Source of book: I own this
Any regular reader of this blog knows that I read a whole bunch of random stuff - I love a variety, and I love exploring literature as I discover it.
I bought this book for a few reasons. First, I love short stories. Second, I love reading books in translation. Third, I enjoyed reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, so when this book came out, I thought it might be worth a read.
Unfortunately, this sort of book is one that our library system rarely purchases. Perhaps because readers like me aren’t that common outside of major cities, or would just purchase the book for themselves anyway. Which is perhaps true. I went ahead and bought it for my own collection.
Who is Jhumpa Lahiri? Well, that is…complicated. She was born in London to Indian immigrants, but moved to Rhode Island at age three when her father took a job as a university librarian. She went to Barnard, then Boston University, picking up several degrees in literature and medieval studies.
She worked in academia for a few years, before finally breaking through into the literary world with Interpreter of Maladies. She wrote more stories, a couple novels, and then….
Bonus points if you had “learned Italian and moved to Italy” on your bingo card. Yep, in 2012, she did that, and for a while, wrote only in Italian. She also did some translation work, and as a result, fell in love with modern Italian literature.
The result of that was this collection of short stories. She edited the collection, and translated several of the stories that did not have good English translations already.
So, Indian, British, American, and Italian perhaps? As Gregg Easterbrook used to say in his old “Tuesday Morning Quarterback” column, “This really must be the twenty-first century!”
The introduction to the book is well worth reading, because it gives a lot of background that we English speakers may not have.
For example, Lahiri makes the case that the short story form as we know it originated in Italy. While many of us have at least read from the Decameron, that famous collection of 100 stories set in the time of the Black Death, the form actually goes back further, to the 13th Century, and the “Novellino” and “racconto” forms. I won’t recap all of it, but Lahiri recounts this history through to the present.
In addition to this history, Lahiri talks about her own history, and how she decided which stories to include.
Some of the criteria are arbitrary - as they would have to be in order to cull a collection to a manageable size. She decided to include exactly 40 stories. She limited it to authors who wrote in the 20th century. And she limited it to authors who were deceased, not living.
The final decision, which is unusual, but intriguing, was to arrange the stories by the author’s last name…in reverse order. As someone who tends to be near the back of the alphabet, I approve of this idea.
As might be expected, this still leaves room for a wide variety of stories, and that is indeed the case. They range from traditional to experimental, are written by both men and women, and feature authors across the political spectrum.
The Fascist era haunts this book, as the overwhelming majority of the authors lived under Mussolini. Some joined the party, while others joined the resistance. A few spent time in concentration camps - particularly the Jewish ones, but also some resistance figures.
The shortest stories are vignettes that are a page or less. The longest can run thirty pages. The variety and the scope are such that I cannot possibly discuss every story in this post. I will choose to highlight a few, but this does not imply that the others are lesser. I can’t really think of a weak story in this book - which is presumably what Lahiri intended.
“The Siren” by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa is one that I found particularly intriguing. It is a new spin on the Siren/Mermaid myth, in a Magical Realism sort of mood. There are a couple of lines that I thought were particularly delicious.
The first is in what is kind of the framing story: the narrator gets caught two-timing a couple of girls, one of whom steals a favorite article of clothing.
In twelve hours, I had lost two usefully complementary girls plus a sweater to which I was rather attached; I also had to pick up the bill for that infernal Tonino. I’d been made a fool of, humiliated in my very Sicilian self-regard; and I decided to abandon for a time the world and its pomps.
He decides to go to a certain cafe daily to hang out, and this is where he meets the man who tells him of the Siren. The description of the place is great.
It was a sort of Hades filled with the wan shades of lieutenant colonels, magistrates and retired professors. These vain apparitions played draughts or dominoes, submerged in a light that was dimmed during the day by the clouds and the arcade outside, during the evenings by the enormous green shades on the chandeliers. They never raised their voices, afraid that any immoderate sound might upset the fragile fabric of their presence. It was, in short, a most satisfactory Limbo.
Another story that was striking was “The Lady” by Lalla Romano. It is a picture of a woman at a resort hotel, waiting for her husband to arrive some days later. To fill the time, she tries (and fails) to seduce a handsome young man.
Particularly striking about it is the way Romano writes the Female Gaze. I mean, we are used to the Male Gaze in literature - which can range from benignly voyeuristic to outright creepy. In this story, it is deeply uncomfortable to read about a woman undressing men with her eyes and objectifying them, intending to use one for her pleasure. Sauce for the goose indeed.
Earlier this year, a local theater put on one of Luigi Pirandello’s experimental plays, Six Characters in Search of an Author. He is one of the authors who joined the Fascist party, in order to get financial support for his theater efforts, which then went on to produce his subversive plays - like authoritarians generally, Mussolini lacked the nuance to realize he was being skewered. He also managed to write no fewer than fifteen volumes of short stories.
