Me = I write, I edit, I speak Italian, I teach & I do some translation, too. Plus, I love these little sugar-dusted donuts that the Italians call ciambelline. Ciambellina = Chah-Mm-Bayl-LEEna. Welcome & start reading!
I took part in a blog project called Italian Lit Month that's coincided with the big, annual book fair in Frankfurt, where Italy is the guest of honor this year.
Other translators wrote about the works they've translated and translation book prizes and translating dialects and Italian poetry and amazing Italian novels you may have missed.
If you've ever wanted to know about Italian literature or Italian-English translation, this month of blogposts is a crash course.
We're nearing the end of it but the month of posts will be available for anyone who wants to catch up. You can also follow along on Twitter with the hashtag #ItalianLitMonth or #ItLit.
How do you sum up a life? Normally with my mother, I think of a funny story. And maybe that’s not fair, though she was a character, wasn’t she? It’s not a fabrication on my part that when I told her I was going to have a baby, she said, “What? What? What? What? What?” (Yes, five whats. As I’ve said before, people born in Flatbush in 1938 are naturally enthusiastic). But this morning, a year since she’s left us, I’m thinking of the little gifts she came up with for Leo. Maybe all grandmothers do this but that first Christmas ornament she bought for him? It will live forever in the museum of my mind, if only there. A stately, white porcelain figure of Santa and his sack of toys, with Leo’s name etched in gold on the side. Her thinking? He needed a Christmas ornament right from the get-go, and she was right, of course. A nice one, too. Grandchild no. 8 but she’d lost none of her enthusiasm. I also think – veering off in a completely different direction, which she was known to do – of what she was like when she ritually watched the New York City marathon on TV, as I mentioned in a previous post. I remember when the first Kenyan won in the late 80s. That year, as she sat in her rocking chair smoking and watching while the runner began to overtake the lead pack, she edged forward as she shouted, “He’s going to do it! He’s going to do it!” I’ll never be able to completely ignore sports because of moments like that. The thrill of human achievement. The euphoria we can feel for someone we don’t even know. She wasn’t ever going to run a marathon, Pat, but she was going to enjoy that man’s victory, his perseverance, his dedication. Yet maybe it would be a better tribute to think of the ideas she endorsed because she knew how deep our longing could be. Specifically, my longing to go to liberal, activist, avant-garde Wesleyan, which would never have been her choice for a college, but she was happy for me, even though the atmosphere was a bit too bohemian for her tastes (“It’s very far-out”). This post hardly does her justice because I am leaving out the time she schooled me for suggesting we give a very old piece of clothing to a Goodwill donation, saying: “People who are poor like nice things, too.” The sting of regret faded, the lesson remained. I’m leaving out words like “discombobulated” and her instructions for a quick bath: “Get in, get out, get washed.” (Maybe not in that order). But nothing I can write can conjure up her spirit fully because she was truly alive – especially alive in raising four children in pre-modern times (which is to say, all the cooking, all the cleaning, nearly all the ferrying to activities, the Girl Scout leadering, the backyard shepherding, etc). Christmas? How she arranged it, with a thousand heartfelt, hand-selected gifts, it’s hard to imagine Heaven is as special as Christmas morning was at 236 Ohio Street. Her hobbies? Besides smoking, the New York Times crossword. Because she could fit that in between all of her other tasks. No matter how much I do for Leo, it will never approach what Pat did for us. Because she gave her whole self. I haven’t even touched on her conversational skills – she made chit-chatting seem like the reward you get for all of your hard work at day’s end (and good thing the kitchen phone’s cord could snake its way to the rocking chair in the living room). “Oh, he was a character,” she might say about someone we were discussing (take the compliment, buddy! You got Pat’s attention, and her good will). I scarcely know how to end this message because there are so many things I’m ignoring, except maybe I could ask a favor? If you're thinking of your mother right now, spend some time talking to her today – for me. Entertain her theories, put up with her smoking, probe her memories. I’ll live vicariously through you! But if that's not possible, maybe just read Marie Howe's poetry -- especially this line, "I am living. I remember you."
Vado pazza per le parole, sia in inglese che in italiano. E una volta un mio amico fiorentino mi mandò una cartolina dall'Irlanda, e ci scrisse:
"Il paese dei tuo antenati è la fine del mondo."
Mi è rimasto impresso questo suo commento perché mi sembrava cosi gentile -- certamente mi aveva ascoltato con grande pazienza mentre gli parlavo, come americana, del paese di mio bisnonno -- ed anche perché Irlanda è davvero spettacolare.
Quando ci sono tornata a giugno, spesso mi dicevo, "Il paese dei tuo antenati è la fine del mondo."
Le parole. A volte possono avere un peso sacro anche quando si tratta di frasi che non hanno niente a che fare con Dio o senza dimensione religiosa.
