The Forbidden Notebook

The Forbidden Notebook / Alba de Céspedes
trans. from the Italian by Ann Goldstein
Barcelona: Astra House, 2023, c1952.
210 p.

This novel is a forgotten classic: this new translation has brought it back to the attention of many readers, and I was one of them. I'd heard this being mentioned everywhere, and since it's written as a diary I was especially intrigued - I love epistolary formats. 

But the most shocking thing about this book is how relevant it still is. Valeria Cossati is a housewife in Rome; their household is just hanging on financially, so she's gone out to work. But she's also still responsible for all household duties and chores, including still taking care of her adult children who live at home. Her daughter is chafing to be independent - she's studying law, having an affair, and planning to move out, all choices that contradict expectations. Her son is a man-child, helpless and spoiled, with a younger and docile girlfriend he plans on marrying eventually. And her husband is no longer interested in her sexually or as her own person; he calls her Mama, and is clearly having his own affairs. 

One day Valeria is overcome with the compulsion to buy a small notebook and begins writing her dissatisfactions into it. She uncovers all sorts of feelings she'd been denying for a very long time, and writing them down feels like a transgression. She is always worried about a new hiding spot for her notebook in case anyone should read it. And after all the worry and the writing and the confessions, she has a choice to make - keep writing or resign herself to life.

 

This is a powerful read, full of a quiet fight against patriarchal expectations and limitations. But also a statement about how hard it is for one person to fight alone against all her conditioning and the social mores that fence her in. Her daughter, tougher and younger, might be able to manage it in the years ahead but Valeria has already given in, in some indefinable way. It's the details in this book that really strike me, the descriptions of their home and all its rooms that seem to be claimed by others with nothing left for her, of her more successful friends' lives, of her children and their habits and appearance and behaviours. There's her concern for social niceties and all the shadings of class and propriety that shape her days. And her encounter with an innocuous black notebook that becomes vital to her being. 

I loved this book. The writing style, the characters, the vibe - all so good. So much said in it, and so much to think about. Definitely a great decision to reissue this one now. A must read for lovers of literary fiction about women's lives.

 

Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop

 

Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop / Alba Donati
trans. from the Italian by Elena Pala
New York : Scribner, 2023, ©2022.
194 p.

This charming memoir will appeal to booklovers who might also dream of opening a tiny bookshop in the middle of nowhere -- and having it actually become a success! 

Alba Donati worked in the publishing business in Milan, but decided to move back to the tiny Tuscan village of Lucignana (pop. 180) where she was born. She builds a tiny bookshop on a hill, stocking it only with the books she loves. And plenty of lovely additions, like local jams, calendars and literary stockings, too.

The bookshop becomes a success, drawing people from many nearby regions. This book is structured in diary entries, relating everyday events from small to dramatic, like a fire in the shop. Each entry ends with a list of the daily orders, a great way to find out what her customers are reading (and build your own TBR as well!) 

But even though there is a lot of charm just in the descriptions of the bookshop and its gardens, and of course in Donati's talk of all the books and bookish customers involved, there is also deep reflection on Lucignana itself, and all her family ties in the village. There is history, biography, and self-reflection mixed in to this escapist dream, showing that it's not easy, but returning to her home village and creating positive change was worth it. 

We finish up with her after a year of hard work and exponential success, with Donati still making plans for more bookish delights -- new titles, writer events, and growth. If you're a booklover and want to live vicariously through Donati's journey to create this destination bookshop in the hills of Italy, you won't want to miss this one. 

Grazia Deledda's Cosima

 

Cosima / Grazia Deledda
trans. from the Italian by Martha King
NY: Italica, 2008, c1936.
156 p.

I've had this classic on my shelf for a while; now was the time to read it. Deledda was the first Italian woman to win the Nobel, in 1926, and only the second woman overall. Her writing focused on the Sardinian people of her own childhood; this book, a vaguely autobiographical novel, was published posthumously in 1936. 

