A Very Italian Christmas Page 14
In February the air was soft and damp. Gray, swollen clouds traveled across the sky. One year during the thaw the gutters broke. Then water began to pour into the house and the rooms became a veritable quagmire. But it was like this throughout the whole area; not one house remained dry. The women emptied buckets out of their windows and swept the water out of their front doors. There were people who went to bed with an open umbrella. Domenico Orecchia said that it was a punishment for some sin. This lasted for a week; then, at last, every trace of snow disappeared from the roofs, and Aristide mended the gutters.
A restlessness awoke in us as winter drew to its end. Perhaps someone would come to find us: perhaps something would finally happen. Our exile had to have an end too. The roads which separated us from the world seemed shorter; the post arrived more often. All our chilblains gradually got better.
There is a kind of uniform monotony in the fate of man. Our lives unfold according to ancient, unchangeable laws, according to an invariable and ancient rhythm. Our dreams are never realized and as soon as we see them betrayed we realize that the most intense joys of our life have nothing to do with reality. No sooner do we see them betrayed than we are consumed with regret for the time when they glowed within us. And in this succession of hopes and regrets our life slips by.
My husband died in Rome, in the prison of Regina Coeli, a few months after we left the Abruzzi. Faced with the horror of his solitary death, and faced with the anguish that preceded his death, I ask myself if this happened to us—to us, who bought oranges at Giro’s and went for walks in the snow. At that time I believed in a simple and happy future, rich with hopes that were fulfilled, with experiences and plans that were shared. But that was the best time of my life, and only now that it has gone from me forever—only now do I realize it.
1944
GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO (1313–1375) was the son of a Florentine merchant and spent his formative years in Naples. He was an important humanist who lived through the Black Death and described its ravages with timeless empathy, irony and humor in The Decameron. His narrative fiction inspired Chaucer, Shakespeare and Tennyson.
CAMILLO BOITO (1836–1914) was a novelist, architect, art historian and engineer. He wrote several collections of short stories.
ANDREA DE CARLO (1952–) is a popular contemporary Italian author who grew up in Milan and has written some twenty novels.
GRAZIA DELEDDA (1871–1936) was a Sardinian-born novelist and winner of the 1926 Nobel Prize for Literature.
NATALIA GINZBURG (1916–1991) was born in Palermo but her family soon moved to Turin; she later memorialized her childhood in her autobiographical work Family Lexicon. This book was awarded the Strega Prize, Italy’s most prominent literary award, in 1963. She was a political activist, translated Proust and Flaubert into Italian, and served in the Italian parliament.
ANNA MARIA ORTESE (1914–1998) is one of the most celebrated and original Italian writers of the last century. Her book of short stories and reportage, Neapolitan Chronicles, brought her widespread acclaim in her native country when it was first published in 1953 and won the prestigious Premio Viareggio.
LUIGI PIRANDELLO (1867–1936) was a dramatist, short story writer and novelist. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934.
MATILDE SERAO (1856–1927) lived most of her life in Naples. She was among the first professional women writers in modern Italy. Author of many novels, short stories, and essays, she co-founded Naples’ leading daily newspaper (Il Mattino) and was friends with Edith Wharton and Henry James, who wrote about her work.
GIOVANNI VERGA (1840–1922) was a Sicilian author of novels and short stories whose tale Cavalleria Rusticana became the basis for a play and a famed opera.
“White Dogs in the Snow”
From the novel Tecniche di seduzione
translated by LeeAnn Geiberger Bortolussi
“Winter in the Abruzzi”
translated by Dick Davis
“Christmas Eve”
translated by Christine Donougher
“Family Interior”
translated by Ann Goldstein and Jenny McPhee
“Black Bread”
translated by D. H. Lawrence
“The Fifth Story
Day the Seventh”
From The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
translated by John Payne
“Canituccia”
“To the Tenth Muse”
translated by Jon R. Snyder
“A Dream of Christmas”
“The Golden Cross”
translated by Adrian Nathan West
A VERY FRENCH CHRISTMAS
A continuation of the very popular Very Christmas Series, this collection brings together the best French Christmas stories of all time in an elegant and vibrant collection featuring classics by Guy de Maupassant and Alphonse Daudet, plus stories by the esteemed twentieth century author Irène Némirovsky and contemporary writers Dominique Fabre and Jean-Philippe Blondel. With a holiday spirit conveyed through sparkling Paris streets, opulent feasts, wandering orphans, flickering desire, and more than a little wine, this collection proves that the French have mastered Christmas.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/a-very-french-christmas/
A VERY RUSSIAN CHRISTMAS
This is Russian Christmas celebrated in supreme pleasure and pain by the greatest of writers, from Dostoevsky and Tolstoy to Chekhov and Teffi. The dozen stories in this collection will satisfy every reader, and with their wit, humor, and tenderness, packed full of sentimental songs, footmen, whirling winds, solitary nights, snow drifts, and hopeful children, the collection proves that Nobody Does Christmas Like the Russians.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/a-very-russian-christmas/
THE EYE
BY PHILIPPE COSTAMAGNA
