Her Side of the Story by Alba de Céspedes (tr. Jill Foulston)

Last year, the Italian-Cuban writer Alba de Céspedes secured a spot in my books-of-year with Forbidden Notebook – a candid, exquisitely written novel in which a middle-aged woman in post-war Rome finds a release from marriage and motherhood by keeping a secret journal. This year, she looks set to repeat this feat with her immersive, richly-textured 1949 novel Her Side of the Story – at once a blistering portrayal of the constraints, frustrations and realities of life for women trapped in a patriarchal society and a vivid coming-of-age story giving voice to the female experience in 1940s Italy.

The granddaughter of the first president of Cuba, de Céspedes was born and raised in Rome, and her first marriage, at the age of fifteen, ended in divorce after just five years. While working as a journalist in the 1930s, she was politically active, lending her support to anti-fascist activities for which she was imprisoned twice. I mention these things because they are relevant to Her Side of the Story, which follows its central protagonist, Alessandra, from her adolescence in Rome to early adulthood, taking in the rise of fascism in Italy, the impact of WW2 and anti-fascist activities. These acts of resistance are spearheaded by Alessandra’s great love, Francesco, a university lecturer and prominent member of the anti-fascist movement. It’s a fascinating story, echoing Natalia Ginzburg’s marvellous novel All Our Yesterdays in style and themes.

Her Side comes with an interesting framing device, but this only becomes fully apparent as the narrative draws to a close. Nevertheless, it’s clear from the outset that Alessandra – who narrates the novel – is reflecting on her life thus far, charting her journey to date. As the narrative unfolds, we see how Alessandra’s early years are marked by the death of her older brother, Alessandro, who drowned at the age of three, robbing their parents of a much-feted child. While Alessandra can never live up to the unfulfilled promise of her dead brother, she must also contend with an unsettling darkness within her, almost as if Alessandro’s spirit is driving her blackest thoughts.

De Céspedes excels at portraying the crushing realities of life for Italian women in the late 1930s/early ‘40s, offering us a coruscating critique of this oppressive, patriarchal society.

They [the women] would wait, preparing their trousseau, and trusting in the hope of love and happiness. Instead, they found life draining–-the kitchen, the house, the swelling and flattening of their bodies as they brought children into the world. Gradually, beneath an appearance of resignation, the women began to feel angry and resentful about the trap they’d been lured into. (p. 22)

The suffering that life inflicts on the female body is a prominent theme here, touching on the shock of adolescence, the repeated violations of sex, the ruptures from childbirth and the indignities of old age.

While Alessandra’s father – a simple man from country peasant stock – is spiteful, crude and controlling, her mother, Eleanora, is more emotionally attuned to the world around her. In short, she is a compassionate, graceful woman with an artistic flair, and naturally Alessandra adores her.

Having sidelined any ambitions of playing the piano professionally, Elenora is now reduced to tutoring children alongside her designated roles as wife and mother. Nevertheless, like many women in her apartment block, she finds herself drawn to another man – an artistic soulmate by the name of Hervey, whom she meets while teaching piano to a wealthy family in the city. While other Roman women willingly take lovers as a release from domestic oppression, Eleanora is more romantic, falling for Hervey and the values he embodies.  

We finally understood the reason for the silence that fell over the deserted courtyard every afternoon. Released from their thankless tasks and making a brave stand against the dull life they had to live, the women fled the dark rooms, the gray kitchens, the courtyard that, as darkness fell, awaited the inevitable death of another day of pointless youth. The old women, bent over their sewing, stayed behind like pillars, guarding those neat, silent houses. They didn’t betray the young women: rather, they helped them, as if they were members of the same congregation. They were bound by a silent and long-standing scorn for men’s lives, for their cruel and selfish ways, in a repressed bitterness that was handed down from one generation to the next. (p. 21)

This initial section of the novel ends in tragedy – a tragedy for which Alessandra feels partly responsible. Sadly, her father supports this view, making their home life untenable. Consequently, Alessandra is packed off to her father’s sizeable family in rural Abruzzo, where she finds solace and beauty in the natural world while fighting fiercely to continue her studies. Alessandra’s powerful grandmother, Nonna, initially opposes her granddaughter’s aspirations, envisaging a life of marriage, motherhood and domesticity instead. However, after some lobbying from Alessandra’s uncle, Nonna ultimately relents, demonstrating an understanding of her granddaughter’s determination, even if she doesn’t agree with its direction.

The rhythms of this simple, rural life are vividly evoked as the women immerse themselves in cooking, cleaning, childrearing and sewing while the men see to their farms. Land ownership is a sign of status here, but it’s not an ambition Alessandra recognises or aspires to. In short, she wishes to break the cycle of oppression, escaping the traditional expectations of marriage and motherhood, a life solely dedicated to the needs and whims of men. Rather, she sees her future as being entwined with her mother’s (and maternal grandmother’s) artistic pursuits. Having observed Eleanora’s love for Hervey, Alessandra believes passionately in the existence of romantic love, but it’s a myth or fallacy that ultimately dictates her fate…

When Alessandra rejects the prospect of marriage from a local farmer – a transgression compounded by her brutal strangling of a prized rooster – she is dispatched back to Rome to care for her father. This move coincides with the encroachment of war, heightening the sense of anxiety in this tense, febrile city.

The real danger of war, in fact, seemed to lie precisely in the fear and inertia that, like a dense fog, gradually and inexorably overtook us, robbing us of our faith in the future. (p. 235)

Even in the depths of Abruzzo, Mussolini – repeatedly referred to as ‘the arrogant voice on the radio’ – proves an ominous presence in people’s lives, infiltrating their world as the country prepares for war.