I began compiling this list because whenever I teach, I'm always scouting out works I can include on the syllabus and I'm slated to teach a course this Fall. But I decided to complete it after the fanfare that resulted fromThe New York Times' list. Note, I don't make temporal distinctions. These are the works from all time that move me, which I suppose might be off-topic since the newspaper was specifically aiming to capture the best books of this century. I am not convinced -- or maybe I'm simply unsure -- the best books I've read were published during the current century. I also approach my reading life in a way that's quite separate from the publishing industry's calendar. I have recommendations from friends, I have genres I follow (memoir, literature by Italian women authors), I have gaps to fill (Shakespeare! Toni Morrison!), and none of that necessarily coincides with the particular books that come out each year (the most notable often go on the TBRL file, no?).
To be sure, many of these works I've read and/or re-read this century. But does that matter? Let's put the issue aside and move onto the actual list, which isn't exhaustive, more like 'some ideas' for what to read. A list like this could really go on and on but I'm going to call time right now. And I've probably missed all kinds of books that I loved. Oh well!
Fiction
The Dubliners, James Joyce
Drown, Junot Diaz (which I preferred to 'Oscar Wao,' which made the Times' list)
The Divine Comedy, Dante (definitely not this century, ha ha!)
Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
Il Giorno della Civetta, Leonardo Sciascia
To Each His Own (A Ciascuno Il Suo), Leonardo Sciascia
Days of Abandonment, Elena Ferrante
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini)
Lost in the City, Edward P. Jones (His book, "The Known World," is on the NYT list but I haven't read it yet!)(almost this century!)
Country Girls, Edna O'Brien (May she rest in peace!)
A Month in the Country, J.L. Carr
A Meal in Winter, Hubert Mingarelli
Gli Indifferenti, Alberto Moravia
The Bishop's Bedroom, Piero Chiara (in a stellar translation by Jill Foulston)
Long Day's Journey into Night, Eugene O'Neill
So You Don't Get Lost in the Neighborhood, Patrick Modiano (actually this century)
Suspended Sentences (ibid)
A Scrap of Time, Ida Fink (see below)
Charming Billy, Alice McDermott
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Raymond Carver
Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry (this century)
If You Kept A Record of Sins, Andrea Bajani (ditto) (and translated gloriously by Elizabeth Harris)
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens (thanks to my friend, Jenny, for reminding me of this incredible book! So this entry is an addition to the original list, judges)
Essays/Memoir "Notes of a Native Son" by James Baldwin
Italian literature is never far from my mind, even the last few months when I immersed myself in Irish literature as I prepared for my first trip to Ireland in more than a decade.
It's perhaps because when I read Italian literature, I attempt to fill in the vast gaps in my education, seeing as I attended school in America, and not Italy. So many Italian classics I didn't encounter in high school!
As such, I've avoided reading American or British classics in Italian. Why bother?
But a year or so ago, I stumbled over the opening lines of The Great Gatsby in Italian. By which, I mean, the first lines of IL GRANDE GATSBY. (I wrote about it here).
It happens to be my favorite novel of all time. And I realized how tickled I would be to see how the Italians render it (tickled and maybe also edified, since I do some literary translation, myself).
And why stop there?
So when Il Nostro Inviato went to Italy a few months ago for work, rather than ask for the latest releases from my favorite Italian women writers (my standard order), I asked for Gente di Dublino.
Or what I've been calling "Dubliners" since I read it for the first time at St. Anthony's High School on Long Island.
I made a beeline for the masterpiece of James Joyce's collection, "The Dead," or in Italian, "I morti."
Here are the indelible final lines from that seminal story (slightly condensed):
(From "I morti" -- "The Dead")
"Cadeva la neve in ogni parte della scura pianura centrale ... E cadeva anche su ogni punto del solitario cimitero sulla collina in cui giaceva il corpo di Michael Furey.
"...pian piano l'anima gli svaní lenta mentre udiva la neva cadere stancamente su tutto l'universo e stancamente cadere, come la discesa della loro fine ultima, su tutti i vivi e tutti i morti."
I can remember my teacher, Brother Jeffrey, pointing out the repetition in the lines: "falling faintly through the universe andfaintly falling," and they delight in Italian, too.
I've been binge-reading Irish literature for months -- ever since booking our trip to Ireland shortly before St. Patrick's Day.
And I've spent my reading hours re-visiting Synge and other works by Joyce, as well as tackling several Brendan Behan works and a short play by Samuel Beckett.
But there's really nothing like those final lines of "The Dead" or "I morti." It's the same, really, in the end. Be it "The descent of their last end" or "La discesa della loro fine ultima," I am equally enthralled.
These are poems from Versi Vissuti, which combines three of Edith's poetry collections. I read them for the translation reading series, Translators Aloud, which is a YouTube channel that bills itself The Voice of Translated Literature.
But once
upon a time, an Oscar nod was reason enough for me to go to the
movies. Ten days before leaving for college at Wesleyan University, I saw
what is now considered a modern Italian classic: “Cinema Paradiso.” It won the
1989 Oscar for best foreign film. And it changed my life.
The main
character is a famous movie director named Totò who, in the years after World
War II, returns to the tiny Sicilian town where he grew up. The film begins in the present day, in an apartment in Rome,
but an unexpected phone call sends the director back to Sicily – and the movie
back in time.
