Ginzburg Happiness, as Such

1. Auflage 2019
ISBN: 978-1-911547-45-7
Verlag: Daunt Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 224 Seiten

'If Ferrante is a friend, Ginzburg is a mentor.' -- Lara Feigel, Guardian 'Ginzburg's beautiful words have such solidity and simplicity. I read her with joy and amazement.' -- Tessa Hadley 'Dear Michele, she wrote, I'm writing primarily to tell you that your father is sick. Go and visit him. He says he hasn't seen you for days.' Michele is the beloved only son of a large dysfunctional family in 1970s Rome. Headstrong and independent, he has disappeared to England to escape the dangers of his radical political ties. Back in Italy, his father lies dying. Michele's departure sets forth a series of events that will bring together everyone in his life: his mother Adriana, living in the countryside with her twin daughters Bebetta and Nannetta; his long-suffering sister Angelica; his loyal and sad friend Osvaldo; and Mara, a young woman who is prone to showing up on doorsteps with a baby that may or may not be Michele's. The story of the Prodigal Son turned on its head, Happiness, as Such is an immensely wise and absurdly funny novel-in-letters about complicated families and missed connections. 'Candour and lies, love and exasperation, farce and inconsolable grief are seamlessly compounded in this very funny and deeply melancholy book.' -- Deborah Eisenberg, New York Review of Books 'One of the great Italian writers of the twentieth century . . . [her] books snare so much of what is odd and lovely and fleeting in the world.' -- Parul Sehgal, New York Times 'Ginzburg gives us a new template for the female voice and an idea of what it might sound like.' -- Rachel Cusk 'Her prose style is deceptively simple and very complex. Its effect on the reader is both calming and thrilling - that's not so easy to do.' -- Deborah Levy Translated by Minna Zallman Proctor

Natalia Ginzburg (1916-1991) was born in Palermo, Sicily. She wrote dozens of books including the essay collection The Little Virtues, and the novels All Our Yesterdays, Voices in the Evening and the Strega Prize-winning Family Lexicon. She was involved in political activism throughout her life and served in the Italian parliament from 1983 to 1987.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ginzburg, Natalia

Weitere Mitwirkende

Zallman Proctor, Minna

Leseproben

1

A woman awoke in her new house. Her name was Adriana. It was snowing outside, and her birthday, she was forty-three years old. The house was in the country. The village was visible from the house, on a hilltop, two kilometres away. Fifteen kilometres to the city. Adriana had moved in ten days earlier. She pulled on a light, tobacco-brown robe. Slid her long narrow feet into a pair of slippers that were also tobacco-brown and trimmed with dirty white fur. She headed to the kitchen and made a cup of instant coffee to dunk biscuits in. There were apple peels on the table and she swept them into a newspaper to keep for the rabbits they didn’t have yet but would soon because the milkman had promised to bring them. Then she went into the living room and pulled open the shutters. She saw herself in the mirror hanging over the sofa. She was tall, she wore her wavy copper hair cropped short, she had a small head and a long strong neck, her green eyes were wide-set and sad. She sat down at the desk to write a letter to her only son.

Dear Michele, she wrote, I’m writing primarily to tell you that your father is sick. Go and visit him. He says he hasn’t seen you for days. I was there yesterday. It was the first Thursday of the month, and I was waiting for him at Café Canova’s when I got a call from his butler telling me he was ill. So I went on up. He was in bed. Seemed quite worn out. There were bags under his eyes and his skin looked awful. He has painful indigestion and isn’t eating anything. Naturally, he’s still smoking.

When you go to see him, don’t take your usual twenty-five pairs of dirty socks. The butler, I can’t remember if his name is Enrico or Federico, isn’t up to the extra burden of managing your dirty laundry right now. He’s exhausted and overwhelmed. He doesn’t sleep at night because your father keeps calling for him. And it’s the first time he’s ever been a butler. He was a mechanic before. Plus, he’s an idiot.

If you have a lot of dirty laundry, you can bring it here. I have a woman helping me, Cloti. She started five days ago. She’s not very nice. She’s always scowling and things with her are already shaky, so if you were to show up with a suitcase full of laundry to wash and iron, that would be just fine. I should remind you however that there are good launderettes near your studio and you’re old enough to take care of yourself. You’ll be twenty-two soon. Speaking of which, it’s my birthday. The twins gave me new slippers. But I’m fond of my old slippers. I also wanted to tell you that it would be a great improvement if you washed your socks and handkerchiefs at night instead of balling them up and leaving them to fester for weeks under your bed, but I’ve always told you that and the message has never got across.

I waited there for the doctor. He’s Dr Povo. Maybe Covo. I didn’t quite catch his name. He lives in the building. I was unable to understand exactly what he thinks your father has. He says there’s an ulcer, which we already know about. He says your father should go to a clinic but your father won’t hear of it. I wonder if you think I should move into your father’s house to help him. I think the same thing periodically but I won’t do it. Sick people frighten me. I’m scared of other people’s diseases, though I’m not scared of my own. But I’ve never really been seriously ill. I went to Holland when my father had diverticulitis. I knew perfectly well it wasn’t diverticulitis. It was cancer. So I wasn’t there when he died, which I regret. But after a certain point in life a person has to dunk her regrets in the morning coffee, just like biscuits.