Back in Rome, Alessandra meets the great love of her life – the charismatic writer and academic Francesco Minelli, an active member of the anti-Fascist resistance – through a mutual friend. Francesco is everything Alessandra has been looking for, and she falls deeply in love with him, blissfully unaware of his political affiliations, initially at least. Marriage soon follows, but the honeymoon period is short-lived. With her romantic ideals and aspirations, Alessandra hopes Francesco will be as emotionally invested in their marriage as she is. But her husband’s focus lies elsewhere, dictated by the demands of his anti-fascist campaign, leaving little time for Alessandra’s dreams and desires. Even her perilous efforts to support the resistance – transporting bombs amidst the vegetables in her bicycle basket while Francesco is in jail – fail to win his praise.

At twenty-one and a year into her marriage, Alessandra is left feeling disillusioned and unappreciated. In truth, she wishes to free herself of her love for Francesco but is unable to achieve this. Meanwhile, Francesco is striving for freedom of another sort – ideological or political freedom from the heinous fascist regime.

…I would have to accept my marriage, the loneliness it brought with it, its decline, the end of the romantic plan through which we had invented ourselves. I had to have the courage to live behind the wall [of Francesco’s shoulders in bed at night], as Claudio lived behind barbed wire. But I didn’t have that sort of courage, just as Francesco didn’t have the courage to accept the annihilation of his own moral freedom. (p. 408)

This intimate portrayal of Alessandra’s inner life gives the novel its undeniable power. Every thought, incident or emotion is vividly conveyed, offering readers a rich insight into Alessandra’s feelings as she navigates the challenges life throws at her. The settings too are brilliantly evoked, from the urban poverty of wartime Rome to the wildness and natural beauty of the countryside in Abruzzo.  

The wide valley was embraced by a chain of hills and mountains, which were tinted pink or yellow depending on the position of the sun in the sky. And in the light of the sun they looked benevolent and welcoming. But other miserable hamlets emerged on the mountainside like mushrooms, or warts, cut off by creeks and valleys, their bell towers rising from the center like a howl (p. 169)

De Céspedes also finds time for a little humour, particularly in her wryly amusing descriptions of rural life. 

Nonna was alone in the dining room, apparently sleeping. Her eyes were closed, her hands on the armrests, and she was resting upright, like some majestic horse. (p. 152)

So, in summary then, another thoroughly immersive rediscovered gem of Italian literature from this powerful feminist voice. It’s also a fascinating insight into women’s lives in Italian society during the rise of fascism. One of the most compelling aspects of Her Side is just how candid it feels, especially for a novel first published in 1949. De Céspedes artfully illustrates how the cumulative impact of multiple humiliations and frustrations can suddenly erupt, driving the most sensitive of individuals to desperation – the passing down of trauma through the generations is also significant here. Interestingly, the novel contains a noticeable undercurrent of darkness throughout, which might explain why Elena Ferrante holds de Céspedes – and Her Side of the Story – in such high esteem. Fans of Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels will find much to enjoy here. This freshly translated version, beautifully produced by Pushkin Press, comes with a thoughtful afterword by Ferrante herself, shedding further light on the significance of certain scenes.

(My thanks to the publishers for kindly providing a review copy.)

Evening Descends Upon the Hills by Anna Maria Ortese (tr. Ann Goldstein and Jenny McPhee)

First published in Italian in 1953, Evening Descends Upon the Hills is a brilliant collection of short stories and reportage by the critically acclaimed writer Anna Maria Ortese. As a whole, the collection conveys a vivid portrait of post-war Naples in all its vitality, devastation and squalor – a place that remains resilient despite being torn apart by war. Sharp contrasts are everywhere Ortese’s writing, juxtaposing the city’s ugliness with its beauty, the desperation of extreme poverty with the indifference of the bourgeoisie, the reality of the situation with the subjectivity of our imagination. It’s a powerful and evocative read, enhanced considerably by Ortese’s wonderfully expressive style.

Evening begins with three fictional pieces – the first of which is A Pair of Eyeglasses, an excellent story in which a young girl, Eugenia, is eagerly anticipating her first pair of glasses. Eugenia lives with her parents, spinster aunt and two younger siblings in an impoverished neighbourhood of Naples. Partly in return for their basement-level accommodation, Eugenia’s parents are at the beck and call of the Marchesa, the rather demanding and thoughtless owner of the dwelling, who thinks nothing of doling out casual put-downs at various opportunities.

Ortese skilfully captures the inherent spirit of the neighbourhood, complete with a multitude of vivid sights and animated sounds.

When the cart was behind her, Eugenia, raising her protruding eyes, basked in that warm blue glow that was the sky, and heard the great hubbub all around her, without, however, seeing it clearly. Carts, one behind the other, big trucks with Americans dressed in yellow hanging out the windows, bicycles that seemed to be tumbling over. High up, all the balconies were cluttered with flower crates, and over the railings, like flags or saddle blankets, hung yellow and red quilts, ragged blue children’s clothes, sheets, pillows, and mattresses exposed to the air, while at the end of the alley ropes uncoiled, lowering baskets to pick up the pick up the vegetables or fish offered by peddlers. (p. 22)

Nevertheless, it’s an environment that Eugenia is unable to see clearly, particularly as she is virtually blind. Only with the aid of glasses is the true horror of the environment revealed – an experience Eugenia finds utterly overwhelming, shattering her previous perceptions of life in the bustling courtyard.

…the cabbage leaves, the scraps of paper, the garbage and, in the middle of the courtyard, that group of ragged, deformed souls, faces pocked by poverty and resignation, who looked at her lovingly. They began to writhe, to become mixed up, to grow larger. They all came toward her, in the two bewitched circles of the eyeglasses. (p. 33)

The contrast here is particularly striking, pitting Eugenia’s blurred, almost rose-tinted impressions of her surroundings against the brutal reality of the situation. It’s a memorable story, effectively setting the tone for the collection as a whole.

