Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Ginzburg (Family Lexicon) takes a close look at the effects of fascism on an Italian family in this engrossing novel first published in 1961 and reissued with an introduction by Colm Tóibín, who sheds light on Ginzburg's interest in her characters' "competing versions of reality." The wealthy De Franciscis reside at a rural estate during the years before and immediately after WWII. Patriarch Balotta, a socialist factory owner, is by turns boisterous and withdrawn, while his wife, Cecilia, maintains a close watch of the community's gossip. The story is told by Elsa, a young woman who has an ill-fated love affair with the De Francisci's youngest son, Tommasino. Ginzburg (1916--1991) dedicates several chapters to each of the De Francisi children: Gemmina, the oldest, becomes stern and mercurial after her unrequited love interest is killed by a fascist gang; the elder sons, Vincenzino and Mario, spend time as prisoners of war, which costs Mario his life and leads Vincenzino to fall into a loveless marriage; and Raffaella, the youngest daughter, joins the partisans before marrying her ex-fascist cousin. Ginzburg's efficient, lyrical prose and ear for dialogue make for an expansive and beautifully rendered study of individuals and community in wartime. With this latest resurrected masterpiece, the late author's work continues to prove irresistible and relevant. (May)
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Review by Library Journal Review
As if carried on a warm and gentle breeze, Ginzburg's voices come to us from their Italian hill town in the strange hush that followed World War II. They belong to narrator Elsa; Elsa's mother, who worries about her health and her children--particularly Elsa, who is 27 and still unmarried; old Balota, a Socialist who owned the cloth factory; and Balota's wife and five children, including Tommasino, with whom Elsa has had a too-long and unsatisfying affair. In her Author's Note, Ginzburg declares: ``The places and characters in this story are imaginary. The first are not found on any map, the others are not alive, nor have ever lived, in any part of the world. I am sorry to say this, having loved them as though they were real.'' With obvious affection and meticulous care, with her usual stylistic elegance and literary economy, the author has indeed made them real for us, as well. Highly recommended.-- Marcia G. Fuchs, Guilford Free Lib., Ct. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
In the shadow of World War II, a young couple explores their feelings for one another. In this short but very affecting novel, originally published in English in 1963, characters speak of trivialities. "What a fine head of hair he has, at that age!" Elsa's mother tells her as, walking home, they pass a neighbor. "Did you notice how ugly the dog has become?" Neither Elsa's mother nor anyone else in their small Italian village knows that Elsa has fallen in love with Tommasino, the youngest child of Balotta, the old factory owner. The book takes a looser structure than Ginzburg's others. Elsa and Tommasino bookend the story with their affair, but the middle is taken up by an account of Tommasino's siblings and their spouses: Purillo, the adopted cousin who takes over their father's factory; long-faced Gemmina; dreamy Vincenzino; and Mario, who marries Xenia, a Russian who speaks French but no Italian and so cannot converse with anyone in the village. What all these lives have to do with one another doesn't become clear until the end. What is clear is that there is a darker current running beneath all the trivialities. During the war, Purillo sympathized with the fascists, an affectation for which the others mocked him. Nebbia, a friend, was killed behind the house. "I have the feeling," Tommasino tells Elsa near the end, "that they have already lived enough, those others before me; that they have already consumed all the reserves, all the vitality that there was for us….Nothing was left over for me." Rarely does Ginzburg directly address politics--fascism, in particular--but its shadow hangs over the book just like it hangs over the characters. The result is profound and profoundly moving. As deceptively diffuse as it is meticulously observed, Ginzburg's novel is a gem. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