This novel ranges over the life of Cosima, member of a large-ish family, from a young age until her adulthood when she becomes a writer. She has older brothers and many sisters, and their stories are told here as well. Cosima notes all the elements of her home, her mother's character, her beloved father's death, and all the problems her brothers and sisters face. 

She outlines experiences like spending time in the hills around the town, visiting neighbours with pretensions to nobility, hearing the gossip of servants and more. We can feel the weight of social expectations on young girls, how they are constrained by their culture -- when Cosima begins writing, and then sending that writing to magazines, it is thought to be forward, a possible stain against her finding a good husband (which is of course the goal). 

But Cosima perseveres and continues writing, continues to record everything that is happening around her; the land, the light, the personalities of family and servants alike. The book ends abruptly, to me - it feels like it stops, not concludes. That could be because it was published posthumously, though. 

Overall, this has a rich historical feel to it. It evokes the senses, creating clear images of Cosima's surroundings and her upbringing. There are moments that make a reader angry, and some that are more touching. I'd like to read her most popular book now, Reeds in the Wind, and see how they compare. 

The Seamstress of Sardinia

 

The Seamstress of Sardinia / Bianca Pitzorno
trans. from the Italian by Brigid Maher
NY: HarperPerennial, 2022, c2018.
304 p.

This saga is set in Italy, starting in 1900. It's based on some of the stories that the author's grandmother told her, as well as stories of seamstresses from the past. The author has taken these inspirations and created a very engaging and readable novel, which has extra appeal for those who sew now. 

It's 1900 in Sardinia, and a young girl lives with her only surviving relative, her grandmother. Her grandmother is a seamstress, and to help scrape out a living, the girl learns to sew from a very young age.

This young sartina (seamstress of sheets, linens and basic clothing) relates her life story from her youth to her advanced age. And as she does so, she sheds light on the society she lives in. As a seamstress who goes to people's homes to do their sewing, she is privy to many family secrets. The book is told in episodes that interrelate and create a picture of her town and its many layers of social class and privilege. 

There is a rich and complex cast of characters, all seen through the eyes of this poor girl who has ambitions and respect for herself. There's the Marchesa Esther, an intelligent girl whose upbringing is unusual, and who doesn't put up with the misogyny of her husband and their society; there are the Provera sisters, a family who is rumoured to be so wealthy that they order all their clothing directly from Paris (but when she is called to work for them, our seamstress discovers the secrets of the household, and the wardrobe). There is an American lady who pays well to have her linens managed, and her tragic story is revealed in one whole section of the book. And there is the neighbour child Assuntina, who somehow becomes the responsibility of our narrator. 

Plus there is romance and pathos and tragedy and class strife -- so much drama & excitement, told in a flowing style. The story involves so many details of daily life, from food to social events to transportation to landscape to expectations of women of different classes -- it's illuminating and fascinating. 

The author is clearly a sewist as well, the descriptions of actual sewing are fabulous. The main character is not just a sartina in order to provide inside eyes for the author, rather the sewing is a key part of the many stories she tells. From descriptions of fabrics, to her first sewing machine, it is all very realistic and engaging for anybody who can imagine it right alongside the characters. I love it when my hobbies show up in books like this!

I really enjoyed this book -- for the strong sewing content of course, but also for the story. The characters were so engaging, the stories were dramatic and focused on the female experience. And the setting was completely absorbing. I couldn't stop reading. There was a bit of melodrama near the end that I wasn't completely happy with, but overall this was a great read.

One of my favourite kinds of historical reads are ones that travel alongside a woman over her whole life, and this is a great example. So good! 

Italy in September

I did say that I hadn't quite finished talking about books by women in translation in August; today I have some all in one reviews for a quartet of Italian books that, as it turned out, I didn't fall in love with. It's strange but I didn't notice that most of these feature daughters, mothers and dead fathers, until I put them together like this. 

Farewell, Ghosts / Nadia Terranova; translated by Ann Goldstein (2018)

This one was my favourite of this quartet, but even so I found it quite slow. Ida is in her 30s but she's just returned to her childhood home in Messina, as her mother wants to get it ready to sell. Being back brings up all sorts of thoughts and emotions about her childhood trauma, when her father walked out of the house and disappeared. The book draws out these feelings and the relationship between Ida and her mother, and I appreciated parts of it but felt like it needed a stronger resolution. And maybe a bit more movement in the narrative.

