A review by frejola
La famiglia Manzoni by Maria Corti, Natalia Ginzburg

4.0

Ginzburg curated for this book the most interesting bits of the most interesting letters sent by the Manzoni family to one another, until Manzoni and all his children passed away. Alessandro Manzoni wrote one of my favorite books, I promessi sposi, certainly one of the literary pinnacles of romanticism. So I was curious. But once I started, I was compelled to read until the end. This compilation of letters paints an unforgettable picture of everyday life in the 1800s, all its difficulties
and bitterness. It also shows the big change from the classicism and witticism of the 1700s, to a very sweet, sentimental way of being in the world. It also made me apprehend an entire life, in a way that I had never done before. A terrific project of Ginzburg, I should now explore the rest of her work.