her home in Turin in 1943 after it is damaged in the Allied bombings. Her husband Stefano has to remain behind to work. She makes the acquaintance of Paolo and Ada who are in hiding in Tetta Murato, which was the novel's original title. Giulia feels drawn to them, and helps Ada care for Paolo, who is ill with asthma.
The language in the story is poetic, and serene, even in times when Paolo has one of his asthma attacks which Ada and Giulia help him overcome. There are a few moving scenes that show the three of them sleeping in one bed, trying to warm each other. I could almost feel the cold in the house during the winter days, the cold in the rooms and even under the fur blanket in the bed.
At times, the writing is a little vague. The "silence shared" seems to come from the author's inner self and often leaves the reader wondering what indeed is happening and what the characters are really thinking.
A nice book to read by an author whom I had never heard of before. I'd like to read more of her work.
The language in the story is poetic, and serene, even in times when Paolo has one of his asthma attacks which Ada and Giulia help him overcome. There are a few moving scenes that show the three of them sleeping in one bed, trying to warm each other. I could almost feel the cold in the house during the winter days, the cold in the rooms and even under the fur blanket in the bed.
At times, the writing is a little vague. The "silence shared" seems to come from the author's inner self and often leaves the reader wondering what indeed is happening and what the characters are really thinking.
A nice book to read by an author whom I had never heard of before. I'd like to read more of her work.
July 15, 2023
Set over a few months in 1943 in the Piedmont countryside, this short novel explores the relationship between two partisan couples during the German occupation of Italy. Ada and Paolo take refuge in a village not far from Turin. Stefano stays in Turin for his work, but his wife Giulia visits Ada and Paolo as often as possible, especially when Paolo’s health worsens. The relationship between the three of them intensifies, although remains largely unexpressed. The war is there in the background, and the dangers and difficulties of the occupation lightly referenced, but the focus of the book is this claustrophobic relationship. It’s nicely written, with an almost dream-like narration, a quiet and melancholy tale, but one which didn’t do much for me. I couldn’t really engage with the characters, and essentially wasn’t much interested in their situation. Good to discover an unknown (to me) Italian writer I but was left feeling underwhelmed.
April 28, 2025
This is a novel about friendship among a disparate group of people. They are unwilling exiles from their formerly privileged lives in the city who are forced to seek refuge in the countryside to escape wartime deprivation and political persecution by fascist forces. There as fish out of water they seek to maintain a semblance of their former lives by befriending, supporting and helping one another.
This is not a novel of action. It is a visual and character driven novel where images, events and circumstances drive the interactions between the characters. They are described from the vantage point of the narrator, who is also one of the three characters whose conduct propels the novel forward.
As the novel draws to a close the fleeting nature of the friendships forced upon the characters by exigent circumstances, that was hinted at during earlier points in the story, becomes clear. Nevertheless, the ending is highly satisfying, and the book is enjoyable.
This is not a novel of action. It is a visual and character driven novel where images, events and circumstances drive the interactions between the characters. They are described from the vantage point of the narrator, who is also one of the three characters whose conduct propels the novel forward.
As the novel draws to a close the fleeting nature of the friendships forced upon the characters by exigent circumstances, that was hinted at during earlier points in the story, becomes clear. Nevertheless, the ending is highly satisfying, and the book is enjoyable.
February 12, 2017
Book set towards end of wartime, a professor, slightly aristocratic wife and child whose house in Turin was destroyed come to live in a small town where they get to know Giulia, also evacuated from Turin. Then Paolo, Ada and Nani move to Tetto Muratto, a house in a agricultural hamlet they share with the Fantoni family. Giulia starts visiting them travelling over paths to avoid military checkpoints and the house and occupants become almost an obsession and a daily part of her life. Paolo the professor (a fugitive connected to the partisans) suffers acutely from Asthma, and the book revolves around the relations between the three of them, and occasionally the husband of Giulia who sometimes comes to stay.
January 22, 2023
This novelette reads like a diary, in that it is of course a) autobiographical and b) demands the reader to have knowledge of name-dropped characters as if from previous entries. It's interesting, because I constantly felt like I was missing out on some of the goings-on unfolding in the background of A Silence Shared, as if being only barely able to follow the work gossip of a friend whose job has nothing to do with my own.
Now, the whole... shall we say polycule??? the protagonists find themselves in was the main reason I was interested in reading Romano, and in some ways it delivered on the sexually charged situation resulting from co-habitation and intimate thought-enchanges. But in other ways, it remained so vague about the POV's feelings that I find myself disappointed. What's really going on here? Well, Lalla Romano won't tell us, but I bet fanfiction about that situationship exists.
***I received a digital copy from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.***
Now, the whole... shall we say polycule??? the protagonists find themselves in was the main reason I was interested in reading Romano, and in some ways it delivered on the sexually charged situation resulting from co-habitation and intimate thought-enchanges. But in other ways, it remained so vague about the POV's feelings that I find myself disappointed. What's really going on here? Well, Lalla Romano won't tell us, but I bet fanfiction about that situationship exists.
***I received a digital copy from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.***
January 7, 2024
I am always grateful for the wonderful, unpaid, translators out there. The novel was published in Italy in 1957 but has only just been translated into English. It is set in the Second World War and is loosely based on Romano's own life - she joined the antifascist movement and became close to a couple who took refuge in the countryside near Cueno. However it is not a memoir but an exploration of relationships and the silences within them, as well as the wintry silence of the landscape. If you want a novel with strong plot then this is not for you, but for this reader the dreamlike, slow movement of this book was just perfect.
June 27, 2023
probably a bit superficial of me to compare this to Natalia Ginzburg but the quiet composition and sparse prose is there in both writers. Romano isn't the polemicist that Ginzburg could be (for better or for worse, in this particular case the former), her eye is clearly trained on the idea of literary image here. just goes to show that as a fiction writer you can (and should) have other impulses beyond narrative
April 13, 2023
Grew on me. Surprisingly chaste, and shots in the heart for asthma: woah!
May 28, 2023
[Tetto Murato - Lalla Romano → ☆☆☆.75]
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