Letter of Recommendation: Non ti muovere

I'm finally reading Margaret Mazzantini's novel Non ti muovere and I am thrilled to say I am doing so courtesy of my local library!

(There are not a lot of Italian books in the original language there, but I see any books in Italian as a positive thing).

I've seen the movie and I must confess that I see Sergio Castellitto at almost every turn in the novel since he played the narrator in the 2004 film dramatization.

That may contribute to my assessment -- who knows? -- but I feel like Mazzantini's prose very deftly creates a convincing male narrator and main character.

The voice is so strong that I can overlook what this character does, which is allow himself to serially rape a woman he meets at a coffee shop one day who invites him to use her phone. And not just serially rape but convince himself that he loves her and that these first encounters are the start of a relationship. Well, in fact they are, perhaps because the woman is an Albanian immigrant who lives in a hovel and works as a prostitute.

What's more, the relationship unfolds while his own fledgling family needs him.

So he's quite the flawed protagonist but Mazzantini's intimate gaze into his character is mesmerizing. What else has she written? I have no idea -- but plan to find out.

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Visit the dead, bury the sick

March 22, 2019

Visit the dead, bury the sick. I produced this tangled axiom the other day without thinking.

Bret said: 'Write about the things you’d write about if no one would read it' … Where to begin? 

That's obvious: The legs splayed out casually, of course, the night we came back from the hospital, the rocking chair pushed closer to the TV, the studied lightness of his demeanor. 

'Maybe everything is OK,' I thought. 'He’s here, watching TV with us, as if nothing is wrong.'

***
Lost diary entry

The Power of Small Journeys (for Brevity)

I'm shameless when it comes to writing about my travels and will hide travel writing inside of just about any piece. In this case, one about the power of trips -- even small ones, even within your town or city! -- to awake the writing amuse.

"We were staying in a residential neighborhood called Rosemount-La Petite Patrie which is full of delightful duplexes with second floor balconies facing the street that overflowed with flowers, bikes and the odd pair of running shoes. On a whim one evening, I took a walk at sunset. As the sky turned purple, I craned my neck to get a better view. 

"On a sliver of park land I glimpsed between duplexes I could see soccer players practicing, while bike commuters ambled by me. And notebook in hand, I began taking an inventory of the neighborhood’s businesses: a grocer, an off-license, a hair salon, a book shop, a toy emporium, a real estate office, the plumber, a driving school (automatique and manuelle) and so on."

 

You can read the rest at the Brevity Nonfiction Blog (my blog away from blog, as it were):

https://brevity.wordpress.com/2021/11/03/small-journeys/

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What I bought at Rizzoli

While I was holed up in the scholars room at the New York Public Library, I did break out for strategic jaunts, either to walk block after block or to buy some items that I cannot easily purchase in Connecticut (or which would otherwise have to come via the mailman).

Chief among these shopping destinations was, of course, Rizzoli, the famed Italian book store that my father introduced me to years ago (not because he reads Italian but simply because he reads).

I wasn't judicious in my spending but (luckily) they didn't have everything I wanted. Indeed I saw little down side in throwing some money at a place like Rizzoli, especially since buying Italian books is good for my health, and maybe one day will be good for my wealth (though probably not, given the difficulty inherent in literary translation! Or the scant dough tied to teaching Italian).

I mainly bought books but oh the journals they have! Oh the notecards! 

So without further ado, I bought two books by Primo Levi that I'd needed to replace for a while:

Se questo è un uomo

Sistema periodico

The first one was apt since I was in New York to study Holocaust-era works at the New York Public Library.

I also bought:

Harry Potter e la camera dei segreti

I couldn't resist! Or rather, I had been resisting and decided to throw in the towel. Someday Leo and I will read it together, as we've read the English-language original.

I also bought a children's book about the Romans for Leo.

And, last but not least:

La settimana enigmistica

It's a weekly book of crosswords, puzzles, word games and cartoons. And it's by no means the only puzzle book you'll find on Italian newsstands.

If they'd had books by Natalia Ginzburg, I would have bought them since they were on my list. If they'd had Borgo Sud by Donatella Di Pietrantonio, I would have bought it. They didn't but still, to walk into a bookstore in America that sells Italian books is always a treat.

You'll find Rizzoli not far from Eataly NY so why not visit?

1133 Broadway

New York, NY

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That's me in the NYPL Researcher Spotlight!

I continue to float on the energy afforded me by completing my short fellowship at the New York Public Library last month. And it helps that part of my research is already surfacing in ways I can share (if we have to wait until my translations are published, we could be in it for the long haul).

The staff at the New York Public Library interview  researchers to learn about how the library's extensive holdings are helping them do research. In my case, I was able to gush about the myriad (and massive) Italian dictionaries and etymological works in the Rose Main Reading Room that helped me while I worked on translations. One of my favorite dictionaries, the multi-volume Grande Dizionario della Lingua Italiana, edited by the legendary Salvatore Battaglia, has multiple pages dedicated just to the history of literary usage of one of the key phrases I was trying to decipher (more about this later in a research essay I am writing for the Library).

If you want to read the Q&A at the Library's website, it's here:

https://www.nypl.org/blog/2021/11/02/nypl-researcher-spotlight-jeanne-bonner

If you want to read poems by the author I'm translating, go here:

https://www.asymptotejournal.com/poetry/edith-bruck-versi-vissuti/

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Lost diary entry: Up at night with 'Country Girl' by Edna O'Brien

July 28, 2019

Woke up late, on account of being up during the night (delightfully so, though, since I am reading Country Girl by Edna O'Brien), and was not too ambitious today. Coffee on the back deck with the Gullon digestives that arrived last week, notes for a Natalia Ginzburg review. 

Then a barefoot tour of the flowers in the front yard, so gorgeous and generous: day lilies and morning glories and hibiscus blooming in the two pots on the front steps. 

Notes of an unexpected summer soundtrack fill my head: "I know that you're in love with him because I saw you dancing in the gym."

From the Lost Diary archive

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