In the
director’s boyhood village, life revolves around the parish church and the
lone movie theater. That’s where the whole town convenes in the years before
television. Alfredo, the projectionist, is seen repeatedly shooing away Totò –
back when he’s an adorable but incorrigible boy who is infatuated with movies
and always grabbing strips of film that fall on the floor. Alfredo eventually
relents and agrees to teach him his profession. In the course of the film, Totò
transforms from a tiny tot who uses a stepstool to reach the projector into a
teen using his first movie camera to capture frames of a pretty girl he likes.
Before I
saw the film, I knew no Italian, and had no plans to study it. But when I
arrived at college a short while later, I enrolled in Italian 101 and signed up
for a hybrid literature-study abroad program – all because I fell in love with
the sounds I’d heard in the film. Eighteen months later, I left to study in
Italy, and after college, I went back to live in Tuscany as an ex-pat. Since
returning to the States, I’ve written this blog as an ode to small Italian
pleasures. The film is one of many reasons a part of me will forever
remain in Italy.
The
movie does what all good fiction does: it makes you wish you lived in the world
evoked by the story, in this case, Italian small-town life. I felt as though I
had gone on vacation, to another country and another time.
It also
reminds me of the necessity of pursuing something that’s not inherently useful
or handy. Knowing Italian won’t really get you out of a jam. Even traveling the
world, you’ll find Italian will help you in only a handful of place outside of
one solitary country (Italy). But studying Italian has been the great passion
of my life; it’s allowed me to step inside the mind of another culture and
revel in small moments, such as eavesdropping on a conversation between a
barista and a regular at café in Rome or dining in a remote countryside
restaurant where not a single other person speaks your native language.
Fluency, after all, is a form of immersion not unlike diving into a pool or
hiking the Appalachian Trail.
I saw
the film at a now-defunct arthouse cinema in Manhattan. Last year, I watched it
with my students at a small college in Hartford where I was teaching Italian. I
sat in the back of our darkened classroom, and took notes, my eyes
brimming with tears of nostalgia. In one scene, Totò is at home in his kitchen
pretending to be a cowboy, mimicking shoot-outs from westerns he’s watched at
the theater. A lighthearted moment balanced with the knowledge that his father
has gone off to war and never returns. In the space created by that absence,
Totò’s friendship with Alfredo, who is childless, looms far larger than the
token love story in the movie.
The film
is about more than a boy who grows up to be a director; it’s about how longing
and loss shape our lives, as well as the power of community. Totò leaves his
provincial hometown on Alfredo’s advice, without ever looking back, and becomes
successful in the big city. But the cost to both men is considerable. On his
return, he sees what’s happened to the village – and his one-time mentor,
Alfredo – since then. As the director revisits landmarks of his youth, he
realizes he’s abandoned the people who loved him the most.
Watching the film at 18, I absorbed a culture completely foreign to my
suburban New York upbringing. It drove me to master Italian so I could
understand bits of dialogue that escaped me on the first viewing and it
introduced me to what would become my adopted country. Since then, its language
and customs have infiltrated every corner of my life. That 11-year-old son I
mentioned? His name is Leonardo, and one afternoon in Italy not too long ago, a
Florentine friend of mine insisted on teaching him to curse in Italian. I am
raising him in a house where Italian words cover every surface, from book
covers to the posters on the living room wall, and boxes of pasta in the
pantry.
So go to
the movies. See a film you know nothing about. It might change your life. And
one day, when he’s a little older, I’ll watch “Cinema Paradiso” with Leonardo –
in the hopes that he, too, falls in love. With the movie or movie-making or
Italian. As long as he knows the beauty of falling in love with something
powerful enough to change your life.
To mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day (Jan. 27), below you'll find all the books I have read or want to read by or about women who survived the Holocaust. Note, this list is NOT exhaustive! Mainly Italian authors, for starters. But a good primer on works involving a group of survivors that has often been marginalized, as I wrote in an article for the American Scholar last year.
Available in translation
Who Loves You Like This, Edith Bruck (Paul Dry Books; Thomas Kelso, translator)
L'esile filo della memoria, Lidia Beccaria Rolfi (This book begins a few days before the writer was liberated from the concentration camp called Ravensbruck, which is fascinating because it deals with the saga of afterward. As if the saga of before -- the camps -- weren't enough.)
Come una rana d'inverno: Conversazioni con tre donne sopravvissute ad Auschwitz, Daniela Padoan (interviews with three women who survived the Holocaust)
Il silenzio dei vivi, Elisa Springer
Andremo in città, Edith Bruck (Note, I'm translating this, thanks to an NEA grant)
I've written a tiny love story for The New York Times and I think I'd like to compose one for everyone I've ever loved!
But I started with my first best friend, and it's a pretty good place to start.
World, this is my sister, Denise!
Coming to my rescue -- not for the first time.
The words came to me one day while I was taking a walk. That's so often how writing works, and in this case, since it's only 100 words, the few lines that might surface while out and about suffice!
We've had a two-year period of losses, but as monumental as those events were, little moments and gestures can often be decisive. Little moments that act like life boats.
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