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A review by teresatumminello
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani
4.0
Edited 6/7/19: see last section
4.5 stars
The inner flap of this edition mentions Marcel Proust, but even without that I'm sure I would've thought of him, not only with the above passage, but with the unnamed narrator's love for the tennis-playing Micòl, at an age when love equals jealousy, a love without the understanding that the insecurities and accusations that arise from the lesser emotion will not endear you to the beloved.
Though she's seen through the narrator's rear-view mirror, Micòl is no Proustian Albertine. For only one thing, Micòl's family, not the narrator's, is the one with money; but more importantly, unlike Albertine, Micòl is not a concept but a character who speaks her mind, acts and reacts (though perhaps the two differences are not unrelated). It is Ferrara, though, with its city walls and ducal gardens, that is the main character, a city as insular as Micòl's family.
We know from the beginning that this Jewish family living in Fascist Italy in the late 1930s is doomed. They continue to live as they always do, ignoring a certain future, even making plans to enlarge a tennis court that their non-Jewish friends are forbidden to play on. Political thought is represented in the character of their Communist friend, the forward-thinking Malnate, but even he cannot escape.
The familiarity of the novel's tone nagged at me, though I can't put my finger on why it felt that way (and I'm not thinking of Proust now). Most likely, that feeling came from other backwards-looking novels of love and loss I've read that have become an amorphous mass in my so-called memory bank, but that doesn't mean this one isn't a special one.
Because of events listed in the author's biography on the book jacket, I assumed this novel was semi-autobiographical; but it was only today, after paging to the front of the book before writing this review, that I noticed the dedication: To Micòl.
*
I read the first translated-into-English edition and encountered a couple of disconcerting, glaringly obvious, misplaced modifiers: I trust those were corrected in later editions.
*
Reread:
In [b:Within the Walls|25242046|Within the Walls|Giorgio Bassani|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1457073913s/25242046.jpg|5212042] and [b:The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles|16000664|The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles|Giorgio Bassani|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347259353s/16000664.jpg|1521507], the works that come before this novel in this edition https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38730620-the-novel-of-ferrara, Bassani's narrator seems to be commenting on community members staying purposely unaware, not open, to what is about to happen. With my second read of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, I find Bassani's narrator also not facing up to reality, choosing to be in a state of dreaming, of the past, in lieu of facing the present.
Rereading this review, I saw that I marked the same passage (different translations) during my two reads: see the top of the page to compare that to this:
I reread the novel in this edition: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38730620-the-novel-of-ferrara .
4.5 stars
... for me, no less than for her, the memory of things was much more important than the possession of them, and in comparison with that memory all possession, in itself, seemed just disappointing, delusive, flat, insufficient....The way I longed for the present to become the past at once, so that I could love it and gaze fondly at it any time...It was our vice, this: looking backward as we went ahead.(translated by [a:William Weaver|6921|William Weaver|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1414127047p2/6921.jpg])
The inner flap of this edition mentions Marcel Proust, but even without that I'm sure I would've thought of him, not only with the above passage, but with the unnamed narrator's love for the tennis-playing Micòl, at an age when love equals jealousy, a love without the understanding that the insecurities and accusations that arise from the lesser emotion will not endear you to the beloved.
Though she's seen through the narrator's rear-view mirror, Micòl is no Proustian Albertine. For only one thing, Micòl's family, not the narrator's, is the one with money; but more importantly, unlike Albertine, Micòl is not a concept but a character who speaks her mind, acts and reacts (though perhaps the two differences are not unrelated). It is Ferrara, though, with its city walls and ducal gardens, that is the main character, a city as insular as Micòl's family.
We know from the beginning that this Jewish family living in Fascist Italy in the late 1930s is doomed. They continue to live as they always do, ignoring a certain future, even making plans to enlarge a tennis court that their non-Jewish friends are forbidden to play on. Political thought is represented in the character of their Communist friend, the forward-thinking Malnate, but even he cannot escape.
The familiarity of the novel's tone nagged at me, though I can't put my finger on why it felt that way (and I'm not thinking of Proust now). Most likely, that feeling came from other backwards-looking novels of love and loss I've read that have become an amorphous mass in my so-called memory bank, but that doesn't mean this one isn't a special one.
Because of events listed in the author's biography on the book jacket, I assumed this novel was semi-autobiographical; but it was only today, after paging to the front of the book before writing this review, that I noticed the dedication: To Micòl.
*
I read the first translated-into-English edition and encountered a couple of disconcerting, glaringly obvious, misplaced modifiers: I trust those were corrected in later editions.
*
Reread:
In [b:Within the Walls|25242046|Within the Walls|Giorgio Bassani|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1457073913s/25242046.jpg|5212042] and [b:The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles|16000664|The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles|Giorgio Bassani|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347259353s/16000664.jpg|1521507], the works that come before this novel in this edition https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38730620-the-novel-of-ferrara, Bassani's narrator seems to be commenting on community members staying purposely unaware, not open, to what is about to happen. With my second read of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, I find Bassani's narrator also not facing up to reality, choosing to be in a state of dreaming, of the past, in lieu of facing the present.
Rereading this review, I saw that I marked the same passage (different translations) during my two reads: see the top of the page to compare that to this:
...She could sense it very clearly: for me, no less than for her, the past counted far more than the present, remembering something far more than possessing it. Compared to memory, every possession can only ever seem disappointing, banal, inadequate...She understood me so well! My anxiety that the present "immediately" turned into the past so that I could love it and dream about it at leisure was just like hers, was identical. It was "our" vice, this: to go forward with our heads forever turned back.(translated by [a:Jamie McKendrick|15056998|Jamie McKendrick|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png])
I reread the novel in this edition: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38730620-the-novel-of-ferrara .