Natalia Ginzburg

 

I was recently recommended the work of the Italian writer Natalia Ginzburg. I didn't know much, if anything, about her, but I was intrigued, and so this week read and finished her Little Virtues. Separated in two parts, this collection of essays and reflections focuses, first, on place, especially on Ginzburg's sense for England, Italy, and Europe in the post-war period. The second part shifts its emphasis to what Ginzburg calls 'human relationships.' This section is primarily interested in experiences of youth, family identity, and friendship. Between the two, I far preferred the first, which contains a number prescient observations regarding English society, in particular. That section also achieves something unusual in terms of its narrative structure: here, Ginzburg constructs a narrative in the first-person, but the effect is something closer to what Rachel Cusk has more recently attempted: a sort of auto-fiction with the author seemingly at the center, but also hovering above, an observer to an intimate unfolding of events. The second portion of Little Virtues read a bit too didactically for me, with a number of suggestions regarding parenting, for instance, which seemed too prescriptive (and, in some ways, too political). That said, though, the whole of Little Virtues was a refreshing read, and a potent reminder of life's wonders. The final sentence, often quoted, says it all: a love of life does, indeed, beget a love of life.