**spoiler alert** I stress that this review is being written within hours of my finishing the book. It will not be comprehensive, and I will focus mai**spoiler alert** I stress that this review is being written within hours of my finishing the book. It will not be comprehensive, and I will focus mainly on my impressions. I urge students of literature to read a professional critic for a concrete assessment of this book. I will say I will do more than address whether or not I liked this book, but if you’re seeking to learn about THE NOVEL OF FERRARA before reading THE NOVEL OF FERRARA, read Goodreads’ thumbnail review. I am not here to teach you. [Indentation. Some comments on my Goodreads reviews point out my lack of paragraphs makes my reviews confusing. I write these reviews on whatever device is handy. Once I post, I often discover my indentations vanish. For clarity, then, I will put the word “Indentation” in brackets at the start of each paragraph.] The edition I read was an English translation by Jamie McKendrick. It was published in the United States in 2018, the publisher being W. W. Norton & Company. Jamie McKendrick wrote the introduction and provided footnotes. André Aciman, author of CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, which is rather in the manner of Bassani himself, wrote the forward. Indentation.] THE NOVEL OF FERRARA, while a collection of Bassani’s novels and stories, was considerably revised by its author in 1980, six years after its first publication. Essentially, then, this is the ultimate form he chose for the presentation of his fiction. Most of the novels and stories within THE NOVEL OF FERRARA appeared in the quarter-century following World War Two. All of it deals with life in Mussolini’s Italy and the decade or so just after Mussolini was hanged. Italy was Germany’s ally during World War Two, and the backdrop to the novels and stories in this book is Fascist Italy’s participation in the Holocaust. Many of the characters are Jewish and even when THE NOVEL OF FERRARA reads like a coming-of-age story, there are sudden reminders throughout that many of the characters will be sent to concentration camps. They will die there. [Indentation.] One reason I read this book is that I wanted to see how Italy’s descent into Fascism matched up to what I perceive is happening in the United States right now. Circumstances dictate how far we go, of course. But the rhetoric of today’s far right sounds very much like the rhetoric used by the Fascist characters in THE NOVEL OF FERRARA. Giorgio Bassani lived through it. He remembered it. [Indentation.] This book is highly visual. The town of Ferrara is colorful. Heavy things occur in gorgeous surroundings. This adds to the irony of this deeply sad saga. [Indentation.] The novels and stories in this book are rich in observation of everyday life. I think it would be possible for a reader to read this and not notice the implications of certain events. Bassani is extremely subtle. But for all the dinners, study sessions, bicycle rides and daily routines described, at the center of it is the complacency of friends and neighbors as people they’ve known all their lives are disenfranchised by Italy’s Racial Laws. (The Racial Laws were instituted in 1938, almost twenty years into Mussolini’s rule. The slow build-up to this horror should give 21st-century readers cause to reflect.) [Indentation.] I think Bassani writes a lot like Thomas Mann. He is excellent at showing the inner lives of young scholars. He never underscores his points, but he shows what isolation is like. A novel-length excursion into the mind of a broken man of forty or so, THE HERON, is something of a departure here; it is not focused on an over-achiever. But as with Thomas Mann, Bassani shows what it is to be lonely....more
Loading...
