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3.9 AVERAGE
3.9 AVERAGE
I’ve wanted to read Ginzburg for a while now (I’ve owned a copy of The Road To The City for a couple of years but never got around to it). With Backlisted doing Family Lexicon (yes, that podcast decides about 30% of my reading), I thought I’d start with that.
Technically, it’s a memoir, though Ginzburg tells us in the preparatory remarks that “even though the story is real, I think one should read it if were a novel, and therefore not demand of it any more or less than a novel can offer”. It’s an interesting take, ahead of time, because while Family Lexicon is shaped like fiction every character is real and every event occurred. It’s autofiction, 14 years before the term was coined by Serge Doubrovsky (who said similar things about his novel/memoir “Fils”).
Ginzburg tells the tale of an Italian family across three decades, starting just after WW1 and ending five years post-WW2. It just so happens that the family in question is hers. There’s her father, Giuseppe (“Beppino”), her mother, Lidia, and her siblings, Mario, Gino, Paola and Alberto. Ginzburg was the baby. From the very first page, we are given an unrefined blast of her father’s anger, who would regularly describe his children as “numbskulls”, “negroes”, and “jackassess” (the last one being his favourite). His anger is all fury and, as it would appear, very little bite. I’m not saying he didn’t frighten his loved ones, but Ginzburg
frames Beppino more as a buffon than a tyrant. The man hated everything, whether it be music, the theatre, spending money, fascists — which, fair enough — marriage — every time his kids get married, he loses it — and cars. It’s extraordinary, given everything he experienced as a Jewish man during the height of fascism, that he didn’t keel over from a heart attack. But somehow, his righteous anger over the important and mundane sees Beppino and his wife Lidia (who often eggs him on) survive the darkest moments.
What’s fascinating in Family Lexicon is that Ginzburg has little interest in writing about herself. She is a passive observer of her family’s stories. Even the death of her husband during the War is kept at arm’s length. But the Family Lexicon is less a memoir and more a compendium of the tales that the family shared and re-shared, including a litany of phrases that would be thrown into every conversation. To put it another way, it is a Family Lexicon. This all resonated with me, partly because her parents reminded me of my paternal grandfather and grandmother, but mostly because my family also has a Lexicon: the stories we repeat and the phrases we share.
The novel/memoir is frequently laugh-out-loud funny, and Ginzburg’s deadpan style only elevates this. But it also has darker moments where Ginzburg allows us to glimpse her vulnerability, especially when recounting her memories of her dear friend Cesare Pavese, who took his own life. (That section, late in the novel, is breathtaking.)
The book is also a historical document in how it details how anti-fascists tried and failed to deal with fascism and the rise of Mussolini. Ginzburg’s father and siblings were jailed, with Mario escaping to France by the skin of his teeth. And yet, throughout all this, the Levis continue to share their stories and speak in their lexicon, even as darkness seeks to overwhelm them.
Technically, it’s a memoir, though Ginzburg tells us in the preparatory remarks that “even though the story is real, I think one should read it if were a novel, and therefore not demand of it any more or less than a novel can offer”. It’s an interesting take, ahead of time, because while Family Lexicon is shaped like fiction every character is real and every event occurred. It’s autofiction, 14 years before the term was coined by Serge Doubrovsky (who said similar things about his novel/memoir “Fils”).
Ginzburg tells the tale of an Italian family across three decades, starting just after WW1 and ending five years post-WW2. It just so happens that the family in question is hers. There’s her father, Giuseppe (“Beppino”), her mother, Lidia, and her siblings, Mario, Gino, Paola and Alberto. Ginzburg was the baby. From the very first page, we are given an unrefined blast of her father’s anger, who would regularly describe his children as “numbskulls”, “negroes”, and “jackassess” (the last one being his favourite). His anger is all fury and, as it would appear, very little bite. I’m not saying he didn’t frighten his loved ones, but Ginzburg
frames Beppino more as a buffon than a tyrant. The man hated everything, whether it be music, the theatre, spending money, fascists — which, fair enough — marriage — every time his kids get married, he loses it — and cars. It’s extraordinary, given everything he experienced as a Jewish man during the height of fascism, that he didn’t keel over from a heart attack. But somehow, his righteous anger over the important and mundane sees Beppino and his wife Lidia (who often eggs him on) survive the darkest moments.
What’s fascinating in Family Lexicon is that Ginzburg has little interest in writing about herself. She is a passive observer of her family’s stories. Even the death of her husband during the War is kept at arm’s length. But the Family Lexicon is less a memoir and more a compendium of the tales that the family shared and re-shared, including a litany of phrases that would be thrown into every conversation. To put it another way, it is a Family Lexicon. This all resonated with me, partly because her parents reminded me of my paternal grandfather and grandmother, but mostly because my family also has a Lexicon: the stories we repeat and the phrases we share.
