A review by shankar
Nives by Sacha Naspini

emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective slow-paced

4.0

Nives is a short novel by Italian writer Sacha Naspini newly translated into English. This story pulled my attention with its upright humour, unexpected secrets, and poignancy. It’s worth mentioning that it was an unusual read for me. I even watched YouTube videos of hypnotising a Chicken. Not to ignore the fact, almost all the novel consists of a long-lasting phone conversation.

The story follows a 66 years old woman, Nives, who falls into despair after her husband unexpected death. After rejecting a suggestion to join her daughter’s family in France, Nives suffers maddening loneliness until she brings a chicken with a chewed-up claw named Giacomina in her life. Then Giacomina becomes paralysed while watching a Tide TV commercial, and terrified Nives calls the vet and her old friend Loriano Bottai for advice. What follows is a lengthy phone conversation of two old insomniac in the middle of the night. Their argument about the chicken’s condition soon leads to banter about Loriano’s wife snoring to his upstairs neighbor Pagliuchi’s long-ago youthful affair with Rosa, a girl who threw herself from the church belfry. 

The whole novel is constructed around the dialogue of these two characters. A whole history unveils in a single dialogue swathed in  comedy, banter, and pathos. The story felt a bit slow to me but the resolution was superb. I have to say the translation is a bit too idiomatic for me but it’s not the problem. A bitter, cynical, at time a humorous look at the life of an old widow. Highly recommended.

𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐞𝐭𝐆𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐲, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐄𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐚 𝐄𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐑𝐂 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐦𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐞𝐱𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐧.