Scan barcode
raulbime's review against another edition
4.0
"The truth is that the places where you have wept, where you've suffered, where you've had to find many inner resources to keep hoping and resisting, are the ones you grow fondest of."
In a way writing seems to be an act of commemoration. A lot of the good and great writing I've read, anyway, seems to have surging underneath it an urge to mark, to set against the wiping away of all things by time, of places as they once were, of events as they once occurred. And this collection of five stories set in pre-world war two and, barely, post-war Ferrara is testament to this. Following the lives of different residents, Bassani seeks to get to the essence of life in this period when fascism was budding, had blown over, and after it had been defeated, and all the ways it affected the lives of those in this town, especially those at the margins of society and vulnerable. The stories "The Final Years of Clelia Trotti", "Lida Mantovani", and "The Stroll before Dinner" were my favourites.
Reading through these stories, as the first of [b:The Novel of Ferrara|38730620|The Novel of Ferrara|Giorgio Bassani|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1523478182l/38730620._SY75_.jpg|66687603] books by the same writer that I'll be reading, I couldn't help but think of the Cavafy poem "The City":
You said: “I’ll go to another country, go to another shore,
find another city better than this one.
Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong
and my heart lies buried like something dead.
How long can I let my mind moulder in this place?
Wherever I turn, wherever I look,
I see the black ruins of my life, here,
where I’ve spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.”
You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore.
This city will always pursue you.
You’ll walk the same streets, grow old
in the same neighborhoods, turn gray in these same houses.
You’ll always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere:
there’s no ship for you, there’s no road.
Now that you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner,
you’ve destroyed it everywhere in the world.
(As translated by Edmund Keeley)
In a way writing seems to be an act of commemoration. A lot of the good and great writing I've read, anyway, seems to have surging underneath it an urge to mark, to set against the wiping away of all things by time, of places as they once were, of events as they once occurred. And this collection of five stories set in pre-world war two and, barely, post-war Ferrara is testament to this. Following the lives of different residents, Bassani seeks to get to the essence of life in this period when fascism was budding, had blown over, and after it had been defeated, and all the ways it affected the lives of those in this town, especially those at the margins of society and vulnerable. The stories "The Final Years of Clelia Trotti", "Lida Mantovani", and "The Stroll before Dinner" were my favourites.
Reading through these stories, as the first of [b:The Novel of Ferrara|38730620|The Novel of Ferrara|Giorgio Bassani|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1523478182l/38730620._SY75_.jpg|66687603] books by the same writer that I'll be reading, I couldn't help but think of the Cavafy poem "The City":
You said: “I’ll go to another country, go to another shore,
find another city better than this one.
Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong
and my heart lies buried like something dead.
How long can I let my mind moulder in this place?
Wherever I turn, wherever I look,
I see the black ruins of my life, here,
where I’ve spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.”
You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore.
This city will always pursue you.
You’ll walk the same streets, grow old
in the same neighborhoods, turn gray in these same houses.
You’ll always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere:
there’s no ship for you, there’s no road.
Now that you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner,
you’ve destroyed it everywhere in the world.
(As translated by Edmund Keeley)
phoebe912's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
dajna's review against another edition
3.0
E' da pochi anni che ho riscoperto Bassani. Certo, ho letto Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini - come tutti - ma non avevo esplorato oltre la sua bibliografia.
E' delicata, la scrittura di Bassani. In questi cinque racconti incontriamo cinque vite che si snodano dentro le mura di Ferrara poco dopo la fine della II guerra mondiale: potrebbe sembrare che la città faccia da sfondo, invece diventa la protagonista silenziosa che fa compagnia a persone dignitosamente tristi. Non c'è il lieto fine, semmai Bassani attesta quella capacità umana di adattarsi alle situazioni spiacevoli con i mezzi che si hanno a disposizione.
Iniziamo con una ragazza madre, status ancora stigmatizzante, che si rifà una vita; passiamo a un matrimonio tra classi sociali diverse; a una socialista uscita dal carcere e imprigionata dalla vecchiaia; a un sopravvissuto a Buchenwald; al pavido testimone di una strage. Mi sono organizzata in modo da poter leggere ogni racconto in un'unica volta, perché sarebbe un peccato spezzare la fluidità della lettura che Bassani ci regala. Consiglio di fare altrettanto.
E' delicata, la scrittura di Bassani. In questi cinque racconti incontriamo cinque vite che si snodano dentro le mura di Ferrara poco dopo la fine della II guerra mondiale: potrebbe sembrare che la città faccia da sfondo, invece diventa la protagonista silenziosa che fa compagnia a persone dignitosamente tristi. Non c'è il lieto fine, semmai Bassani attesta quella capacità umana di adattarsi alle situazioni spiacevoli con i mezzi che si hanno a disposizione.