Whereabouts / Jhumpa Lahiri; translated by Jhumpa Lahiri (2018)

I don't know if I was just distracted while reading this one but I couldn't get into it at all. I was confused by who was speaking when I started it and never really clicked with it. It's about a professor in an Italian city who is dealing with a feeling of unbelonging even as she moves around her city and interacts with colleagues and thinks of her mother who is isolated after her father's untimely death. 

The Lost Daughter / Elena Ferrante; translated by Ann Goldstein (2006)

I read this quickly so that I could watch the Netflix adaptation. But I didn't like the book and ended up fast forwarding through much of the movie, too. Lena is a mother whose daughters have moved to Toronto; she's taking a vacation to the coast by herself. She means to relax but gets caught up with the family dramas of a nearby Neapolitan family on vacation. I can see what Ferrante is getting at but I just wasn't interested and didn't like Lena or the direction of the story at all. 

70% Acrylic, 30% Wool / Viola di Grado; translated by Michael Reynolds (2011)

This was the biggest disappointment of the bunch. I would rate it barely 2 stars. In this one, Camelia is a young Italian woman living in Leeds with her mother, in a very dysfunctional state after her father has died in a car accident along with the woman he was having an affair with. She finds strange clothes in a dumpster, which lead her to Wen, a young man in a clothing shop from whom she begins to learn Chinese ideograms. The story is convoluted, twisted, depressing and the ending is ridiculous. There's no payoff and I was frustrated by the narrative. I had been looking forward to this one so it was particularly disappointing!

Anyhow, I'm hoping for some better Italian reads in the upcoming year!

The Florios of Sicily

 

The Florios of Sicily / Stefania Auci
trans. from the Italian by Katharine Gregor
NY: Harper Via, 2020, c2019
304 p.

This Italian family saga was a bestseller in Italy, and it's definitely a dramatic and entertaining read. It follows the Florios as they move to Sicily, run a spice and import business, grow their business despite many obstacles, face family tragedies and political issues -- basically climb their way up across a couple of generations from peasants to wealthy business owners with societal caché.

I enjoyed the structure of the book, which helped the reader along; each section is named after a product that expands the Florio business, and begins with a note of the specific dates this portion is set in, and a brief intro outlining the social and political state of Sicily at that moment. There was a lot of movement between French and Neapolitan rulers, independence and constitutions and the like at this time, so these historical notes (which read dramatically) were useful. 

The heart of the book is the Florios themselves, though; the original brothers Paolo and Ignazio, Paolo's wife Guiseppina and their child Vincenzo. The family grows in wealth and influence as the years go by, but also find that they can't overcome their beginnings as "labourers" in the eyes of longtime Palermo businessmen. Also, Vincenzo in particular becomes obsessed with joining the nobility but never quite succeeds in marrying up. He'll have to leave that to his own son Ignazio. 

The story is told in a straightforward manner, no stylistic flourishes. It's a historical novel and so focuses on building up the characters and the setting -- and 19th C. Palermo comes to vibrant life in this book. I didn't realize when I started this that the Florios were a real family that Auci is trying to illuminate in this novel, which was probably a good thing as I usually don't like novels with real people as characters. But because I knew absolutely nothing about them or this setting, it didn't bother me here. I felt that she was respectful to all the characters, even the ones that are not the nicest people. 

I also enjoyed seeing the Florio empire grow; from spices to silks, sulfur to ships, lace, bark and more there is info on each commodity and why it was important to Sicily, all told in a natural way as part of the story. It was a bit soap opera-ish in its ups and downs, but not in a bad way -- it was an entertaining read. There were some really compelling characters who she made into true individuals (my favourite was Vincenzo's wife Guilia). The writing wasn't the feature of the book, but it was also well done in that it didn't interrupt the story, you didn't even really notice it - there were no clunky bits. The translator's note about working with a book that was using a lot of 19th C. Italian dialect was fascinating too; Italian hasn't changed as much as English has in the last couple of hundred years, so she had some decisions to make about how to translate it. I appreciated that the publisher put that note in; it made me look back at the book a little differently. 