In Family Interior – probably my favourite of the three stories – we meet Anastasia Finizio, a successful shop owner, who has worked tirelessly to support her mother, spinster aunt and younger siblings for several years. At thirty-nine, Anastasia is vaguely aware that her life is slipping by – a realisation brought into sharp relief when she hears news of the return of Antonio, a man from her youth. This development rekindles dormant feelings within Anastasia, prompting her to dream of the kind of life she might have had – and may still to be to have? – with Antonio.

What Ortese does so well here is to convey the power dynamics within the family, particularly in relation to Anastasia’s mother who sees the danger in any disruption to the present equilibrium.

It seemed to Signora Finizio, sometimes that Anastasia wasted time in futile things, but she didn’t dare to protest openly, for it appeared to her that the sort of sleep in which her daughter was sunk, and which allowed them all to live and expand peacefully, might at any moment, for a trifle, break. She had no liking for Anastasia (her beloved was Anna), but she valued her energy and, with It, her docility, that practical spirit joined to such resigned coldness. (p. 48)

In truth, Signora Finizio is a selfish woman, one who takes a perverse satisfaction in hurting Anastasia – effectively humiliating her to keep everything in check. It’s an excellent story, subtle and nuanced in its exploration of Anastasia’s position, highlighting the tension between familial responsibility and personal freedom.

After The Gold of Forcella – a vividly-realised story of a pawnshop in the heart of Naples – the focus shifts to non-fiction pieces, essentially conveyed in a reportage style. The Involuntary City is the most powerful essay in this section – a candid account of Ortese’s visits to Granili III and IV, a sprawling shelter for those made homeless by the devastation of war. Initially intended to be a temporary solution for the displaced and dispossessed, The Granili is ‘home’ to some 3,000 individuals (approximately 570 families), with an average of three families per individual room. The conditions are horrific – damp, cramped and filthy – particularly on the lower floors of the building where the most impoverished residents are housed.

In a few homes someone was cooking: smoke, which had the density of a blue body, escaped from some doors, yellow flames could be glimpsed inside, the black faces of people squatting, holding a bowl on their knees. In other rooms, instead, everything was motionless, as if life had become petrified; men still in bed turned under grey blankets, women were absorbed in combing their hair, in the enchanted slow motion of those who do not know what will be, afterward, the other occupation of their day. The entire ground floor, and the first floor to which we were ascending, were in these conditions of depressed inertia. (pp. 86-87)

There is a sense of desperation about the existence in these squalid, smoke-ridden conditions, almost as if the building’s lower echelons are representative of a race’s demise following the destructive impact of war.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a form of class structure has developed within the Granili, separating the displaced into different social strata, largely according to status. Some of those on the higher floors have jobs – consequently their days are structured, and this sense of order tends to be reflected in the immediate surroundings. In short, these individuals have adapted to reduced circumstances without giving up their sense of decorum. Nevertheless, there is a widespread understanding of the precarious nature of this situation. On occasions a random stroke of bad luck, such as an illness or the loss of a job, will force someone on the third floor to give up their lodgings and descend to a lower one, usually to move in with another family member. For the most part, these people are destined to remain in their relegated positions, despite harbouring hopes of regaining their previous status.

In the final section of the book, Ortese recounts a series of journeys to visit former colleagues from Sud, the avant-garde cultural magazine where she worked in the late ‘40s. There is a melancholy, elegiac tone running through these pieces, a sense of alienation from those who have become indifferent or embittered.

In summary, Evening Descends Upon the Hills is a fascinating collection that blurs the margins between fiction and reportage to paint a striking vision of post-war Naples, vividly capturing the city’s resilience in the face of poverty, suffering and corruption. The attention to detail is meticulous – as is the level of emotional insight, particularly about women’s lives and family dynamics.

The collection comes with an excellent introduction by the translators which outlines the reactions to Ortese’s candid (and sometimes brutal) vision of Naples following the book’s initial publication – the author was subsequently banned from the city for several years. Also included is the preface from the 1994 reissue, in which Ortese reflects on how her disoriented state of mind may have influenced her picture of post-war Naples, as captured in the original book.

In short, this is very highly recommended indeed – particularly for fans of Elena Ferrante, who has cited Ortese as a key influence on her work. My thanks to Pushkin Press and the Independent Alliance for kindly providing a review copy.

My Books of the Year – 2014

For me, 2014 was a year filled with great books, so much so that I’ve found it difficult to finalise a shortlist for this post. I read 101 books in 2014 – that’s probably too many although it does include several novellas – and very few turned out to be duds. My first pass at a shortlist came out at 24 books, but I’ve cut it down to thirteen, a baker’s dozen of favourites from my year of reading. These are the books I loved, the books that stayed with me, the ones I’m most likely to revisit one day.

I’ve listed my picks in the order I read and reviewed them. I’ve summarised each one, but you can click on the links should you wish to read the full reviews.

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (tr. by Ann Goldstein)

2014 was the year of #FerranteFever, and I ended up reading four books by this author: the first three in Ferrante’s series of Neapolitan novels and a standalone novel, The Days of Abandonment. It came down to a choice between the ferocity of Days and the breadth and scope of the Neapolitans. I’ve plumped for the latter and the first book in the series, My Brilliant Friend, which remains my favourite of the three. Set in Naples in the 1950s, it follows the friendship between two girls, Elena and Lila, and the different paths they take to escape the neighbourhood. A compelling story that captures the changing dynamics of the relationship between these two girls.

The Infatuations by Javier Marías (tr. by Margaret Jull Costa)

This was a reread for the 2014 IFFP-shadowing project chaired by Stu, and it’s the book that prompted me to start my own blog. (Stu published my review as a guest post at Winstonsdad’s.)

A man is stabbed to death in the street, but this novel offers much more than a conventional murder mystery. In Marías’s hands, the story becomes a meditation touching on questions of truth, chance, love and mortality. The writing is wonderful – philosophical, reflective, almost hypnotic in style. The Infatuations is my favourite novel from our IFFP-shadow shortlist, with Jón Kalman Stefánsson’s The Sorrow of Angels a close second.

