Voices in the Evening (1961) by Natalia Ginzburg

Reading Natalia Ginzburg’s Voices in the Evening reminded me a lot of her memoir, Family Lexicon. Colm Tóbín says in the introduction to Voices that “If the memoir [Family Lexicon] is made in technicolour, then Voices in the Evening is a sepia photograph or fragments of a film whose main narrative has been lost. Its very shape seems to reflect memory in all its flickering uncertainty and its moments of pure clarity” (Voices in the Evening p.xii).

Like in Family Lexicon, the story centres around a family, its internal conflicts and political reality. Set in the Italian countryside, our narrator Elsa, 27, unmarried and a nuisance to her mother hears the stories and the gossip going around in the village. She then falls in love with Tomassino, the son of the di Francisci family, the owners of the town’s factory, and the two begin a secret relationship. As so often in Natalia Ginzburg’s work, the everyday life of the characters is affected by the rise of Fascism and WWII. There is a clear before and after the war for the characters, even if the details of the war itself are barely discussed. What is left is fragments of what was and what is now, a disjointedness in which no character is truly content and all are scarred by the stories that emerge from what happened during the war.

In a structure that moves from large to small, general to particular, Ginzburg lays out the family history and presents its characters, from the father of the family to the youngest sibling, as well as the people around them. Like in Family Lexicon (and Ginzberg’s own upbringing) the family consists of five siblings and a strong-willed father. Fragments of their lives are presented in what Tóbín calls a way “to create an atmosphere of distance and estrangement” (xiii-xiv) and no character really gets a happy ending. But instead of talking to each other they turn inwards and Tommassino, the youngest brother and the narrator Elsa’s secret lover, describes their present situation as follows: “We remain almost always silent, because we have begun to drive our thoughts underground, right at the bottom, right at the bottom inside ourselves” (140). Voices in the Evening can therefore be seen as a fleeting account of things once said, things that once mattered, for characters who now find themselves in wildy different realities after the tragedies that happened under the fascist regime.

Reviewer Alex Clark accurately captures the essence of the novel in his review for The Guardian: “And over all hangs an atmosphere of nostalgia, not in its comforting or corny sense, but as a form of homesickness for the past, and for the vanishing possibilities of the self [. . .]” as Ginzburg “brings those buried stories to the surface”. What remains is a short but incredibly detailed novel about what remains after unspeakable tragedy has struck.

A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) by Tennessee Williams

I finished the weekend by finishing what I’ve been reading this past week: Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. I picked it up in the charity shop when the Almedia production with Paul Mescal was announced in the hope of rereading it before seeing it but due to the high demand I never managed to get tickets. Either way, it is a really good play and a fun read.

I’ve read it before, I’ve seen several productions of it but this was definitely my best experience with it so far. It’s such a well-crafted play, very atmospheric in its scene directions and with an incredible use of light and colour. There are different hues of blue, strong primary colours and the softer pastels that Blanche hides behind, further emphasised by her name meaning ‘white’, as there is so much colour around her that she is never quite part of.

The story itself is tragically moving. Blanche’s slow downfall and the realisation of what has happened to her is expertly revealed bit by bit. She is deluded but also highly relatable and you cannot help but pity her.

Stanley’s horrible character is oozing off the page from the very beginning. Can you not picture this man in front of you? Is he not revolting? He actually reminded me of one of the customers I had in the coffee shop where I used to work and who, in my head, I always thought “Oh. here’s Stanley Kowalski again”.

I have held a position as a reader at a theatre for the last few years and as part of that I have read so many unsolicited play submissions of varying quality that it was such a relief to read a play that is really good, where everything has been carefully considered (including the stage craft). As such, I would really recommend it not only as a stage production but also to read.

Not One of These People (2022) by Martin Crimp

I’ve been to the theatre again and this time I went to the Royal Court to see Martin Crimp’s latest play, Not One of These People, written and performed by Crimp himself.

During 90 minutes Crimp asks the question of what is appropriation and what is empathy in writing fictional characters. Who is he ‘allowed’ to give voice to? On the one side there’s the argument that it is fiction and imagination and therefore anything is allowed. On the other side those who believe that not every perspective can or should be explored by every writer.

During the 90 minutes (no interval), Crimp asks what appropriation and empathy is when writing fictional characters. Who is he ‘allowed’ (morally, ethically, contextually) to give a voice to? On the one side there is the argument that fiction is fiction and therefore anything goes. One the other side, there are those who believe that certain topics and perspectives are to be reserved for writers with a personal connection to that topic/perspective, an argument suggesting that an autofictional/self-lived base is necessary in order for an issue to be discussed. Can men write women without being sexist? Can white writers write about experiences within the global majority or should they stick to what they know?

Crimp tackles this dilemma by writing a play with 299 characters, none of which are himself. Visually represented by AI created images of human faces these characters are read by Crimp, initially offstage. Gradually the static faces become animations, a roll of the eyes, a little smile, until they are fully animated speaking faces. And at some point Crimp enters the stage with his manuscript and keeps reading the various stories.

