The City and the House

The City and the House is a very readable epistolary novel about a group of friends who slowly drift apart. While it seems to be superficially about the small and large events in the lives of several people, the book’s underlying topics include the importance of not just individual friendships, but a community, the constant yearning for the past which often becomes idealized and the ability of people to form new social circles which take the place of family and older bonds – often imperfect, but not less important.

The main characters are Lucrezia, a married woman with an ever-growing number of children and a placidly indifferent husband, her former lover and now friend Giuseppe, whose move to America propels the exchange of show more letters, and their circle of friends and relatives who constantly hang around Lucrezia and Piero’s house, Le Margherite. After the couple sells the house, they – and all they friends – come to think of it (as well as the past) as a lost paradise that they all vainly try to recreate. But though many of their new relationships are driven by propinquity rather than like feeling, they are nonetheless important. While many others will comment on the unsuitability of this or that lover or spouse, the characters usually stick with them and are generally accepting. This may be more inertia than anything else, but the importance of even the ill-suited connections isn’t denied. Occasionally, a new relationship can spark and bring happiness for a while even if they don’t last.

The epistolary format certainly seems nostalgic now (emails, Facebook etc) even though the characters will sometimes refer to phone conversations that they had. It does, however, heighten the impact of the announcement of various events – pregnancies, deaths, marriages. Though the reader might not be familiar with some character who has just been mentioned in a letter (since they never appeared as a letter-writer), they can recognize the impact that it will have on a central character.

The dissolution of many old relationships occurs sadly but naturally as the friends and relatives drift away. They all remember Le Margherite wistfully, but it was not perfect at the time. Lucrezia was a serial adulterer and even the rift between her and Giuseppe, due to her breaking off their relationship, hasn’t been fully mended. He denies that he’s the father of one of her children (his least favorite, he constantly mentions) while she firmly asserts that he is. Their other friends also had the usual tensions and character problems that will crop up in any group of people – the romantic tension between Albina and Egisto (which both blame on the other), Egisto’s natural anti-social tendencies, Serena’s self-centered outlook on life.

After the breakup of the Le Margherite group, Albina drifts away to her family and a conventional if unsatisfying life, Egisto makes an effort to befriend his neighbors – Giuseppe’s son and his roommates, and Serena finds a new group to support her actor/artist ambitions and rather coldly leaves everyone else behind. Lucrezia’s latest affair is seen by all (as well as the reader) as likely to end in implosion and Giuseppe makes an ill-matched marriage of convenience.

Good but quietly sad. show less

Giuseppe leaves Italy for Princeton, New Jersey where his newlywed brother has promised him a teacher of Biology position. Cousin Roberta keeps him up to date on what has happened to his apartment since the new neighbors moved in. She also supplies very gossipy reports on the doings of Giuseppe's movie-maker son, Alberico and exlover, Lucrezia. But, Giuseppe and Roberta are not the only ones in communication. Letters confirming and denying gossip and truth fly back and forth between various friends, lovers, and family. The different perspectives remind me of Michael Dorris's Yellow Raft in Blue Water.
Confessional: In the beginning I had to keep a notebook of all the characters writing back and forth to one another; the correspondence show more of family members referencing other family members, neighbors, and friends all flowed back and forth like a storm-tossed tide. But like any written correspondence there are gaps in information and speculation fills those gaps. Is Lucrezia in love with Ignazio Fegiz? She can barely stand to write his name. Hints becomes reality. It was interesting to see the cycle of relationships, people moving back to one another while others move on entirely. show less

La ciudad y la casa es una novela peculiar, que se desgrana a través de las voces de amigos, amantes, hijos y padres, pero nadie se atreve a mostrar sus emociones a flor de piel. La vida entera de estos hombres y mujeres queda filtrada por la escritura, por unas cartas que dicen tanto como esconden.

Los viejos apartamentos de Roma, los pequeños estudios de Princeton o unas fincas de campo que ya nadie quiere cuidar son testigos vivos de un ir y venir de baúles, papeles viejos, libros queridos y palabras a medio decir que conforman una historia espléndida en su desolación y en la búsqueda terca de una verdad que no caduque.

Podríamos hablar de una novela epistolar, pero La ciudad y la casa es mucho más que eso: la gran Natalia show more Ginzburg nos habla aquí del fin de una familia, de la crisis de los valores tradicionales, del vacío que se instala en el ánimo y en las casas que habitamos cuando ya no hay razón para conservar lo que antes parecía importante.

Con su estilo sobrio y poético a la vez, la autora italiana consigue cabalgar el tiempo: aunque hayan pasado más de treinta años, esas ciudades y esas casas nos traen algo que se queda con cada uno de sus lectores.

«Tú una casa la puedes vender o dejar a quien te dé la gana, pero siempre la llevas contigo.»
Natalia Ginzburg show less

Tota la novel·la es basa en l'intercanvi epistolar, que dura un parell d'anys, que mantenen 8 o 10 personatges que són entre ells, amics, amants i parents, als inicis dels anys vuitanta (abans de l'era Internet).
Les cartes, per correu ordinari, tarden a arribar, reiteren notícies o en donen versions particulars. Molt entretinguda, positiva, ben retratats els personatges i les situacions personals que viuen són de caire universal (desamors fraterns i conjugals, adulteris, soledats i inseguretats...), molt entenedores.
Llàstima que l'edició, molt antiga, necessite una correcció ortotipogràfica. Hi ha pàgines que trobes cinc o sis errades, i això resulta molest. Una història per llegir a l'estiu, agradable i distreta. És show more l'últim llibre que va publicar, ja que va faltar l'any 1991.

Info sobre l'escriptora palermitana Natalia Ginzburg (nascuda Levi) (1916-1991): https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalia_Ginzburg show less

Novel.la epistolar entre un grup d'amics desde Itàlia als EU on ha marxat a viure un d'ells