Nada by Carmen Laforet (tr. by Edith Grossman)

Carmen Laforet was twenty-three when Nada, her debut novel, was published. It’s an amazing book, dark and twisted with a distinctive first-person narrative. A portrayal of a family bruised by bitterness and suspicion, struggling to survive in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. A wonderfully evocative novel, a mood-piece that captures the passion and intensity of its time and setting.

Never Any End to Paris by Enrique Vila-Matas (tr. by Anne McLean)

An account of the two years Vila-Matas spent in Paris as a young and aspiring writer trying to emulate his idol, Ernest Hemingway. This is a smart, playful and utterly engaging piece of meta-fiction, full of self-deprecating humour and charm. Marguerite Duras makes an appearance too as Vila-Matas ends up lodging in a filthy garret at the top of her house. Huge fun and a favourite read from Spanish Lit Month.

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

This novel charts a deep friendship between two American couples over forty years. The story explores how these four friends cope with the challenges and setbacks they face during their lives; their struggles are the stuff of our everyday existence, but no less important or significant as a result. It’s an exceptional book – eloquent, graceful, wise and deeply moving. Stegner’s prose is simply wonderful.

The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton

I loved this novel of life in a seedy English boarding house set in the grim winter of 1943. A spinster in her late thirties is trapped in a ‘death-in-life’ existence and subjected to petty bullying by the ghastly Mr Thwaites. The characters are pin-sharp, and Hamilton has a brilliant for dialogue. A dark tragicomedy of manners, I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker

Cassandra, a graduate student at Berkeley, drives home to her family’s ranch for the wedding of her identical twin sister, Judith, where she seems all set to derail the proceedings. This is a brilliant novel featuring one of my favourite women in literature. If you like complex characters with plenty of light and shade, this novel is for you. Cassandra is intelligent, precise and at times charming, witty and loving. But she can also be manipulative, reckless, domineering, self-absorbed and cruel.  She’s a bundle of contradictions, behaving abominably at times, and yet she also has my sympathies.

Where There’s Love, There’s Hate by Adolfo Bioy Casares and Silvina Ocampo (tr. by Suzanne Jill Levine and Jessica Ernst Powell)

This delightful novella is a playful take on the traditional country-house murder mystery where everyone’s a suspect. There is much to enjoy: the wit and charm of the writing; the eccentricities of the rather pedantic narrator; the playful nature of the narrative; the murder mystery at its heart. This is a book that never takes itself too seriously as it gently pokes fun at the mystery genre. A favourite read for Richard’s celebration of Argentinian lit.

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Set in New York in the later 19^th Century, this novel features Lily Bart, who at the age of twenty-nine remains unmarried despite her beauty. Lilly knows she must net a wealthy husband to safeguard her place in society and the lifestyle to which she has become accustomed, but she wants to marry for love and money. Lily is a fascinating character: complex, nuanced and fully realised. A great novel, fully deserving of its status as a classic.

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (tr. by Brian Murdoch)

Narrated by an eighteen-year-old German soldier fighting in WWI, this is a searing portrait of the suffering, desolation and futility of war. There is, however, a sense of universality to this story. The narrator could be any one of the terrified young soldiers sent to the front, desperately trying to get from one day to the next, never knowing what the future might bring. A deeply affecting novel, beautifully written; I wish I had read it many years ago.

Transit by Anna Seghers (tr. by Margot Bettauer Dembo)

A novel inspired by Seghers’ own experience as a refugee fleeing from Europe following the German invasion of France in 1940. Transit gives an insight into the bureaucratic maze and red tape involved in securing a safe passage from Marseille. It’s a haunting and unforgettable story with questions of shifting identity and destiny at its heart. Another standout read from Caroline and Lizzy’s German Literature Month.

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

On one level, H is for Hawk is the story of how Macdonald attempts to deal with grief by training a goshawk following the death of her father. On another, it captures a biography of the novelist T.H White and his misguided attempts to train his own hawk. The writing is excellent: vivid and evocative in its description of landscape and nature, informative and engaging on falconry and White. This is an intelligent, multi-layered and humane book. An emotional but thoroughly rewarding read for me, I had to pick the right time for this one.

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

A great novel featuring two mismatched couples, the Ashburnhams and the Dowells, The Good Soldier is a story of intrigues, betrayals and duplicity. It tells of the consequences of reigning in desires and of the damage caused when these desires are unleashed. As the narrator, John Dowell, tries to make sense of events, we’re left questioning his reliability. A fascinating book, superbly written. Each of the main characters is flawed or damaged in some way, and my impressions changed as I continued to read. One to revisit at some stage.

Also noteworthy (these are the books I agonised over): Bullfight by Yasushi Inoue; Speedboat by Renata Adler; The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald; Severina by Rodrigo Rey Rosa and Moon in a Dead Eye by Pascal Garnier.

So there we go, my favourite books from a year of reading and eight months of blogging – better late than never. Wishing you all the best for 2015, may it be filled with many wonderful books.

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante (tr. by Ann Goldstein)

She [Lila] answered: “Each of us narrates our life as it suits us.”

As summer draws to an end, I’ve been reading a couple of chunksters: one of my own choosing – Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante – and one selected by a member of my book group; the latter shall remain nameless (for now at least) as I’m still deciding whether or not to review it. Anyhow, let’s return to the Ferrante…

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay is the third volume in Elena Ferrante’s series of Neapolitan novels. As I’ve already reviewed the first two books in the series (My Brilliant Friend and The Story of a New Name) in detail, I’m going to cover book three more briefly, especially as some of you may be reading the earlier volumes at the moment.

Warning: In order to review this third volume, I need to mention a few details from the first two books and the third novel, too.

