Bassani is the chronicle writer of life in the northern Italian city of Ferrara, and in particular the Jewish inhabitants of that city. In this case it concerns the period immediately prior to the Second World War, just after the promulgating of the racial laws of 1938, as a result of which the Jews in Italy came into isolation. This is the background for this book.

The story itself is about an unnamed narrator, adolescent, who is intrigued by the secluded life of the aristocratic family Finzi-Contini, and especially by their villa and adjacent garden. Up until this point the novel is pretty interesting, but then the narrator falls in love with the very self-conscious daughter of the house, Micol, but she turns him away. Only at the end does he reconcile himself with his fate, and finishes his adolescence period. The whole story bathes in a kind of dusky atmosphere, which reminded me a lot of 'Le Grand Meaulnes' by Alain-Tournier and also a bit of the Flemish writer Maurice Gilliams' 'Elias and the Nightingale'. But the story did not completely captivate me, especially the love story was rather boring.

What is worthwhile is the subtle way in which Bassini describes how the Jews in Ferrara, and certainly the Finzi-Contini, consciously close their eyes to the threatening reality around them; already on page 137 Micol expresses it nicely (even though it refers to trees and buildings): "something that has had its time has to die, but with style". Stylish melancholy as a way of life, that is what the Finzi-Contini cultivate. It's beautiful how Bassaini indicates how attractive that way of looking at things is for our young narrator, but at the same time how he also understands, that he must distance himself from it and start his real life.