Moreover if I were to show up there with all my bags tomorrow, I don’t know what your father would think. He’s grown shy around me in the last few years. And I’m getting shy around him. There’s nothing worse than shyness between two people who’ve hated each other. There’s nothing to say. They can be grateful that they’re not scratching and clawing at each other but that kind of gratitude hardly leads to dialogue. After we split up, your father and I started our dull but civilised routine of meeting each other for tea at Canova’s the first Thursday of every month. I never cared for it and neither did he. His cousin Lillino, the lawyer, had suggested it. He always listens to his cousin Lillino, the lawyer from Mantua. According to Lillino the two of us needed to maintain a good relationship and meet regularly to discuss common concerns. The hours spent at Canova’s have been torture for the both of us. Your father, who is methodical in his disorganisation, had determined that we should remain sitting together at that table from five to seven thirty. Every so often he’d sigh loudly and look at his watch. That was humiliating, the way he stretched back in his chair and scratched at his mop of black hair. He reminds me of a tired old panther. We talked about you children. But he didn’t care about your sisters. You are his light. From the moment you came into the world he got it stuck in his head that you are the only person in the world worthy of his kindness and praise. We talked about you, even though he’s well aware I don’t understand you at all and that he is the only one who really knows you. And so that was the end of that conversation. The two of us are so worried about disagreeing that we avoid any conceivably volatile topic. You’ve always known about our afternoon meetings, but I don’t think you knew that it was his damned cousin who advised us to have them. I realise that I’m talking about it as if we were still going to be meeting. In reality I think your father is very sick and we won’t ever meet again at Canova’s on the first Thursday of the month.

If you weren’t such a fool I’d tell you to move out of the studio and go back to Via San Sebastianello. You could be the one being kept awake all night instead of that butler. Realistically you don’t actually do anything. Viola is running her household. Angelica works and has the baby. The twins are in school and are still young. Not to mention the fact that your father can’t stand the twins. He can’t stand Viola or Angelica either. He can’t stand his own sisters either. Cecilia is old anyway and he and Matilde hate each other. Matilde is staying here now and will be here all winter. You’re the only person whom your father loves and can stand being around. But you aren’t going to change, and I understand it’s better if you stay put, in the studio. If you went to your father’s house you’d just add to the confusion and drive the butler to despair.

Another thing I wanted to tell you. I got a letter from a person who says that her name is Mara Castorelli and that we met last year at a party at your studio. I remember the party but there were so many people that I can’t remember anyone in particular. The letter went to my old address on Via dei Villini. This woman is asking me to help her find work. She wrote to me from a boarding house that she needs to leave because it’s too expensive. She says she has a baby that she would like to bring here so that I can meet him, this beautiful baby. I haven’t answered her yet. I used to like babies but I have no desire at all to marvel over this baby. I’m too tired. I’d like you to tell me who this girl is and what kind of work she might be looking for because she doesn’t explain it well in the letter. At first I didn’t think much about the letter but then I started to wonder if the baby is yours. Because otherwise I don’t understand why this woman would have written. Her handwriting is crazy. I asked your father if he knew about this Martorelli woman friend of yours and he said he didn’t and then he started talking about the pastorella cheese that he likes to take with him when he goes out sailing. It’s impossible to have a reasonable conversation with your father any more. Gradually I’ve got it stuck in my mind that this baby is yours. Last night after dinner I went to pull out the car – the car is always such a drag to pull out – so that I could drive up to the village to call you but you’re never home. While I was coming back I started to cry. In part I was thinking about your father who is so sick and in part I was thinking about you. If this Martorelli baby is yours, what will you do, you don’t know how to do anything. You didn’t finish school did you. I don’t think your paintings of owls and falling-down buildings are that good. Your father says they are and that I don’t understand painting. They look to me like the paintings your father did when he was young, but not as good. I don’t know. Please tell me what I should say to this Martorelli and if I need to send her money. She hasn’t asked but I’m sure that’s what she wants.

I still don’t have a telephone. I don’t know how many times I’ve gone in to request that a line be installed but no one ever comes. Will you do me the favour of going to the telephone company too. It’s not much to ask because it’s near you. Perhaps your friend Osvaldo, who got you the studio, knows someone? The twins think that Osvaldo has a relation who works for the phone company. Can you find out if that’s true. It was nice of him to give you the studio rent-free, but it’s too dark in there to paint. Maybe that’s why you keep painting owls, because you have to keep the light on all the time and it always seems like night-time. That basement must be damp. Thank goodness I bought you a wood stove.

I doubt you’ll come over for my birthday because I don’t think...