Pirandello’s story, “The Trap,” is included in this book. It is weird, atmospheric, experimental, and different from anything else in this book. It takes the form of a rather unhinged and existential monologue by an unnamed narrator. We know that he is caring for a father who is suffering from late-stage dementia - a kind of death-in-life situation. And also that he was seduced (or at least kissed) by a married woman who felt as trapped in her marriage as he felt in his situation, and that he is bitter against her for it. There are so many great lines in this one, as terrifying and menacing as it is. Here is an example.
Above all, you value and never tire of praising the constancy of feelings and the coherence of personality. Why? Always for the same reason! Because you are cowards. Because you’re afraid of yourselves. That is, you’re afraid that if you change, you’ll lose the reality you have given yourselves and you’ll recognize, therefore, that it was nothing more than an illusion of yours and, consequently, that no reality exists other than the one we give ourselves.
Another atmospheric and contemplative story that I liked was “Melancholy” by Goffredo Parise. This is one of the more obscure stories that Lahiri herself translated, and I am impressed by the translation, which is a work of art itself.
The story is from a collection of 54 that are grouped by the letter of the alphabet and are each about a single emotion. So kind of like an alphabet primer for adults? In any case, “Melancholy” is about a young girl who is melancholy, and I can’t really describe it better than to say that the story itself embodies that emotional feeling - one that I am very familiar with, leaning that direction often.
As a note here: melancholy is not depression. It is really difficult to explain. If you have felt it, you know. If not, then you wouldn’t understand. If you do, this story will rock your world.
“The Ambitious Ones” by Elsa Morante is another story that resonated for me. It is about family relationships, particularly that of a mother and her eldest daughter, who she never understands. The goal would be to marry the girl off, as she is beautiful. But her longing is toward music instead, and she joins a convent, to the horror of her mother.
Angela had sworn that, as far as she was concerned, her daughter had ceased to exist. She did mention her to me, on just one occasion. She placed a hand on her heart, and with dark eyes and portentous tone of someone about to pronounce and anathema, she said: “My whole heart was devoted to that daughter of mine, and now, where my heart used to be, there is nothing but stone.” Then she flung a glance of haughty commiseration in the direction of her other two daughters, who were both short and stout, with lank hair and thick, coarse hands.
Yeesh, what a fun mother for all concerned.
And it isn’t the only story with a mother involved. Another is by Carlo Emilio Gadda, who has been compared to Henry James for his dense prose. “The Mother” is about a mother mourning the loss of her son.
For much of the story, it is hinted that he is dead, but as we come to find out, he got married and moved away, and rarely visits. At least that is what I think is the case. The prose is indeed a bit dense. And maybe her other son is dead? I re-read it a bit, and I am no more certain than the first time.
In any case, the mother’s emotions seem out of proportion. For example, this bit:
That menace hurt her deeply. It was the clash, it was the scorn of powers or of beings unknown, and yet bent on persecution: the evil that rises again, again and for ever, after the clear mornings of hope. What always upset her the most was the unexpected malevolence of those who had no reason to hate her, or to insult her: of those to whom her trust, so pure, was so unreservedly given, as to equals and to kindred beings in a superior society of souls.
The trigger to this seems to be an innocent request by a neighbor to accompany him to the cemetery.
One story that seemed particularly relevant to today’s moment is “A Martian in Rome,” by Ennio Flaiano. It is a pretty obvious allegory of how immigrants are received - in different ways over time. They are fetishized, admired, hated, slandered, and taken advantage of in turn. The poor Martian has no idea what to make of it all.
A couple of authors involved with the resistance to fascism had interesting biographies. Beppe Fenoglio, who served in the resistance army, got started early. When required in school to write an essay celebrating Mussolini, he turned in a blank page. His story, “The Smell of Death” is haunting and deeply sad.
The other author is Luce D’Eramo. She was raised in a fascist family, but, against her family’s wishes, she volunteered to work in a German labor camp - and find out the truth. Horrified, she joined the resistance. When she was arrested, she refused to let her family use their connections. She was sent to Dachau (which I have visited), escaped, but was badly injured while helping rescue victims of Allied bombing in Mainz. She was left partially paralyzed. That’s pretty badass in a tragic sort of way.
Her story in this collection is “Life as a Couple,” a look at a failing relationship through the eyes of the woman.
Next up is “Elegy for Signora Nodier,” by Silvio D’Arzo. It is a story of an older woman who unexpectedly marries a general, long after the time when she was considered marriageable. (Her age isn’t given, but it is definitely north of 40.) They are happy for a while, but then he is killed in action. Most of the story tells of her life afterward, and her obsession with her late husband’s scottie dog. One line stood out to me.
[T]he general’s death was slowly transmuted into a bearable unhappiness - into, I can only guess, a sort of eternal evening. She might not have withstood a further shock; certainly she wouldn’t have survived the extinction of her unhappiness. It was an unhappiness she had constructed day by day, as others build, day by day, their own illusions. In its own way, that unhappiness was an illusion too: as to the past and as to the future. Yet it was absolutely necessary to her; it was, in fact, her self.
