The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Bassani, Giorgio

197 Pages·1965·0.99 MB·Italian

by  Giorgio Bassani

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
by
Giorgio Bassani
In as dense and as charged a world as that of Marcel Proust, Giorgio Bassani
tells the story of a tentative, hesitant love between two adolescents, set against
the background of Fascist Italy and the ducal town of Ferrara, with its
fascinating Jewish community.
The Finzi-Contini family, rich, refined and set apart, fascinated the narrator
from his earliest childhood, and then one day he and Micol—that flaxen-haired,
brilliantly alive, subtle half-child—finally meet. When racist rulings isolate the
social life of theJews, they are drawn closer, till the almost inevitable end in a
concentration camp.
Hailed as a masterpiece in every European country, it was not only
acclaimed as a first-rate work of literature, but it replaced The Leopard as the
most successful Italian book of recent times. Micol is as engaging a heroine as
Tolstoy’s Natasha, and this little world so subtly and lovingly described draws
you in as did Proust’s Paris. This is the work of a master stylist; the overtones
and undertones haunt and linger. But the charm and humanity of the characters
have the direct impact of great art.
Born in Bologna in 1916 of a Ferrarese family, Giorgio Bassani spent the
first twenty-seven years of his life in Ferrara, the scene of this novel.
He was a founder of the Action Party in 1942, was imprisoned and was freed
after the fall of Mussolini. From its founding in 1948 until 1960, Bassani was
an editor of the international review . For many years he was an
BOTTEGHE OSCURE
editor for a Milanese publisher, where he brought out, among other books,
THE
, and taught history of the theatre at the Italian National Academy for
LEOPARD
Dramatic Arts. He is now one of the two vice-presidents of Radiotele-visione
Italiana.
Bassani has written three novels: ’ ( -
GLI OCCHIALI D ORO THE GOLD RIMMED
), which appeared in English in 1960; -CONTINI
SPECTACLES IL GIARDINO DEI FINZI
( GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINIS); and, most recently,
THE DIETRO LA
. He has also written a book of long short stories, - , and
PORTA LE STORIE FER RARESI
a collection of poems, ' , as well as essays and literary criticism
L ALBA AI VETRI
which have not yet been collected into a volume.
In 1956 he won the Strega Prize with FERRARESI. THE
LE STORIE
GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINIS achieved the greatest popular success of
any Italian book in recent years, and won the 1962 Viareggio Prize.
THE GARDEN OF THE
FINZI-CONTINIS
GIORGIO BASSANI
THE GARDEN OF THE
FINZI-CONTINIS
Translated from the Italian by Isabel Quigly
ATHENEUM
New York
1965
To Micol
Certo, il wore, chi gli da retta, ha sempre qualche cosa da dire su quello che
sard. Ma che sa il wore? Appena un poco di quello che e gia accaduto.
I PROMESSI SPOSI
Of course the heart always has something to say, for one who knows how to hear
it. But what does the heart know? At most, a bit about what is already past.
THE GARDEN OF THE
FINZI-CONTINIS
Foreword
For years I have wanted to write about the Finzi-Continis-about Micol and
Alberto, professor Ermanno and signora Olga - and the others who lived or like
me spent time at the house in Corso Ercole I d’Este, at Ferrara, shortly before the
last war broke out. But the urge, the impulse to get down to doing so, I had only
a year ago, one April Sunday in 1957—
It was during one of the usual week-end outings. A group of us, divided
between two cars, had gone out along the Aurelia highway straight after lunch,
without anything very definite in mind. A few kilometres from Santa Marinella,
attracted by the towers of a medieval castle that sprouted suddenly on the left,
we turned down an unpaved country lane and ended up spread about the desolate
sandy waste at the foot of the castle: which, looked at more closely, was a lot
less medieval than it had promised from a distance, when we saw it from the
highway, outlined against the light, on the dazzling blue expanse of the
Tyrrhenian Sea. Buffeted by the wind, with sand in our eyes, unable even to visit
the inside of the castle without written permission from some God-forsaken
institute in Rome, deafened by the roaring surf, we felt thoroughly irritated and
put out at having left Rome on such a day, which now, at the seaside, turned out
so raw as to be practically wintry.
We walked up and down for about twenty minutes, following the curve of
the beach, the only cheerful one among us being a small girl of nine, the
daughter of the young couple who had brought me in their car. The wind, and
sea, and wildly whirling sand, sent Giannina into transports ofexcitement which,
with her gay, expansive nature, she made no effort to control. Although her
mother tried to stop her, she had taken off her shoes and socks, and kept dashing
up to the waves as they crashed on to the shore, wetting her legs up to the knee.
In fact, she seemed to be enjoying herself no end, so that when we got into the
car again, a bit later, I saw her vivid dark eyes, that glowed above the hot, tender
cheeks, clouded over with obvious disappointment.
Back on the highway, in five minutes we were in sight of the road branching
off to Cerveteri. As we had decided to go straight back to Rome, I was certain
we would carry straight on. But instead, our car slowed down at this point more