Overall, this was a different read from many I've picked up this month, and I really enjoyed this visit to the merchant cities of Sicily.  

The City and the House

The City & The House / Natalia Ginzburg
trans. from the Italian by Dick Davis
NY: Arcade, 2019, c1984.
312 p.

I read Natalia Ginzburg's Family Lexicon last year, and was quite taken with it. So when I saw this book I snapped it up without even realizing that it is an epistolary novel, one of my favourite forms.

There are a group of friends writing to one another here; Guiseppe is moving to America to live with his brother, it's not like he really wants to go but he doesn't want to stay either. So the book begins with goodbyes. 

And throughout the letters there are continual goodbyes -- to homes, relationships, friendships, understandings -- there is loss and disaffection permeating these blunt and honest letters. The circle of friends is centred around Lucrezia and Piero, who own Le Margherite, a rambling country house outside Rome where they go to spend weekends in the freewheeling atmosphere of a house overrun with Lucrezia's badly behaved children, and to talk and eat and interact. Even the furniture becomes vital to them. 

Guiseppe's leaving is the first crack in this circle, which then begins to crumble. Le Margherite is sold, and the friends are set adrift, losing their connections, shifting allegiances and leaving the circle altogether. They write to one another furiously, terrible sad things happen, and there is no reconciliation or return to the past. 

This is simultaneously enthralling and very sad. The style, all those letters, works beautifully to tell this story. But because it is only letters there are also those loose ends that are never fully described or explored -- you don't do that in a letter. Thus it felt like there was space around and behind what we are reading; what is going on in the time that the character isn't writing? And how do the characters truly feel about some of the dreadful things that overtake them?

This evokes a certain time in Rome, and you get a sense of these characters going about their lives from the intimacy of their voices in their letters. The sadness, the attempts to save face or put the best spin on things, the honesty when despairing, the manner in which new ways of living absorb the characters and create new distance between them. 

I was absorbed in this one, waiting to hear from one character or another, hoping to hear that things were making a turn for the better. It's a gem, with strong characterizations and pithy writing, and an atmosphere all of its own. 

Family Lexicon

A Family Lexicon / Natalia Ginzburg;

trans. from the Italian by Jenny McPhee

NY: NYRB, 2015, c1963.

224 p.

This is a story of Ginzburg's large family, told in a fragmentary jumble of memories of growing up in this atheist, intellectual household. Written when the author was living in London in the 1960s and homesick, it pulls her family into sharp relief as she illumines their path from the 20s -- 50s, a period that happens to include the rise of Mussolini and WWII. This had a huge impact on her family and her circle, as they were Jewish and avowed anti-fascists. Her brother and father went to jail, and her husband was murdered by Nazis, something she mentions only in an aside. 

The style is sharp and non-sentimental. Whether talking about her children, her husband's death, or the death of a dear friend, or about happy times in her family, her style is not emotional. It's rational, calm, clear. She is an observer, it isn't about her emotional life at all.  

The book is arranged around those family stories that every family has, the catch phrases and private jokes that come from long-ago experiences, misheard things, eccentricities of family members and so on. Stories that are told over and over, expressions that have a particular meaning only to family members, all of these reflect the personalities of the individuals in her family but also the larger family unit as a whole. 

I found it fascinating. Her style appeals to me, and the wry reflection of in-jokes on wider life is interesting. Her family seems to know everyone in Italy who is intellectual or involved in the literary or scientific worlds, and the constant stream of visitors to their house gives her a lot of material. 

That said, there are elements to her vague, rather ditzy mother and her over-the-top Italian father that put me off a bit. I have issues with the racist terminology used continually by her loud, yelling, bully of a father, and resented his selfishness of behalf of the rest of the family. I didn't see him as the colourful hero she presents him as. Times change, I suppose. 

