Separations: Mothers and Children

Rating:
Summary: The looking glass fascist
Review: Readers of Martin Seymour-Smith's invaluable, but suprsingly unappreciated, "Guide to 20th Century Literature," are aware of certain writers of high talent who have yet to be translated into English. When Seymour-Smith's book appeared in 1985 these included Roberto Arlt, Jose Maria Arguedas, and Massimo Bontempelli. Now two of Bontempelli's strange works have appeared in translation. The novels are strange, it is (or should be) a commonplace that they prefigure magic realism. Estelle Gilson, the translator, has provided us with a brief introduction. She does not really discuss the style of the context of the books very much, but she does tell us how this supporter of Fascism criticized its aggressive and beligerent tone in 1938, as well as the race laws. He had a Jewish nephew who joined the American army and helped to liberate Buchenwald. He was apparently threatened with death by the Fascists during the Republic of Salo and was elected a pro-Communist senator in 1948, only for his election to be annuled because of his fascist ties.

The two novels were written in the late twenties. "The Boy with Two Mothers," is the more openly supernatural of the two. It is a story of reincarnation, and the title is deceiving since the boy never recognizes more than one mother at a time. Once the conceit is understood, the novel is less interesting as a fantastic tale, than as the story and determination of Luciana Veracina. As the mother of the boy before he was reincarnated she is an interesting portait of a strong ruthless woman who will do anything for her child, and for her sense of motherhood, ignoring both the boy's father and his current mother. She is resourceful, independent, cunning, rather callous towards other people's feelings, and much more impressive than her son's other mother. One is tempted to see a portrait of a fascist woman, or more accurately the portrait of a fascist as a woman. And yet women in Fascist Italy are supposed to support Fascist men, not be Fascist men. And yet that does not fully appreciate the irony of the ending.

"The Life and Death of Adria and Her Children," is less supernatural, and more interesting. Adria is not unlike Luciana, but in her case she has dedicated herself to preserving her beauty at all costs, while ignoring her husband and two children. When she realizes that decline is inevitable she goes to a mansion, isolates herself from all humanity and from all mirrors except one hidden and not to be used for twelve years. If there is any moral in her story, and the death of her two children (one who both lives and dies as it were) it is not obvious, and not one that Adria ever cares to learn. The style is more interesing and more memorable: "Boundless vacuity emanated from her singsong lamentation and shone in her suffering, childlike face" he says of one character. Adria is one day on the beach: "She listens to tender words, idiotic words, words as frivolous as flies. And like swarms of flies, men and women cross the sands, buzzing as they flit to the edge of the sea, holding hands in a line like strings of paper dolls." In this little known volume, there is a work of an important writer, an undiscovered Italian master as it were.

Rating:
Summary: Imaginative, charming, humorus, ironic, engaging writing.
Review: Separations presents two major works by Italian novelist Massimo Bontempelli under one cover. The subject of both novels are mothers and their children. Imaginative writing, charming, humorous, ironic, and totally engaging, "The Boy with Two Mothers" and "The Life and Death of Adria and Her Children" present a cast of unforgettable characters spread across a literary canvas of European socio-political upheaval. Highly recommended reading, Separations will admirable serve to introduce a major Italian literary novelist to an appreciative American readership.