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A review by literarycrushes
Last Summer in the City by Gianfranco Calligarich
5.0
Last Summer in the City is a beautifully melancholic love letter to Rome, though their relationship is often unrequited. Leo, an alcoholic drifter, has managed to get through life on luck and friendship. The summer in question is that of his thirtieth birthday, and he feels on the cusp of something. At the start of the book, he is sober (though going in and out of dry spells is a recurring pattern), though his life is pure hedonist chaos – from a newspaper job he rarely shows up for to passing out and coming to days later. Then he meets Arianna, and his life spins from kooky to downright crazy.
Arianna is very much an Italian manic pixie dream girl archetype. She spends languorous days napping, swimming and considering the idea of studying architecture, while her nights consist of quarreling with her sister Eva or playing with her ever-present deck of solitaire. The two fall instantly in love – though they’d each rather die than let the other know their true feelings – and spend their days and nights driving through the streets of Rome, from long afternoons at checked-tableclothed cafes to staying up until sunrise, sampling the freshest bread straight from the baker’s hands. It’s all so gorgeous, yet there is an undertone of warning that pulses just beneath the novel’s surface, cautioning that this kind of life (this luck!) cannot sustain itself, driving the story forward.
Originally published in 1973, this novel was only translated into English in 2021 (sadly, the author’s only work to have been done so yet). Andre Aciman wrote the foreword, which seemed apt as both authors are brilliant at writing about desire, both of desire for other people (often the thwarted kind) and for love of one’s city. This novel is likely not for everyone, but I absolutely loved it, not least of all for lines like: “I opened a book and tried to give myself over to that persuasive inner voice with which we all read. A voice is different for each of us if each of our souls are different, identical if identical, but in every case perfect, with no false notes, the untrained voice we perhaps have before we come screaming into the world. “
Arianna is very much an Italian manic pixie dream girl archetype. She spends languorous days napping, swimming and considering the idea of studying architecture, while her nights consist of quarreling with her sister Eva or playing with her ever-present deck of solitaire. The two fall instantly in love – though they’d each rather die than let the other know their true feelings – and spend their days and nights driving through the streets of Rome, from long afternoons at checked-tableclothed cafes to staying up until sunrise, sampling the freshest bread straight from the baker’s hands. It’s all so gorgeous, yet there is an undertone of warning that pulses just beneath the novel’s surface, cautioning that this kind of life (this luck!) cannot sustain itself, driving the story forward.
Originally published in 1973, this novel was only translated into English in 2021 (sadly, the author’s only work to have been done so yet). Andre Aciman wrote the foreword, which seemed apt as both authors are brilliant at writing about desire, both of desire for other people (often the thwarted kind) and for love of one’s city. This novel is likely not for everyone, but I absolutely loved it, not least of all for lines like: “I opened a book and tried to give myself over to that persuasive inner voice with which we all read. A voice is different for each of us if each of our souls are different, identical if identical, but in every case perfect, with no false notes, the untrained voice we perhaps have before we come screaming into the world. “