However, as a glimpse into the life of an Italian family in a time of crisis, and the responses they made to Fascism, not just in discussion or philosophically, but in real action, this was compelling. It shows how Fascism creeps into everyday life and must be routed in each instance, not allowed to twine around regular life and routine. And the level of homesickness Ginzburg was feeling for her large family comes through strongly as she evokes them all while maintaining a personal privacy. It was a very interesting text, with evasions and redirection when it got too close to her, but with a skillful way of making her family and her surroundings leap to life. 

The Jewish Husband

The Jewish Husband / Lia Levi;

trans. from the Italian by Antony Shugaar

NY: Europa, 2009, c2001.

209 p.

This was a really interesting read; I didn't know anything about it going in, which perhaps added to the experience. 

It's an epistolary novel, a series of letters from an older man living in Tel Aviv, to someone...we only find out who about halfway through. Dino Carpi, now David Katz, is slowly telling his life story, methodically and step by step. He's explaining how he's ended up where he is to someone who might not be inclined to listen. 

As a young man in Mussolini's Italy, Dino (son of hoteliers) falls in love with a beautiful rich girl, Sonia Gentile (really her name). Their love is strong and determined, even in the face of her family's disapproval. They finally manage to get married, in a Pauline marriage, one which allows for a Catholic to marry a non-Catholic, and they have one son. 

But fascism is growing, and Sonia's family are great supporters of Mussolini. As race laws are passed and Jews forbidden from owning property, running businesses, working in education, and more, and more, Dino loses his professorial job, his parents must quickly give the hotel over to a trusted employee, and life becomes more and more precarious. 

Then the Gentile family comes up with the perfect solution to keep Sonia and little Michele safe and privileged -- too bad it requires the erasure of Dino's existence. 

The creeping growth of indignities and oppression in Fascist Italy is not something I've read much about. This novel gives a picture of daily life in 'normal' times when prejudice against Jews is just an everyday occurrence; then traces the barely noticeable steps as prejudice grows and becomes more normalized, then becomes outright legal oppression. I think this is a valuable lesson right now; pay attention, because something that might be seen as a tiny one-off can lead to much more. 

It's a quiet, steady novel, perhaps due to its format as a series of letters. It feels formal, with the emotional impact of some of the events muted as they are told baldly, factually rather than in the heat of the moment. But in some ways I found this more striking. It has all happened, there is no recourse, there are only explanations to be given and forgiveness and understanding to be asked for. 

There are no outsize characters in this one, no outrageous eccentrics or villains or even heroes. Just real people struggling along with their regular life in very troubled times.

I was impressed, and pleased once again with Europa's choice to translate this and publish it in such a well-designed form. I really liked it.

In Other Words

In Other Words / Jhumpa Lahiri; translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein.
New York: Vintage, c2016.
233 p.

This is a collection of small essays written by Lahiri, in Italian. They are about her fascination with the Italian language, and her attempts to live and write in Italian; her idea that language is meaningful to thought and expression in a very visceral way.

The book is small and beautifully made, with Italian on the left and English on the right. Although she could have translated it herself, she chose to use translator Ann Goldstein (who has also translated Ferrante) instead -- in the opening lines she says that translating it herself would have been difficult, she'd have wanted to rewrite instead of translate, smooth out the language and elaborate in her more native language. And this theme carries through the essays.

She talks about the longing to understand, the difficulties of grasping a new language in all its intricate and deep shadings. She became so obsessed with Italian that she and her family moved to Rome in 2012, where she spent three years living completely in Italian. And began writing these pieces, in Italian, about her sense of belonging - or not - when living neither in English nor Bengali, her first languages. 

She says, "I have to start again from the beginning, as if I had never written anything in my life. But, to be precise, I am not at the starting point: rather, I’m in another dimension, where I have no references, no armor. Where I’ve never felt so stupid.”

And these essays are not as gloriously literary as her work in English; they are more hesitant, with references to the actual putting together of words and sentences. But they are remarkably fascinating, a self-reflective study of language's role in identity, creativity, perception of the world as a whole. 