 

This third instalment in the series picks up where book three left off: the period is the late sixties, and Elena and Lila are in their early twenties. Elena’s first novel has just been published and Nino Sarratore is back in her life (albeit briefly), coming to her aid when a critic attacks her work. Despite the fleeting reappearance of Nino, Elena goes ahead with her marriage to Pietro, a rather dull but steady junior Professor and the couple settle down to life in Florence. Elena’s novel is a commercial success, but critical responses are mixed; one critic describes it as ‘a cheap version of the already vulgar Bonjour Tristesse.’ Harsh words indeed.

Elena struggles to write especially once children arrive, and she feels trapped by her marriage, isolated by a decline in her relationship with Pietro and the demands of motherhood. Having recently read The Days of Abandonment, I can now see clear links between the Neapolitan novels and the raw candour of Ferrante’s earlier work (there are other quotes I could include here, but I’d like to avoid revealing too much about the plot):

I felt abandoned but with the impression that I deserved it; I wasn’t capable of providing tranquillity for my daughter. Yet I kept going, doggedly, even though I was more and more frightened. My organism was rejecting the role of mother. And no matter how I denied the pain in my leg by doing everything possible to ignore it, it had returned and was getting worse. But I persisted, I wore myself out taking charge of everything. […] I thought: I’m becoming ugly and old before my time, like the women of the neighbourhood. And naturally, just when I was particularly desperate, Lila telephoned. (pg. 240 Europa Editions).

Meanwhile, Lila becomes involved in a left-wing movement, and the novel has much to say about the socio-political turmoil and unrest in Italy at the time (specifically The Years of Lead). In this scene, Lila describes the repressive and abusive conditions in the sausage factory in which she works:

Can you imagine, she asked, what it means to spend eight hours a day standing up to your waist in the mortadella cooking water? Can you imagine what it means to have your fingers covered with cuts from slicing the meat off animal bones? […]The women have to let their asses be groped by supervisors and colleagues without saying a word. If the owner feels the need, someone has to follow him into the seasoning room; his father used to ask for the same thing, maybe also his grandfather; and there, before he jumps all over you, that same owner makes you a tired little speech on how the odor of salami excites him. […] The union has never gone in, and the workers are nothing but poor victims of blackmail, dependant on the law of the owner, that is: I pay you and so I possess you and I possess your life, your family and everything that surrounds you, and if you don’t do what I say, I’ll ruin you. (pgs. 121-122)

Essentially, though, Those Who Leave focuses on Elena and the development of her character during the period, her direction and ambitions in life, and naturally a comparison with Lila is never far away:

Become. It was a verb that had always obsessed me, but I realized it for the first time only in that situation. I wanted to become, even though I had never known what. And I had become, that was certain, but without an object, without a real passion, without a determined ambition. I had wanted to become something – here was the point – only because I was afraid that Lila would become someone and I would stay behind. My becoming was a becoming in her wake. I had to start again to become, but for myself, as an adult, outside of her. (pgs. 346-347)

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay is another very good instalment in this epic story, perhaps not quite as compelling as the first two novels, but a necessary step in the overall journey from the girls’ childhood to middle age. That said, Ferrante’s writing is as rich in detail as ever, and the stage is most definitely set for a terrific fourth (and final) novel…but we shall have to wait until 2015 for that one to be published. I for one am looking forward to it immensely.

Tony Malone (at Tony’s Reading List) has also reviewed this book.

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay is published in the UK by Europa Editions. Source: review copy kindly provided by the publisher.

The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante (review)

I’ve already reviewed My Brilliant Friend and The Story of a New Name, the first two books in Elena Ferrante’s recent series of Neapolitan novels. The Days of Abandonment, a stand-alone novel, was first published in Italy in 2002 and translated into the English in 2005.

The Days of Abandonment is narrated by Olga, a thirty-eight-year-old woman originally from Naples, now living in Turin. She has been married to Mario for fifteen years, and they have two young children, Ilaria and Gianni. In a quietly devastating opening paragraph, Mario informs Olga that he wants to leave her:

One April afternoon, right after lunch, my husband announced that he wanted to leave me. He did it while we were clearing the table; the children were quarreling as usual in the next room, the dog was dreaming, growling beside the radiator. He told me that he was confused, that he was having terrible moments of weariness, of dissatisfaction, perhaps of cowardice. He talked for a long time about our fifteen years of marriage, about the children and admitted that he had nothing to reproach us with, neither them nor me. He was composed, as always, apart from an extravagant gesture of his right hand when he explained to me, with a childish frown, that soft voices, a sort of whispering, were urging him elsewhere. Then he assumed the blame for everything that was happening and closed the front door carefully behind him, leaving me turned to stone beside the sink. (p. 9, Europa Editions)

At first, Olga is convinced that Mario isn’t serious; after all, this has happened before. Six months after the couple got together, Mario suddenly announced that he no longer wished to see Olga, only to return five days later claiming ‘there had come upon him a sudden absence of sense.’

Consequently, in the early stages of their separation, Olga continues to behave affectionately towards Mario ‘ready to sustain him in his obscure crisis’ as he returns periodically to visit the children. But Olga soon feels a sharp animosity growing inside her, a bitterness only heightened when she learns Mario has left her for another woman, and her demeanour starts to alter:

I began to change. In the course of a month I lost the habit of putting on makeup carefully. I went from using a refined language, attentive to the feelings of others, to a sarcastic way of expressing myself, punctuated by coarse laughter. Slowly, in spite of my resistance, I also gave in to obscenity.