Crimp’s presence onstage alters the whole performance and what could have been an art installation becomes a piece of theatre that questions the creation of character as well as the structure of drama. Crimp enters the stage still reading his characters as he stands in the spotlight before his creations. His reading, shown parallel to the animation of the faces, confuses who is actually speaking. Him or his character? If you look at Crimp, the character is left behind and if you look at the animation you can’t see Crimp; you cannot focus on both of them simultaneously.

As the characters are given their own lives onstage, Crimp disappears and the area behind the screen on which they are projected is lit up showing the writer’s office. Crimp sits down to write, removing any walls between the creation of the characters and their lives in performance.

In the final moments, Crimp is alone on a dark stage. The spotlight on him, no animations, just him reading the last character and the line between writer and character is completely eliminated.

This play is one of the most interesting things I’ve ever seen in the theatre in a long time. As an exploration of an idea of ‘voice’ it constantly pushes what is ‘believable’ and what is allowed for him to say, sometimes verging on the provocative, sometimes feeling increasingly like the writer’s own voice, but also filled with humour throughout and thought-provoking. I bought the playtext and reread sections on the tube. It’s a play that I think will stay with me for a long time.

Olga (2018) by Bernhard Schlink

Such a gorgeous day today! Did some reading on a bench, had a coffee in the sun, made scones and so on. That’s however not what this post was supposed to be about so let’s get on with what it is actually about, my latest read: Olga by Bernhard Schlink.

In hindsight, I think that one of the main reasons for why I picked this up is the cover’s similarity to the film poster for Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amelie but I think that’s where the similarities end, although both Olga and Amelie contain long-lost letters that are rediscovered. In Amelie, it’s the fabricated love letters from Madame Wallace’s unfaithful husband and in Olga it is the letters sent between Olga and her lover Herbert as he sets off for a polar expedition to Nordaustlandet, from which he never returns. Lost husbands, abandoned wives.

Olga is a piece of historical fiction, set at the turn of the 20th Century and tells the story of Olga, an orphan raised by her grandmother in a Prussian village. She is clever and studious and makes friends with Herbert, the the neighbouring aristocrat son. They develop a strong bond that is challenged by his status and the world around them. He is allowed to follow his passions and explore the world while Olga is at home, travelling the world through her books and awaiting Herbert’s return with unwavering loyalty. Well-written and, at times, engaging, Olga didn’t wow me so I won’t do a full review but instead I’ve compiled a little list of things I liked/didn’t like about it.

Thinks I liked👍:
• the first few chapters that outline the story of Olga growing up and how she first met Herbert were quite sweet and I also liked the contrast that is created between them
• the use of Herbert’s recklessness and willingness to conquer at any cost as a symbol for how the widespread rise in German Nationalism at the turn of the 19th Century led to atrocities such as the genocide of the Herero as well as the two world wars
• Olga’s dislike of things that she considers “too grand” as a critique of empire but that can also be applied to current events

Things I didn’t like 👎:
• the “she’s not like other girls”-characterisation of Olga which then muddles out into what attempts to paint her as a stoic but which makes her feel passive and stupidly loyal
• how the reader is never given the turn of events in Olga’s life from her direct perspective (even if one does get to read her letters, they reveal few personal insights and mainly focus on her love for Herbert)
• how the whole novel felt a lot like exposition through mentioning major historical and personal events in passing but never going into them in any greater detail/emotion

That’s it from me today!

Scattered all Over the Earth (2018) by Yoko Tawada

Yoko Tawada is an exophonic writer, meaning that she writes in a language that is not her ‘mother tongue’. Many famous writers were exophonic, such as Vladimir Nabokov, Milan Kundera, Jack Kerouac and Joseph Conrad, to name a few. Exophony as a phenomenon is related to migration in general and the mixture of languages has its obvious explanations with the movement of people but there can also be heavier, political reasons for a switch in language as a result of experiences of exile or colonial attitudes. For example, Nabokov initially wrote fiction in Russian but began writing in English after he came to the US as a he opposed the Soviet government and was exiled as a result. Kundera originally wrote in Czech but, again, due to political involvement and critique of Soviet rule, his books were banned and he fled to Paris to be able to continue his authorship. In Paris, he started writing mainly in French and was later stripped of his Czech citizenship. Kerouac was French-Canadian and did not learn English until he was six. He always felt like an outsider, being Francophone in the US, but still wrote his most famous work, On the Road (1959) in English.

Despite its sometimes heavy underlying reasons, exophonic writing is often very creative in its linguistic attitudes, one theory being that it allows authors to view language from the outside and approach it a from a different perspective. Both Kerouac and Nabokov are very sound-based in their writing and Conrad is suggested to have brought a “non-English sensibility into English literature”.