This is a slow paced and thoughtful examination of her own obsession with Italian, and what it means to her way of life. Some pieces are a little more interesting than others, to my personal taste, but the book has a theme that is expounded on in different ways, which each essay supports. 

As a book to read during a month which celebrates women in translation, it is perfect. The ideas of language itself and how you are situated within a language and a culture are powerful to ponder no matter which language you are reading in, or living in. This is a quiet book, a stone thrown into a quiet mind, which causes ripples that grow and grow upon reflection.

This was a find. I really enjoyed it, and was challenged by it. 

Two Italian Women Writers

Women In Translation Month is almost over, and I have hardly shared any reviews! I've been reading quite a lot but have been so busy I haven't had time to sit down and share my thoughts on my reading. I'll try to catch up a little before August ends, though I know I'll be finishing off a couple more great reads this week so will be reviewing those later.

Anyhow, to start, I'd like to share two Italian novels that I encountered on my public library shelves. I liked one more than the other, see if you can guess which ;)



Accabadora / Michela Murgia; translated from the Italian by Silvester Mazzarella
Berkeley: CounterPoint, c2012. (Italian c2009)
175 p.

I picked up this brief book at work and read it during lunch hours. That proved a little difficult as I didn't want to put it down! 

The premise is that Maria Listru, the fourth and rather unwanted youngest daughter of a poor villager in Sardinia is adopted as a "soul-child" by local widow & seamstress Bonaria Urrai. 

Maria learns the trade (with lots of wonderful talk about fitting suits and stitching up outfits) but she also learns, eventually, about Tzia Bonaria's other, more secret trade: she is an accabadora - essentially, a midwife for the dying, the "last mother" for many souls wishing to die.

The book delves into Maria's innocent judgement of this profession, takes Maria away to the continent where she works as a nanny for a rich Italian family, and returns her home again wiser and more mature when she gets word that Bonaria Urrai is dying. 

It's not overwritten - the language is compact but highly evocative of rural Sardinia in the 1950s. The female characters are wonderfully drawn, and the small, enclosed society of their village is clearly outlined, with all their beliefs and superstitions -- and gossip. 

This was an award-winner in its original Italian, and I can see why. It reads very quickly and smoothly, but tells a deeply significant story. I enjoyed the characters and the setting, finding that these were the strengths of this novel.

There is also a small glossary included, so that some of the local foods and professions are called by their local names, which I found added some verisimilitude.



Been Here a Thousand Years / Mariolina Venezia; translated from the Italian by Marina Harss
New York: FSG, 2010, c2009.
263 p.

This is another book I plucked from the library shelves on impulse. The description, a family saga over five generations of Italian history, seemed intriguing, as well as the inclusion of some embroidery both on the cover and in the blurb.

Unfortunately, it didn't quite live up to my hopes. Told in retrospect by Gioia, the last of the line (so far), this book starts out strongly, with powerful imagery of Don Falcone starting off the family with money, angst and an outpouring of golden oil flowing down the streets. The sense of magical realism is strong; they seem like fabled ancestors. But the book is full of unfulfilled and unhappy people, and so many of them that the family tree that is included needs to be referred to quite often. The book is told in a series of vignettes so the tone changes quite a bit between the opening and the final chapters which are more contemporary, and Gioia's own story in her own words. Unfortunately I didn't find the family, or Gioia's storytelling, all that compelling. 

In the blurb, the phrase "with their hands they create delicate and complex embroideries, while their minds embroider endless, elaborate stories" caught my attention. But there isn't much needlework in the book except for one aunt who crochets a lot, spectacularly, but as a kind of compensation. So that element was a little oversold, at least for this embroidering reader. 

It was an interesting idea for a book, and parts of it, as I've mentioned, were memorable and quite wonderful. The writing was very elaborate and poetic, and translated very readably, as well. This was a good book, but just not the most fabulous read for me -- it was ambitious, but because of that it was also too disjointed for my tastes.