Obscenity came to my lips naturally; it seemed to me that it served to communicate to the few acquaintances who still tried coldly to console me that I was not one to be taken in by fine words. As soon as I opened my mouth I felt the wish to mock, smear, defile Mario and his slut. I hated the idea that he knew everything about me while I knew little or nothing of him. (pg. 26)

In an effort to calm herself, Olga begins to re-examine her relationship with Mario in the minutest detail in an attempt to understand where she has gone wrong and why her husband has left. But it’s not long before her need to self-analyse gives way to feelings driven by resentment and rage:

A tangle of resentments, the sense of revenge, the need to test the humiliated power of my body were burning up any residue of good sense.  (pg. 48)

As Olga struggles to maintain a grip on her life, those around her bear the brunt of her frustrations; she strikes out at Mario, strangers who cross her path, and she comes perilously close to abandoning her children in the gardens of the local museum (near a statue of Pietro Micca):

And I began to shout that, if in their opinion I was no good, they should go to him [their father], there was a new mother, beautiful and smart, certainly from Turin, I would bet she knew everything about Pietro Micca and that city of kings and princesses, of haughty people, cold people, metal automatons. I screamed and screamed, out of control. (pg. 65)

And a few lines later:

Ah yes, I wished to wound them, my children, I wished to wound above all the boy, who already had a Piedmontese accent, Mario, too, spoke like a Turinese now, he had eliminated the Neapolitan cadences utterly. Gianni acted like an impudent young bull, I detested it, he was growing up foolish and presumptuous and aggressive, eager to shed his own blood or that of others in some uncivilized conflict, I couldn’t bear it any more.

I left them in the gardens, beside the fountain, and set out quickly along Via Galileo Ferraris, toward the suspended figure of Victor Emmanuel II, a shadow at the end of parallel lines of buildings, high up against a slice of warm cloudy sky. Maybe I really wanted to abandon them forever, forget about them, so that when Mario finally showed up again I could strike my forehead and exclaim: your children? I don’t know. I seem to have lost them: the last time I saw them was a month ago, in the gardens of the Cittadella.

After a little I slowed down, turned back. What was happening to me. I was losing touch with those blameless creatures, they were growing distant, as if balanced on a log floating away upon the flow of the current. Get them back, take hold of them again, hug them close: they were mine. (pgs 65-66)

From here, Olga descends into a deep depression and finds herself staring, falling even, into the darkest recesses of a terrible abyss. There is an excruciating scene in which she seeks sex with one of her neighbours, not out of any feelings of desire (in fact she finds this man quite repulsive) but out of a desperate need to negate the insult of being deserted by Mario.

Tormented by thoughts of Mario and his new life, Olga is unable to think clearly or concentrate on anything else. Confusion and disorientation reign as this woman’s previously ordered life crumbles around her. Having neglected to pay the bill she finds the phone is no longer working; ants infest her apartment, and there are a couple of scenes involving door locks which I’ll avoid discussing for fear of revealing further details about this section of Olga’s story.

I had only to quiet the view inside, the thoughts. They got mixed up, they crowded in on one another, shreds of words and images, buzzing frantically, like swarms of wasps, they gave to my gestures a brute capacity to do harm. (pg. 93)

While the title, The Days of Abandonment, clearly refers to Mario’s desertion of Olga, there’s also a sense that the phrase refers to Olga’s surrender to her own state of mind:

Something in my senses wasn’t working. An interruption of feeling, of feelings. Sometimes I abandoned myself to it, at times I was frightened…I didn’t know how to find answers to the question marks, every possible answer seemed absurd. I was lost in the where am I, in the what am I doing. I was mute beside the why. (pg. 107)

At various stages of her abandonment Olga is hounded by her memories of a once contented woman from her Neapolitan childhood, a woman whose husband ran away to Pescara for the love of another. This woman’s husband ‘had abandoned her, had cancelled her out from memory and feeling’ leaving her with nothing, not even her name; she became known as the ‘poverella,’ a poor woman torn to pieces by the loss of her husband. At one stage, Olga even questions her own identity as she struggles to separate reality from the imaginary: is she becoming the ‘poverella’ of her childhood?

Occasionally though, Olga regains a sense of proportion, a feeling that she can recover from this terrible experience and pull herself out of this place. Will she succeed? Well, that’s not for me to say, but if you read this exceptional novel, you’ll find out for yourself.

I was expecting The Days of Abandonment to be very good, but it is extraordinarily good. This is no-holds-barred fearless writing, a novel that delves deeply into the human psyche. Ferrante writes with devastating candour, exploring our perceptions of a woman, a mother with responsibilities, who finds herself face-to-face with a crisis. The story is shocking and violent in places, and the language explicit at times, but my word it feels necessary to convey the intensity of Olga’s story. A disturbing, but utterly unforgettable and compelling book, admirably translated by Ann Goldstein.

Biblibio and Tony Malone have also reviewed this novel, which I read as part of August’s Women in Translation #WITMonth, championed by Biblibio.

The Days of Abandonment (tr. Ann Goldstein) is published in the UK by Europa Editions. Source: review copy kindly provided by the publishers.

The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante (tr. Ann Goldstein)

A month or so ago, I reviewed My Brilliant Friend, the first volume in a series of Neapolitan novels by the Italian writer Elena Ferrante. This vibrant story, set in 1950s Naples, shows us the lives of two young girls, Elena Greco and Lila Cerullo, from childhood through adolescence, ending when the two girls are sixteen. It’s a sweeping, epic tale with the feel of a modern classic. Superbly translated by Ann Goldstein, the book paints a rich and nuanced portrait of Elena and Lila’s friendship through the years. In this post, I’ll be focusing on the second book in the series, The Story of a New Name, in which we follow Elena and Lila from the end of their adolescence to their early twenties.

WARNING: In order to review this second volume, I have to reveal the ending of the first novel, My Brilliant Friend and events in the opening 50 pages of New Name (this book runs to 480 pages).