Iniziamo con una ragazza madre, status ancora stigmatizzante, che si rifà una vita; passiamo a un matrimonio tra classi sociali diverse; a una socialista uscita dal carcere e imprigionata dalla vecchiaia; a un sopravvissuto a Buchenwald; al pavido testimone di una strage. Mi sono organizzata in modo da poter leggere ogni racconto in un'unica volta, perché sarebbe un peccato spezzare la fluidità della lettura che Bassani ci regala. Consiglio di fare altrettanto.
jerrylwei's review against another edition
4.0
Within the Walls, collection of five short stories, opens The Novel of Ferrara, a collection of Giorgio Bassani's novels and short story collections set in a Ferrara changed by WWII.
Bassani writes in dense prose, at times with page-long paragraphs. His stories demand your attention. And he describes in exquisite detail the landscape, streets, and life of Ferrara. Even so, the precise plotlines of his stories did not stick with me; instead he sets a mood of a city lost in past glory, of people ready to forget, and of those who cannot.
One of those who cannot is Geo Josz, the lone survivor of 183 Ferrarese Jews sent to German death camps in 1943. In A Memorial Tablet in Via Mazzini, Josz's inability to forget, and his strident attempts to make Ferrara remember, turns the Ferrarese against him. Josz's city is lost to him, Ferrara's story had diverged from and had no desire to understand his own.
Bassani writes in dense prose, at times with page-long paragraphs. His stories demand your attention. And he describes in exquisite detail the landscape, streets, and life of Ferrara. Even so, the precise plotlines of his stories did not stick with me; instead he sets a mood of a city lost in past glory, of people ready to forget, and of those who cannot.
One of those who cannot is Geo Josz, the lone survivor of 183 Ferrarese Jews sent to German death camps in 1943. In A Memorial Tablet in Via Mazzini, Josz's inability to forget, and his strident attempts to make Ferrara remember, turns the Ferrarese against him. Josz's city is lost to him, Ferrara's story had diverged from and had no desire to understand his own.
juliaflorence15's review against another edition
4.0
This book contains quite a dark atmosphere, captured in long sentences with many details telling the reader about the town and its history and the current situation in the first half of the 20th Century, especially about fascism during that time.
The 5 stories were all really interesting to read, but I think that my favorite was the one about Lida Montovani, simply because it was the easiest to follow. But there are several other reasons, too, like that I always adore to read about mother-daughter relationships in literature, regardless in which way.
Lastly, I’m sure I will reread this book some time, because I hope to see more I didn’t see by reading it the first time, since these stories have so many layers. I hope this sums up my general feelings and thoughts towards this book.
The 5 stories were all really interesting to read, but I think that my favorite was the one about Lida Montovani, simply because it was the easiest to follow. But there are several other reasons, too, like that I always adore to read about mother-daughter relationships in literature, regardless in which way.
Lastly, I’m sure I will reread this book some time, because I hope to see more I didn’t see by reading it the first time, since these stories have so many layers. I hope this sums up my general feelings and thoughts towards this book.
gh7's review against another edition
5.0
Five short stories all set in Ferrara and all masterfully composed and written. The most memorable perhaps recounts the return to the city of a Jewish man from Mathausen after the war and the discomfort he causes because everyone wants to forget the war and many have a guilty conscience. It's probably the best insight into the relentless struggle to reclaim some semblance of the ordinary survivors of the Holocaust had to go through after the war I've ever read. A lot of the survivor guilt is generated and imposed from without. Another story recounts the massacre of anti-fascist prisoners in the city and the trial after the war to find the guilty parties. A man with paralysed legs who sat by a window throughout the war opposite the wall against which the men were shot holds the key. But it turns out his infirmity was caused by syphilis probably contracted when against his will he was forced at gunpoint to sleep with a whore. Turns out the man who mocked his reluctance to enter the brothel and held the gun to his head is the man on trial. The entire town is breathless with anticipation when he takes the stand.
Bassani is an intellectual writer. His sentences are little jewelled masterpieces of construction. He is brilliant at widening perspective. At finding universal meaning in the particular and parochial. He's also remarkably level headed. Especially when writing about fascist Italy and bearing in mind most of his (Jewish) family were murdered by the Nazis.
Bassani is an intellectual writer. His sentences are little jewelled masterpieces of construction. He is brilliant at widening perspective. At finding universal meaning in the particular and parochial. He's also remarkably level headed. Especially when writing about fascist Italy and bearing in mind most of his (Jewish) family were murdered by the Nazis.