Author, Book review, Cesare Pavese, Fiction, Italy, literary fiction, Penguin, Publisher, Setting, translated fiction

‘The Beautiful Summer’ by Cesare Pavese (translated by W.J. Strachan)

kimbofo

Fiction – paperback; Penguin; 112 pages; 2018. Translated from the Italian by W.J. Strachan.

The Beautiful Summer by Cesare Pavese (1908-1950) won Italy’s most prestigious literary award, the Strega Prize for fiction, in 1950. (The author sadly died by suicide a couple of months later.)

It’s the story of a teenage girl whose friendship with an older woman draws her into a bohemian artistic community in 1930s Turin, showing her an alternative way of life.

It has been reissued as part of Penguin’s European Writers series.

A girl’s life

Sixteen-year-old Ginia works at a dressmakers and lives with her brother, Severino, a nightshift worker, for whom she cooks and cleans.

To alleviate the mundane nature of her work and home life, she’s keen to go “gadding about”, as she describes it, so when she develops a friendship with 20-year-old Amelia who works as an artists’ model, her social life opens up. They go to dance halls, visit cafes and see films at the local movie house. But there’s always tension between them, because Ginia is cautious, whereas Amelia throws that all to the wind.

In public, Amelia dares to go bare-legged (because she can’t afford to buy stockings), making Ginia anxious and worried about what people might say. Yet this also holds an allure for her, because she’s fascinated by Amelia’s way of being in the world, her freedom and her carefree attitude.

‘Being free in the world in the way I am, makes me mad,’ said Amelia. Ginia would have gladly paid money to hear her hold forth so eagerly on many things which she liked, because real confidence consists in knowing what the other person wants and when someone else is pleased by the same things, you no longer feel in awe of her. (page 14)

Loss of innocence

In her short introduction to the novella, Elizabeth Strout explains that Pavese described it as “the story of a virginity that defends itself”. For most of the book, Ginia acts chastely but she’s fascinated by the adults around her and wages an internal battle to overcome her disgust and shame associated with what she sees and what she wants to experience for herself. She knows she has power over men but is fearful of wielding it.

When Amelia gets a new job posing naked for an artist, Ginia asks to watch, not for any voyeuristic tendencies but to observe the artist at work.

They discussed the question for a short part of the walk and Amelia laughed because, dressed or undressed, a model can only be of interest to men and hardly to another girl. The model merely stands there: what is there to see? Ginia said she wanted to see the artist paint her; she had never seen anyone handling colours and it must be nice to watch. (page 12)

When she gets to watch the proceedings, she finds she’s disgusted by the whole sexual objectification of her friend and her friend’s inability to understand that this is what is happening.

Once more she saw Amelia’s swarthy belly in that semi-darkness, that very ordinary face and those drooping breasts. Surely a woman offered a better subject dressed? If painters wanted to do them in the nude, they must have ulterior motives. Why did they not draw from male models? Even Amelia when disgracing herself in that way became a different person; Gina was almost in tears. (page 23)

Later, Amelia introduces her to two artists, Guido and Rodrigues, who share a studio. Ginia is intrigued by the enigmatic Guido, a soldier who is an artist in his spare time, and a love affair develops — ushering her into a more complex adult world.

Compelling novella

The Beautiful Summer has a simple set-up and follows a predictable outcome. But it’s written in such a rich, lyrical language, with an undercurrent of suspense and danger, it makes for a compelling read.

Strout suggests there are hints of Elena Ferrante in the narrative style, to which I concur. Its depiction of female friendship, including its petty rivalries, quarrels and sharing of confidences, is pitch-perfect, and I loved the melancholia at its heart.

It not only explores themes of youth, desire and loss of innocence, but it also poses questions about the male gaze, sexual objectification and women’s position in Italian society at the time. It demands a reread to properly unpick it, but has certainly made me keen to explore more of Pavase’s work — I read, and loved, The House on the Hill last year.

Published by kimbofo

I am a book obsessive who has been charting my reading life online since the early 2000s.

20 thoughts on “‘The Beautiful Summer’ by Cesare Pavese (translated by W.J. Strachan)”

  1. Oh, I’ve got this too (in my pile of novellas that are sulking on the shelf because I haven’t read any of them for a while).

    So I’ll come back and read this later, but having peeked at your last paragraphs, I’ll move it up the pile.

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    1. It’s a quick read, Lisa. My only complaint is that the font size is tiny and I’ve got to the age where I need to read in bright daylight by a window (or outside) otherwise I can’t see a damn thing.

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          2. Nah, just my short sightedness morphing into long sightedness. I have multi focal glasses / contact lenses. I also have a LOT of floaters in my right eye after I had a vitreous detachment about 18 months ago… it’s like having flies in my eye but it doesn’t affect my reading or close work, only if I look into the distance 🤷🏻‍♀️

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          4. PS For the floaters, try Cationorm eyedrops, recommended by my specialist. You can get them on a PBS script, but you don’t need one because you can buy the vials off script from a chemist and they are easier and more portable to use.  They are for dry eye, but I find that they somehow break up (or dissolve?) the floaters, a bit.

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  2. I am aware that Cesare Pavese is someone who’s long been on my Must Read list. You sparked my interest until I read all those comments about Small Print. I too have reached That Age when it matters…

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    1. Yes, it’s annoying… I don’t know why publishers do it other than to perhaps keep costs down (i.e. they can squeeze more words onto a page and therefore cut the page count down)

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    1. I didn’t like the first one in Ferrante’s Neapolitan series so didn’t bother finishing the trilogy, but I have read and enjoyed her standalone novels, especially The Lost Daughter.

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  5. I was recommended this book in a little book store in Lucca Italy when I was there two years ago. I like to read books written by authors in the places I am travelling in (when I am not reading my book club book or others that I have piled up). 

    I loved the rich texture of the story, as you say it depicts so wonderfully life in Italy at the time, but it was also really easy to identify with the characters and their journey, which reflects maturity into adulthood and how similar those relationships and emotions are to those which I felt, and I see my daughter experiencing now, regardless of the era or geographic location in which we experience them.

    Anyway, I have just stumbled onto your site, so I am off to explore and see what else you have read recently.

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    1. Thanks for your comment, Rach, and pleased to have you stumble upon my site!

      I imagine that reading this book in Italy would add to the experience. I read a lot of Italian novels of this era last year and it had me itching to plan a road trip to visit some of the places mentioned in the stories.

      If you liked the style/themes/setting of this one, you might also like the work of Natalia Ginzburg, if you haven’t already discovered her.

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