The Story of a New Name opens as Elena recalls the time in 1966 when Lila entrusts to her care a box containing eight notebooks. Lila, afraid that her husband might find her notebooks, can no longer conceal them at home. Despite promising not to open the box, Elena cannot help resist the temptation to read Lila’s notebooks – not a diary as such, but detailed accounts of the events of her life, exuding the ‘force of seduction that Lila had given off since she was a child’. (These pages also provide us, the readers, with a useful summary of some of the key episodes in My Brilliant Friend.) Elena studies Lila’s account of events for weeks, focusing on passages that thrill, hypnotise and humiliate her. In the end, she is frustrated by the experience and decides to take action:

Finally, one evening in November, exasperated, I went out carrying the box. I couldn’t stand feeling Lila on me and in me, even now that I was esteemed myself, even now I that I had a life outside of Naples. I stopped on the Solferino bridge to look at the lights filtered through a cold mist. I placed the box on the parapet and pushed it slowly, a little at a time, until it fell into the river, as if it were her, Lila in person, plummeting, with her thoughts, words, the malice with which she struck back at anyone, the way she appropriated me, as she did every person or thing or event or thought that touched her: books and shoes, sweetness and violence, the marriage and the wedding night, the return to the neighbourhood in the new role of Signora Raffaella Carracci. (pg. 18)

We return to the drama of Lila’s wedding to Stefano Carracci, owner of the neighbourhood grocery stores. It soon becomes clear that Lila’s marriage (at the age of sixteen) is already over before the close of her wedding day. She learns that Stefano has been forced to enter into a business partnership with the influential and brash Solara family in order to protect the future of the Cerullo shoe business (managed by Lila’s father and brother). Lila despises the Solara brothers, Marcello and Michele, and is livid with Stefano for forging a connection between the two families. Lila and her new husband continue to quarrel and return from honeymoon after only four days. When Elena next sees Lila she learns of the traumatic start to her friend’s life as a married woman; Lila is wearing dark sunglasses and a scarf to cover the bruises on her face, the result of beatings from her husband, and she appears resigned to her fate:

We had grown up thinking that a stranger must not even touch us, but that our father, our boyfriend, and our husband could hit us when they liked, out of love, to educate us, to reeducate us. As a result, since Stefano was not the hateful Marcello but the young man to whom she had declared her love, whom she had married, and with whom she had had decided to live forever, she assumed complete responsibility for her choice. And yet it didn’t add up. In my eyes Lila was Lila, not an ordinary girl of the neighbourhood. Our mothers, after they were slapped by their husbands, did not have that expression of calm disdain. They despaired, they wept, they confronted their man sullenly, they criticized him behind his back, and yet, more or less, they continued to respect him (my mother, for example, plainly admired my father’s devious deals). Lila instead displayed an acquiescence without respect. (pg. 53)

At the heart of this narrative is the depth and intensity of Elena’s relationship with the brilliant Lila. In this scene, Elena recaptures some of the joy of her childhood with Lila as the she helps her friend create a dazzling piece of art for display in the Solara’s glamorous new shoe shop in the city:

Before our astonished and, in the cases of some, openly hostile eyes, she cut strips of black paper, with the manual precision she had always possessed, and pinned them here and there to the photograph, asking for my help with slight gestures or quick glances.

I joined in with the devotion that I had felt ever since we were children. Those moments were thrilling, it was a pleasure to be beside her, slipping inside her intentions, to the point of anticipating her. I felt that she was seeing something that wasn’t there, and that she was struggling to make us see it, too. I was suddenly happy, feeling the intensity that invested her, that flowed through her fingers as they grasped the scissors, as they pinned the black paper. (pg. 119)

But Elena’s feelings for her friend are bound up in a tangle of emotions, often contradictory to one another. As in the previous novel, she is constantly reflecting, self-analysing and comparing herself to Lina. Deep down Elena fears that she is not as attractive or as talented as her friend, and she may be consigned to remain in Lila’s shadow:

I was afraid that, whatever she wore, her beauty would explode like a star and everyone would be eager to grab a fragment of it. I was afraid that she would express herself in dialect, that she would say something vulgar, that it would become obvious that school for her had ended with an elementary-school diploma. I was afraid that, if she merely opened her mouth, everyone would be hypnotized by her intelligence and Professor Galiani herself would be entranced. (pg. 151)

As with the first book, Ferrante brings the same sense of passion and vitality to The Story of a New Name. She presents a vivid and detailed picture of this working-class neighbourhood of Naples with its shoemakers, grocers and pastry makers. We see the tensions and rivalries between families, ferocious arguments over love, money, power and reputation in the community. We follow individuals as they try to break away from the constraints of their background. Elena tries to achieve this through education, while the Solaras, Carraccis and Cerullos aim to better themselves through investment in their grocery and shoe businesses.

Another key strand in The Story of a New Name is Elena’s search for love. Since childhood, she has been attracted to Nino Sarratore, another brilliant and self-assured student from the neighbourhood. She feels thrilled to be in his company, enthused by their debates and discussions. Nino seems to be attracted to Elena, too, but the path to true love never runs smoothly and other forces run the risk of disrupting their budding relationship.

As with My Brilliant Friend, this second novel ends with a key event, a meeting that has the potential to alter the life of at least one of the two friends, possibly both. Once again, it left me desperate to read the next instalment in this utterly compelling story…and the English translation of book three in the series, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, is due to be published in the UK in September 2014.

Tony Malone and Tony Messenger have also reviewed The Story of a New Name.

I’ve reviewed this book in August to tie in with Women in Translation (#WITMonth), championed by Biblibio.

The Story of a New Name is published in the UK by Europa Editions. Source: library copy.

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (tr. Ann Goldstein)

Earlier this year, I read (and loved) My Brilliant Friend, the first in a series of Neapolitan novels by the Italian writer Elena Ferrante. She’s one of Italy’s leading contemporary writers, but her true identity remains something of a mystery.