Speaking of illusions, one of the craziest stories is by Dino Buzzati, “And Yet They Are Knocking at Your Door.” A wealthy family refuses to evacuate their home even as it succumbs to a catastrophic flood. They appear to believe that nature itself will respect their wealth and privilege.
He tried to laugh, amazed at the woman’s obstinacy. So you don’t want to believe it, Signora Gron? he thought bitterly. (Even in his thoughts he addressed her just as in real life, using the polite form.) Unpleasant things don’t concern you, do they? You think it’s uncouth to talk about them. Your precious world has always withdrawn from them, hasn’t it? Well, let’s see where your ivory tower viewpoint gets you in the end.
Another story which is about entitlement is one with a great wordplay in the name. The original title is “Il Peripatetico,” which readers of Calvin and Hobbes can probably guess at the meaning of. In translation, it is “The Streetwalker.” In both languages, the term can both refer to someone who ambulates…and a prostitute. The author is notable for, among other things, founding a traveling library with the intent of addressing Italy’s low literacy rates.
The story starts off slowly, with a defense of contraception. Which leads into his descriptions of how the various methods available pre-pill failed him and his wife. With their marriage increasingly loveless - she is worn out by the kids and has no interest in sex - he seeks release by regularly seeing prostitutes.
The problem is that the government has outlawed the practice, which means that finding reliable and regular access is difficult. (And harmful to sex workers too.) There is a line in the story which is quite interesting.
It comes in a discussion of the pros and cons of criminalization of sex work, and the problem of exploitation. He makes a comparison of sex workers and soldiers - they both do the dirty work of society, so to speak. He rhetorically suggests that maybe all single women over 21 should be drafted into sex work, like men are into the army.
They’ll say that not all women older than twenty-one, indiscriminately, feel like being prostitutes. And I will answer that not all men of that age feel like being soldiers, either, and yet they certainly do it, since the social need, in fact the national and patriotic need, for military service is acknowledged.
They’ll also say that the prostitute’s trade (giving oneself, for compensation, to the first comer) isn’t noble. And I’d respond that the soldier’s trade (killing, without compensation, the first comer) doesn’t seem noble, either.
As I noted, this is rhetorical, not an actual proposal for policy. But the story is interesting in its exploration of the moral territory surrounding sex work, which is not at all what those of us raised in religious homes learned. Actually making life better for sex workers would involve letting go of our moralizing, which is why there is so much resistance to positive policy changes such as decriminalization and allowing sex workers to use online platforms that would allow them to protect themselves better.
But the story itself is also interesting because the narrator is so unreliable, somewhat unlikeable, and definitely a flaming hypocrite. It’s good writing.
Next up is one by Anna Banti, “Miss.” It is probably autobiographical in some sense - at least in the emotional landscape. A once ambitious young woman marries, only to find herself withering away of boredom and lack of purpose, with few outlets available. She eventually, at the end, appears to be ready to follow her dream of writing.
The loss of self and purpose is truly palpable in this story, and reminds me a bit of one of my wife’s favorite books, The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher, which has a similar heroine…until her husband is seriously injured and she has to take over breadwinning duties and thrives.
My wife too would have felt entirely stultified as a full-time housewife, which is why we made the decision to split the breadwinning and household and childcare duties more evenly. (Something my mother never forgave her for.)
Another thing in this story that resembles my wife is the moment early in the woman’s life, when was told by a beau that “You intimidate me,” thus ending the relationship. My wife does have a reputation of being intimidating - perhaps competence and confidence in a woman is interpreted that way in our society. One of the reasons she liked me was that I was never intimidated by her. I appreciated her style.
On a totally unrelated note, I did want to mention Giovanni Arpino, who compared the pressure that writers are placed under to “fatten stories into novels” to “watering down a fine wine.” I have to agree with this. And paradoxically, to complain that in other cases, authors are pressured to keep books within a certain size, when their books could benefit from being a bit longer and more fleshed out.
I’ll end with a bit from “Barefoot” by Corrado Alvaro. I loathe telephones, and their insistence of immediate attention. Voicemail is a godsend, but email and texts are so much better. The way this is described in the story is superb.
I hear the phone ringing even more intently, almost desperately. I go down a few more steps, and now other calls from neighboring apartments layer on top of that one, all of them blending into a single plea, almost as if they’re asking to be freed from the device.
Certain people, a man or a woman, declare that they urgently need to talk to me, they say they’ll call back; but no one ever does, or almost never. So what’s the hurry?
And that’s what I find too. People always seem to be in a hurry, until it is time for them to take some action, like get together the documents I have requested. Maybe it is an introvert versus extrovert thing, but I prefer to keep my distance until we need to meet, and then do it under controlled circumstances, rather than be at anyone’s beck an call. (Talking about clients here, not friends or close family. You know what I mean…)
There is so much more in this book. I recommend reading a story or two at a time, taking time to savor it, as I did.
No comments:
Post a Comment