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A review by candelibri
Family Lexicon by Natalia Ginzburg
emotional
funny
informative
fast-paced
4.5
This is perfectly lovely. A memoir that reads like fiction, it becomes even more special as you get to meet the members of her family against the backdrop of fascist Italy.
Mr. Levi is a bombastic, arrogant, lovable (slightly racist) bully. Easily calling people jackasses in his frustration, you could make a drinking game out of how many times he wakes his wife to tell her something “in the middle of the night.” It does not excuse Mr. but rather showcases his flaws (telling his children to keep to their manners instead of acting up is done by telling them not to “be Negroes”) so that you are fully aware of the character that dominates the majority of the book. Without him, there would be an obvious hole.
Mrs. Levi dismisses much of Mr.’s tantrums with indifferent affection that endears the both of them to you even more yet we do not learn much about her, except a few catchphrases - affectionately calling her maid “Louis the Eleventh” and the sulfuric fart story.
We meet the rest of Natalia’s family, her brothers and sister and their spouses. We run into Pavese and Natalia’s husband. While the entirety is told with strong doses of humor (honestly, I laughed so often) by the last chapters we are brought back to stark reality of Mussolini’s Italy that was not as full of light and joy as this book is.
If there was another title, I’d say this could be called “Love and Fault” - she loves those in her circle but she doesn’t shy away from exposing their faults. As she did with her father, she spends time examining Pavese with the same unrelenting writing yet this time, the sorrow is present from the reader’s perspective.
This may be one of my favorites from her.
Mr. Levi is a bombastic, arrogant, lovable (slightly racist) bully. Easily calling people jackasses in his frustration, you could make a drinking game out of how many times he wakes his wife to tell her something “in the middle of the night.” It does not excuse Mr. but rather showcases his flaws (telling his children to keep to their manners instead of acting up is done by telling them not to “be Negroes”) so that you are fully aware of the character that dominates the majority of the book. Without him, there would be an obvious hole.
Mrs. Levi dismisses much of Mr.’s tantrums with indifferent affection that endears the both of them to you even more yet we do not learn much about her, except a few catchphrases - affectionately calling her maid “Louis the Eleventh” and the sulfuric fart story.
We meet the rest of Natalia’s family, her brothers and sister and their spouses. We run into Pavese and Natalia’s husband. While the entirety is told with strong doses of humor (honestly, I laughed so often) by the last chapters we are brought back to stark reality of Mussolini’s Italy that was not as full of light and joy as this book is.
If there was another title, I’d say this could be called “Love and Fault” - she loves those in her circle but she doesn’t shy away from exposing their faults. As she did with her father, she spends time examining Pavese with the same unrelenting writing yet this time, the sorrow is present from the reader’s perspective.
This may be one of my favorites from her.