My Brilliant Friend begins in the present day as Elena, a woman in her mid-sixties, receives a phone call from Rino, the son of her lifelong friend Lila (known to others as Lina). Lila has vanished, taking all her personal belongings with her. Elena, who narrates the story, recalls ‘it’s been at least three decades since she told me that she wanted to disappear without leaving a trace and I’m the only one who knows what she means’. To Elena, it appears as though her friend wants to ‘eliminate the entire life that she has left behind’, so much so that Elena beings to document the story of their lives – ‘We’ll see who wins this time, I said to myself.’ (Europa Editions)

From this compelling opening, we travel back in time to Naples in the 1950s where Elena Greco and Lila Cerullo meet in the first grade of elementary school. Elena is immediately intrigued by Lila’s confidence, determination and wildness, and is drawn to her from an early stage in their relationship. It’s almost as though Lila possesses a powerful (and possibly dangerous) aura, one that Elena finds hard to resist:

Already then there was something that kept me from abandoning her. I didn’t know her well; we had never spoken to each other, although we were constantly competing in class and outside it. But in a confused way I felt that if I ran away with the others I would leave her with something of mine that she would never give back. (Europa Editions)

Elena is clever, diligent, accommodating and eager to excel in school. But Lila quickly reveals herself to be fiercely intelligent; despite her impoverished background, she taught herself to read at the age of three and is now ahead of her classmates, Elena included. Elena devotes herself to studying, just so that she ‘could keep pace with that terrible, dazzling girl’. Lila triumphs in school competitions, her quickness of mind is ‘like a hiss, a dart, a lethal bite’, and Elena feels destined to remain in the shadow of her friend:

Lila, too, at a certain point had seemed very beautiful to me. In general I was the pretty one, while she was skinny, liked a salted anchovy, she gave off an odour of wildness, she had a long face, narrow at the temples, framed by two bands of smooth black hair. But when she decided to vanquish both Alfonso and Enzo, she had lighted up like a holy warrior. Her cheeks flushed, the sign of a flame released by every corner of her body, and for the first time I thought: Lila is prettier than I am. So I was second in everything. I hoped that no one would ever realise it. 

Regardless of the fact that Elena feels somewhat outshone by Lila, the two girls develop a close bond over a shared love of books. Born into a tough, working-class environment, they see education as a potential means of escape from their neighbourhood in later life. There’s a key moment in their final year of elementary school when the girls are encouraged to take the exam for entry to middle school. Elena’s parents agree to pay for extra schooling to prepare her for the exam, but Lila’s do not. Elena enters middle school while Lila leaves to work in her father’s shoe shop and workshop. While helping in the family trade, Lila imagines another route away from the poverty of her childhood. She produces designs for new shoes, beautiful and unique models (these are Lila’s ideas, after all), and she dreams of establishing a Cerullo shoe factory with her father and brother. For a time, the girls drift apart but are soon reconciled. Lila’s thirst for knowledge returns and she encourages Elena to bring her Latin books and to study with her; Lila continues to read, even teaching herself other languages ahead of Elena, despite having missed out on the opportunity to attend middle school herself.

This first book in the Neapolitan novels follows Elena and Lila’s relationship from childhood through adolescence and ends when the two girls are sixteen. Ferrante brings tremendous vibrancy, passion and depth to Elena and Lila’s characters; we see how each conversation, each encounter leads to a subtle change in the dynamics of their relationship. Elena is constantly reflecting, analysing and questioning herself, comparing her intellectual, emotional and physical development to that of her closest friend.

There are many times when Elena feels Lila is already ahead or about to overtake her:

Would she always do the things I was supposed to do, before and better than me? She eluded me when I followed her and meanwhile stayed close on my heels to pass me by?

Every day I felt more strongly the anguish of not being in time. I was afraid, coming home from school, of meeting her and learning from her melodious voice that now she was making love with Peluso. Or if it wasn’t him, it was Enzo. Or if it wasn’t Enzo, it was Antonio. Or, what do I know, Stefano Carracci, the grocer, or even Marcello Solara: Lila was unpredictable. The males who buzzed around her almost men, full of demands. 

But at other times, Elena convinces herself that Lila is the one being left behind:

Sometimes I even had the impression that it was Lila who depended on me and not I on her. I had crossed the boundaries of the neighbourhood, I went to the high school, I was with boys and girls who were studying Latin and Greek, and not, like her, with construction workers, mechanics, cobblers, fruit and vegetable sellers, grocers, shoemakers. 

This wonderful novel, admirably translated by Ann Goldstein, has the feel of a classic. It is broad, almost cinematic in scope with a vast cast of characters, many of whom I haven’t even mentioned yet. Alongside the Grecos and the Cerullos, we meet the members of seven other families and their characters add richness and more layers to the narrative.

Ferrante describes Naples in the 1950s and early 1960s with vivid detail. The city is undergoing political and economic development, still struggling to establish itself following the wars. The neighbourhood in this story is a violent place, one governed by unwritten rules and family rivalries fuelled by tensions over love, money and reputation in the community. Men typically occupy the most powerful roles in the family. Fights and incidents of domestic abuse are commonplace:

At the Bar Solera, in the heat, between gambling losses and troublesome drunkenness, people often reached the point of disperazione – a word that in dialect meant having lost all hope but also being broke – and hence of fights…Blows were given and received. Men returned home embittered by their losses, by alcohol, by debts, by deadlines, by beatings, and at the first inopportune word they beat their families, a chain of wrongs that generated wrongs. 

I’d like to avoid giving too many details about the plot, but the novel ends with a key event in the girls’ lives. Elena, now sixteen, is left wondering if she will ever be able to escape the confines of the neighbourhood, And Elena’s brilliant friend? Well, I don’t want to reveal how things stand for Lila, but the final pages left me eager to move on to the next instalment in their story.

I’ve also read the equally captivating second volume in the series, The Story of a New Name, so I’ll return soon with some thoughts on that one. In the meantime, I can’t recommend My Brilliant Friend highly enough. It’s an excellent novel – utterly engrossing and absorbing.

 My Brilliant Friend (tr. Ann Goldstein) is published in the UK by Europa Editions. Source: personal copy.