It’s a rare and secret profession, comprising a few dozen people around the world equipped with a mysterious mixture of knowledge and innate sensibility. Summoned to Swiss bank vaults, Fifth Avenue apartments, and Tokyo storerooms, they are entrusted by collectors, dealers, and museums to decide if a coveted picture is real or fake and to determine if it was painted by Leonardo da Vinci or Raphael. The Eye lifts the veil on the rarified world of connoisseurs devoted to the authentication and discovery of Old Master artworks.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/the-eye/
WHAT’S LEFT OF THE NIGHT
BY ERSI SOTIROPOULOS
Constantine Cavafy arrives in Paris in 1897 on a trip that will deeply shape his future and push him toward his poetic inclination. With this lyrical novel, tinged with an hallucinatory eroticism that unfolds over three unforgettable days, celebrated Greek author Ersi Sotiropoulos depicts Cavafy in the midst of a journey of self-discovery across a continent on the brink of massive change. A stunning portrait of a budding author—before he became C.P. Cavafy, one of the 20th century’s greatest poets—that illuminates the complex relationship of art, life, and the erotic desires that trigger creativity.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/whats-left-night/
THE ANIMAL GAZER
BY EDGARDO FRANZOSINI
A hypnotic novel inspired by the strange and fascinating life of sculptor Rembrandt Bugatti, brother of the fabled automaker. Bugatti obsessively observes and sculpts the baboons, giraffes, and panthers in European zoos, finding empathy with their plight and identifying with their life in captivity. Rembrandt Bugatti’s work, now being rediscovered, is displayed in major art museums around the world and routinely fetches large sums at auction. Edgardo Franzosini recreates the young artist’s life with intense lyricism, passion, and sensitivity.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/the-animal-gazer/
ALLMEN AND THE DRAGONFLIES
BY MARTIN SUTER
Johann Friedrich von Allmen has exhausted his family fortune by living in Old World grandeur despite present-day financial constraints. Forced to downscale, Allmen inhabits the garden house of his former Zurich estate, attended by his Guatemala
n butler, Carlos. This is the first of a series of humorous, fast-paced detective novels devoted to a memorable gentleman thief. A thrilling art heist escapade infused with European high culture and luxury that doesn’t shy away from the darker side of human nature.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/allmen-and-the-dragonflies/
THE MADELEINE PROJECT
BY CLARA BEAUDOUX
A young woman moves into a Paris apartment and discovers a storage room filled with the belongings of the previous owner, a certain Madeleine who died in her late nineties, and whose treasured possessions nobody seems to want. In an audacious act of journalism driven by personal curiosity and humane tenderness, Clara Beaudoux embarks on The Madeleine Project, documenting what she finds on Twitter with text and photographs, introducing the world to an unsung 20th century figure.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/the-madeleine-project/
ADUA
BY IGIABA SCEGO
Adua, an immigrant from Somalia to Italy, has lived in Rome for nearly forty years. She came seeking freedom from a strict father and an oppressive regime, but her dreams of film stardom ended in shame. Now that the civil war in Somalia is over, her home-land calls her. She must decide whether to return and reclaim her inheritance, but also how to take charge of her own story and build a future.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/adua/
IF VENICE DIES
BY SALVATORE SETTIS
Internationally renowned art historian Salvatore Settis ignites a new debate about the Pearl of the Adriatic and cultural patrimony at large. In this fiery blend of history and cultural analysis, Settis argues that “hit-and-run” visitors are turning Venice and other landmark urban settings into shopping malls and theme parks. This is a passionate plea to secure the soul of Venice, written with consummate authority, wide-ranging erudition and élan.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/if-venice-dies/
THE MADONNA OF NOTRE DAME
BY ALEXIS RAGOUGNEAU
Fifty thousand people jam into Notre Dame Cathedral to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption. The next morning, a beautiful young woman clothed in white kneels at prayer in a cathedral side chapel. But when someone accidentally bumps against her, her body collapses. She has been murdered. This thrilling novel illuminates shadowy corners of the world’s most famous cathedral, shedding light on good and evil with suspense, compassion and wry humor.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/madonna-notre-dame/
THE YEAR OF THE COMET
BY SERGEI LEBEDEV
A story of a Russian boyhood and coming of age as the Soviet Union is on the brink of collapse. Lebedev depicts a vast empire coming apart at the seams, transforming a very public moment into something tender and personal, and writes with stunning beauty and shattering insight about childhood and the growing consciousness of a boy in the world.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/year-of-the-comet/
THE LAST WEYNFELDT
BY MARTIN SUTER
Adrian Weynfeldt is an art expert in an international auction house, a bachelor in his mid-fifties living in a grand Zurich apartment filled with costly paintings and antiques. Always correct and well-mannered, he’s given up on love until one night—entirely out of character for him—Weynfeldt decides to take home a ravishing but unaccountable young woman and gets embroiled in an art forgery scheme that threatens his buttoned up existence. This refined page-turner moves behind elegant bourgeois facades into darker recesses of the heart.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/the-last-weynfeldt/
MOVING THE PALACE
BY CHARIF MAJDALANI
