 | A WRITER'S WIT |  O. Henry |
MY BOOK WORLD
Cialente, Fausta. A Very Cold Winter. Translated by Julia Nelsen with an introduction by Claudia Durastanti. Berkeley: Transit, 2022 (1966).
I often don’t enjoy reading translations. Unless the translator is particularly gifted and sensitive, the novel can seem to lack a certain life or articulation. I claim this as a weakness on my part, but it plagues me nonetheless as I conclude this novel.
In 1946, after World War II, the country of Italy is in shambles, and Milan is no exception. Rather than the stylish metropolis I visited in the 2010s, it is at this time a pile of rubble. People are scraping to get by. A woman named Camilla is such a person. She and her family illegally occupy the attic of what is called a squat. The number of characters is so large, sixteen, including an infant, that I must keep referring to the Cast of Characters page until I learn them, but that may be a problem of my age, not the fault of the writer. Yet one does have to ask: What is the purpose of developing so many characters? Perhaps it is to demonstrate what it is like for a large number of people to occupy such a small place. They do tend to get on one another’s nerves, and there really is no place for them to go. Sometimes, one or two gather on a “terrace” to talk or smoke. But the titular season does not allow for one to linger. Cialente must refer to the cold scores of times throughout the book, each instance, as if it is something new. Yet each reminder has a cumulative effect on the reader. One shivers though it may be one hundred degrees outside, and only 76 degrees inside my Texas home—a temp certainly warmer than this attic dwelling where heating is primitive and limited to certain times of the day.
So what are these characters about? Camilla has been abandoned by her husband for at least a decade. The only males in her life are her son, Guido, a boy interested in film, and an acquaintance named Enzo occupying an adjoining room. Otherwise, the crowded attic is largely female. Lalla, one of Camilla’s daughters wants to be a writer. Alba, the other daughter, quite a beauty, isn’t sure what she wants except to be rich, out of her mother’s house, out from her mother’s control, and, and one point she gets her wish. She will come to a bad end. Her disappearance may be the one tension that propels the novel forward, for the household is not the same without her. And when her death is announced, the characters seem to take a collective gasp and sigh at the same time.
Spring does arrive, but not until perhaps the last pages, when there are still traces of snow on the ground. I’m struck by three sentences from near the end:
“She would go downstairs, across the meadow, the courtyard, and the garden, and walk upon the soft snow that would melt under her feet” (271).
“Like it or not she was part of a ceaseless flow—a ceaselessness that is eternal” (272).
“‘Come, let’s have a look,’ Martina said, setting out along the garden path. Camilla followed, walking slowly upon the last snow” (272).
Even until the last word, “snow,” the novel seems cold, but the characters see themselves as part of a larger picture, a “ceaseless flow,” and, at last, the snow becomes soft. It will be gone soon. And for their sakes, perhaps the scourge of war will be, if not gone, at least lessened, as they rebuild their lives.
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My Book World | Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea
I often don’t enjoy reading translations. Unless the translator is particularly gifted and sensitive, the novel can seem to lack a certain life or articulation. I claim this as a weakness on my part, but it plagues me nonetheless as I conclude this novel.
In 1946, after World War II, the country of Italy is in shambles, and Milan is no exception. Rather than the stylish metropolis I visited in the 2010s, it is at this time a pile of rubble. People are scraping to get by. A woman named Camilla is such a person. She and her family illegally occupy the attic of what is called a squat. The number of characters is so large, sixteen, including an infant, that I must keep referring to the Cast of Characters page until I learn them, but that may be a problem of my age, not the fault of the writer. Yet one does have to ask: What is the purpose of developing so many characters? Perhaps it is to demonstrate what it is like for a large number of people to occupy such a small place. They do tend to get on one another’s nerves, and there really is no place for them to go. Sometimes, one or two gather on a “terrace” to talk or smoke. But the titular season does not allow for one to linger. Cialente must refer to the cold scores of times throughout the book, each instance, as if it is something new. Yet each reminder has a cumulative effect on the reader. One shivers though it may be one hundred degrees outside, and only 76 degrees inside my Texas home—a temp certainly warmer than this attic dwelling where heating is primitive and limited to certain times of the day.
So what are these characters about? Camilla has been abandoned by her husband for at least a decade. The only males in her life are her son, Guido, a boy interested in film, and an acquaintance named Enzo occupying an adjoining room. Otherwise, the crowded attic is largely female. Lalla, one of Camilla’s daughters wants to be a writer. Alba, the other daughter, quite a beauty, isn’t sure what she wants except to be rich, out of her mother’s house, out from her mother’s control, and, and one point she gets her wish. She will come to a bad end. Her disappearance may be the one tension that propels the novel forward, for the household is not the same without her. And when her death is announced, the characters seem to take a collective gasp and sigh at the same time.
Spring does arrive, but not until perhaps the last pages, when there are still traces of snow on the ground. I’m struck by three sentences from near the end:
“She would go downstairs, across the meadow, the courtyard, and the garden, and walk upon the soft snow that would melt under her feet” (271).
“Like it or not she was part of a ceaseless flow—a ceaselessness that is eternal” (272).
“‘Come, let’s have a look,’ Martina said, setting out along the garden path. Camilla followed, walking slowly upon the last snow” (272).
Even until the last word, “snow,” the novel seems cold, but the characters see themselves as part of a larger picture, a “ceaseless flow,” and, at last, the snow becomes soft. It will be gone soon. And for their sakes, perhaps the scourge of war will be, if not gone, at least lessened, as they rebuild their lives.
Up Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | James Fenimore Cooper
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Gwen Bristow
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Frank O'Connor
FRI: A Writer's Wit | Edna Dean Proctor
My Book World | Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea
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