The novel/memoir is frequently laugh-out-loud funny, and Ginzburg’s deadpan style only elevates this. But it also has darker moments where Ginzburg allows us to glimpse her vulnerability, especially when recounting her memories of her dear friend Cesare Pavese, who took his own life. (That section, late in the novel, is breathtaking.)
The book is also a historical document in how it details how anti-fascists tried and failed to deal with fascism and the rise of Mussolini. Ginzburg’s father and siblings were jailed, with Mario escaping to France by the skin of his teeth. And yet, throughout all this, the Levis continue to share their stories and speak in their lexicon, even as darkness seeks to overwhelm them.
This book is a striking collection of stories that reveal so much about history. Towards the end there’s a somewhat unexpected few pages where Ginsburg temporarily sets aside the stories and just writes about history and life. In it she writes “the daily grind, which is the only way we have of participating in each other’s lives, each of us lost and trapped in our own parallel solitude.” For me this sentence ended up framing how I interpreted the book: the stories of everyday life
reveal the way people interact with each other and with historical events. The book is so effective in part because Ginzburg goes to such lengths to not interpret these stories for the reader, going so far as not even including her own perspective hardly at all. For example, when she discusses her marriage it is only after several stories about her husband that do not include her, then she suddenly drops “I married him” in out of almost nowhere. Also I read this in Italy and that was nice.
reveal the way people interact with each other and with historical events. The book is so effective in part because Ginzburg goes to such lengths to not interpret these stories for the reader, going so far as not even including her own perspective hardly at all. For example, when she discusses her marriage it is only after several stories about her husband that do not include her, then she suddenly drops “I married him” in out of almost nowhere. Also I read this in Italy and that was nice.
4.3 stars. i really liked it, but i can tell why my mom was forced to read it in high school lol. made me nostalgic for italy, would recommend :)
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Magnifica obra! No obstante, en ocasiones se me hacia un tanto monótona y me ha costado más de lo que creía en leer... Me da pena que mi circunstancias no me hayan dejado disfrutar del todo de esta novela narrativa, pero aún así me ha encantado.
Depois de uma certa desilusão com Elsa Morante, com "A História" (1974), agora foi a vez de Natalia Ginzburg, com "Léxico Familiar" (1963). Ambas autoras italianas recuperadas no início deste século XXI por força do êxito estrondoso de Elena Ferrante. Morante e Ginzburg são contemporâneas, viveram tempos muito diferentes dos de hoje, por isso dificilmente podem ser colocadas ao lado de Ferrante, mas se não bastasse, estão elas próprias nas antípodas uma da outra. Se Morante usa e abusa do sentimentalismo, Ginzburg usa e abusa do desapegamento. No entanto, a comparação com Ferrante é inevitável e resultado, para ambas, é pouco favorável.
continuar a ler no blog: https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com/2023/04/lessico-famigliare-1963.html
continuar a ler no blog: https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com/2023/04/lessico-famigliare-1963.html
Ginzburg prefaces this book by saying ‘the places, events, and people in this book are real. I haven’t invented a thing’. A curious thing for a novel! Ginzburg uses her own family as the basis for the story, starting from her childhood and recounting the life of her family through to roughly 1950, when she marries her second husband. It’s an incredible novel really considering this - although she hasn’t made anything up, the story truly does become a novel via the choosing of what she recounts, the method of doing so, the way she places people and things next to each other without judgement, the structure. I am so full of admiration! Ginzburg conjures up something fundamental about the family unit through the squabbles, the in-jokes, the patterns of living with these people daily and over the course of years and decades. She manages to barely recount herself whilst being a constant figure, mentioning essential details about herself such as her own marriage almost as an afterthought. For me, the fascination really was in the family interactions rather than the backdrop, which is remarkable given it is set in such a momentous period of history - fascism is a constant threatening presence for most of the novel, but it feels like the centre is always the family essence. She adopts an interesting style, moving on quickly and unexpectedly from fact to fact to jump to something quite unrelated. I really enjoyed it stylistically - it allowed the focus to be on the family unit as a concept, and the shared memory of that unit, rather than getting too deep into individuals and motivations, which was perhaps done to keep it from becoming too personal? Quite funny in places too although the intent is often quite ambiguous.
#bookstagram #bookreviews #booklove #FamilyLexicon #NataliaGinzburg
#bookstagram #bookreviews #booklove #FamilyLexicon #NataliaGinzburg
emotional
emotional
funny
sad
fast-paced
emotional
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Very good, I wish she wrote a bit more about herself. Great premise, structure, characters.