This creative attitude towards language is a central aspect of Yoko Tawada’s writing. Born and raised in Japan as a native Japanese speaker, she learnt German as an adult and now writes fiction in both languages. Scattered all Over the Earth, for example, is originally written in Japanese while her 2016 novel Memoirs of a Polar Bear was first written in German. Her fluid attitude towards language is explored throughout her work, for example in the short story collection Where Europe Begins (1991), which deals partly with her arrival to not only a new continent but also to a new language, and Portrait of a Tongue (2013), which centres on how the language of a German woman living in the US has been affected by English. Similarly, Scattered all Over the Earth, is a novel about language.

Narrated by a handful of individuals, it tells the story of Hiruko, a Japanese exchange student in Scandinavia who cannot return to Japan as the country has inexplicably disappeared, probably due to climate change. With the loss of homeland comes the loss of language; no one around her can speak Japanese. It is as if Japan has never existed as Hiruko is the only one who seems to have any relationship or recollection of it. This is emphasised by Tawada in that neither the word “Japan” or “Japanese” is mentioned throughout the novel. Together with the Danish linguistics student, Knut, and aided by her own invented language (‘Panska’, pan-Scandinavian, a mixture of Scandinavian languages that can be understood by most Danish/Swedish/Norwegian speakers), she sets of throughout Europe to find someone else who can also speak Japanese. On their way they meet a plethora of different people, with different linguistic identities and native languages. while the idea of Japanese language and culture lies hidden within stereotypes and ironic misconceptions.

I particularly enjoyed the countless reflections on language and its function scattered all over the novel, but I also really appreciated how the novel is filled with humour. Often ironic in its descriptions and reasoning, it is a stimulating read for anyone interested in how the languages you speak shape identity. As an ‘exophone’ myself, I could relate to the hybridity of the languages and identities explored as well as to its concluding message that a mother tongue might not be so important after all but that what happens in the merging of different languages and cultures is much more meaningful.

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) by Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of those books that has been on my radar and tbr for YEARS but for some reason I’ve never picked it up. As soon as I did, though, I immediately asked myself: Why have I not read this earlier? It has all the elements that I look for in a classic: a moral dilemma, philosophical ideas, a gothic atmosphere, psychological turmoil, discussions on aesthetics, a healthy dose of decadence, and so on.

I loved it! The constant battle between aestheticism and morality and the complementary discussions on ethics and aesthetics. Well-crafted and so well-written there were so many elements to enjoy: the gradual manipulation of Dorian by Lord Henry Wotton that leads to decadence and decay, the dichotomies between was is hidden and what is seen, what is moral and what is sin, what is art and what is life and how they correlate and contradict. The countless provocations and ideas throw into the dialogue by more hedonistic characters and the attempts at reason by Basil Hayward.

I also enjoyed its London setting. It is always fun to read about places you know well in books, and the historical aspects adds another level. Dorian Gray inhabits a London that we can still see traces of today. As a true ‘flaneur’, he moves through “this grey, monstrous London of ours, with its myriads of people, its sordid sinners, and its splendid sins.” He visits Covent Garden, mentions Euston Road, rides in a carriage through Hyde Park and crosses the social border to the East End.

His house is situated in Grosvenor Square, where Wilde himself lived 1882-3, and which central location just below Oxford Street means that all of Central London lies accessible at Dorian Gray’s feet.

I went to Grosvenor Square just after having finished the novel and could not help but wonder in which of these houses (and attics) Dorian Gray (and his picture) lived? Did he cross the leafy green on his way out into the shadowy night?

Related Posts:

Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker

Intertextuality and Bertha Mason

All the Books Mentioned in Elif Batuman’s The Idiot

Family Lexicon (1963) by Natalia Ginzburg

In Family Lexicon, a mixture between autobiography and fiction, Natalia Ginzburg reminisces about her Italian family from a distance – both temporal and geographical. She’s in London in the 1960s thinking back to the 1920s-40s in Turin, where she grew up. Through repeated phrases and anecdotes she creates a rich portrait of a family and their acquaintances, the relationships between them and the inevitable drama that follows every family. Their sayings and in-jokes create a lexicon over a vocabulary specific to her family which will always remind her of them. While driven apart by political and personal events, what they share is their lexicon, the phrases and stories that hold the family together. As Ginzburg says: “But for us it takes just one word. It takes one word, one sentence, one of the old ones from our childhood, heard and repeated countless times [. . .] and we immediately fall back into our old relationships”(29), showing the emotive potential of language. Through their vocabulary, the reader, too, becomes part of the family. found myself being able to pre-empt what might be said in certain situations, laughing at the same in-jokes as our narrator.

It is, however, also a story of a family living through the rule of Mussolini, WWII and the rise of (and resistance to) fascism where family ties are tested by exile, imprisonment and loss. The hardship adds an extra level of importance to the lexicon. For Ginzburg it has become “the basis of our family unity and will persist ad long as we are in the world, re-created and revived in disparate places on the earth” (29) showing that through story telling and a shared vocabulary the family unit lives on no matter what external matters might try to displace or shatter it.