A young Lebanese adventurer explores the wilds of Africa, encountering an eccentric English colonel in Sudan and enlisting in his service. In this lush chronicle of far-flung adventure, the military recruit crosses paths with a compatriot who has dismantled a sumptuous palace and is transporting it across the continent on a camel caravan. This is a captivating modern-day Odyssey in the tradition of Bruce Chatwin and Paul Theroux.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/moving-the-palace/
THE 6:41 TO PARIS
BY JEAN-PHILIPPE BLONDEL
Cécile, a stylish 47-year-old, has spent the weekend visiting her parents outside Paris. By Monday morning, she’s exhausted. These trips back home are stressful and she settles into a train compartment with an empty seat beside her. But it’s soon occupied by a man she recognizes as Philippe Leduc, with whom she had a passionate affair that ended in her brutal humiliation 30 years ago. In the fraught hour and a half that ensues, Cécile and Philippe hurtle towards the French capital in a psychological thriller about the pain and promise of past romance.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/the-641-to-paris/
ON THE RUN WITH MARY
BY JONATHAN BARROW
Shining moments of tender beauty punctuate this story of a youth on the run after escaping from an elite English boarding school. At London’s Euston Station, the narrator meets a talking dachshund named Mary and together they’re off on escapades through posh Mayfair streets and jaunts in a Rolls-Royce. But the youth soon realizes that the seemingly sweet dog is a handful; an alcoholic, nymphomaniac, drug-addicted mess who can’t stay out of pubs or off the dance floor. On the Run with Mary mirrors the horrors and the joys of the terrible 20th century.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/on-the-run-with-mary/
OBLIVION BY SERGEI LEBEDEV
In one of the first 21st century Russian novels to probe the legacy of the Soviet prison camp system, a young man travels to the vast wastelands of the Far North to uncover the truth about a shadowy neighbor who saved his life, and whom he knows only as Grandfather II. Emerging from today’s Russia, where the ills of the past are being forcefully erased from public memory, this masterful novel represents an epic literary attempt to rescue history from the brink of oblivion.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/oblivion/
THE LAST SUPPER
BY KLAUS WIVEL
Alarmed by the oppression of 7.5 million Christians in the Middle East, journalist Klaus Wivel traveled to Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, and the Palestinian territories to learn about their fate. He found a minority under threat of death and humiliation, desperate in the face of rising Islamic extremism and without hope their situation will improve. An unsettling account of a severely beleaguered religious group living, so it seems, on borrowed time. Wivel asks, Why have we not done more to protect these people?
http://newvesselpress.com/books/the-last-supper/
GUYS LIKE ME BY DOMINIQUE FABRE
Dominique Fabre, born in Paris and a life-long resident of the city, exposes the shadowy, anonymous lives of many who inhabit the French capital. In this quiet, subdued tale, a middle-aged office worker, divorced and alienated from his only son, meets up with two childhood friends who are similarly adrift. He’s looking for a second act to his mournful life, seeking the harbor of love and a true connection with his son. Set in palpably real Paris streets that feel miles away from the City of Light, a stirring novel of regret and absence, yet not without a glimmer of hope.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/guys-like/
ANIMAL INTERNET
BY ALEXANDER PSCHERA
Some 50,000 creatures around the globe—including whales, leopards, flamingoes, bats and snails—are being equipped with digital tracking devices. The data gathered and studied by major scientific institutes about their behavior will warn us about tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but also radically transform our relationship to the natural world. Contrary to pessimistic fears, author Alexander Pschera sees the Internet as creating a historic opportunity for a new dialogue between man and nature.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/animal-internet/
KILLING AUNTIE BY ANDRZEJ BURSA
A young university student named Jurek, with no particular ambitions or talents, finds himself with nothing to do. After his doting aunt asks the young man to perform a small chore, he decides to kill
her for no good reason other than, perhaps, boredom. This short comedic masterpiece combines elements of Dostoevsky, Sartre, Kafka, and Heller, coming together to produce an unforgettable tale of murder and—just maybe— redemption.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/killing-auntie/
I CALLED HIM NECKTIE
BY MILENA MICHIKO FLAŠAR
Twenty-year-old Taguchi Hiro has spent the last two years of his life living as a hikikomori—a shut-in who never leaves his room and has no human interaction—in his parents’ home in Tokyo. As Hiro tentatively decides to reenter the world, he spends his days observing life from a park bench. Gradually he makes friends with Ohara Tetsu, a salaryman who has lost his job. The two discover in their sadness a common bond. This beautiful novel is moving, unforgettable, and full of surprises.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/called-necktie/
WHO IS MARTHA?
BY MARJANA GAPONENKO
In this rollicking novel, 96-year-old ornithologist Luka Levadski foregoes treatment for lung cancer and moves from Ukraine to Vienna to make a grand exit in a luxury suite at the Hotel Imperial. He reflects on his past while indulging in Viennese cakes and savoring music in a gilded concert hall. Levadski was born in 1914, the same year that Martha—the last of the now-extinct passenger pigeons—died. Levadski himself has an acute sense of being the last of a species. This gloriously written tale mixes piquant wit with lofty musings about life, friendship, aging and death.