Literary reviews by Tim Love.
Warning: Rather than reviews, these are often notes in preparation for reviews that were never finished, or pleas for help with understanding pieces. See Litref Reviews - a rationale for details.

Saturday 21 June 2014

"Se chiedi al vento di restare" by Paola Cereda (Piemme, 2014)

Spoiler Warning

On a little island without a name a woman dies giving birth to her first-born, Agata, who after an undistinguished childhood looks after her father and works in the port's cafe.

There's little on the island except for a prison called "il Monte". The prison boss, "il Bianco", eats at the cafe. One night he asks for a meal. The cook's away so Agata invents a sauce that becomes popular. il Bianco celebrates the anniversary of the prison by inviting a famous circus. On the night of the performance Agata, who's not beautiful, sleeps with Dumitru (the name means "lover of the earth" - he likes Agata's bare feet). The circus leaves, but Dumitru soon returns. He and Agata live in sin, outraging the island's "pious women", several of whom are cynical about love. Dumitru wasn't born into a circus family, and hadn't long joined the circus but he has a love of animals, especially a horse Rosso. At the circus he'd been engaged to marry Sterlina Vallone, the boss's daughter.

Agata buys out the cafe, has a child called "Isola", a mute who likes sewing, and who has the power to predict deaths. She resembles a statue in the church and becomes known as "L'Annunciata". Dumitru buys back the horses he performed with and eventually builds a permanent circus.

Meanwhile the prison closes. A mainland official, Angelo Greco ("il Greco"), who'd been invited to the circus event becomes an entrepreneur and converts the prison into a hotel. He transforms the island into a tourist destination, bringing in people to manage things, exploiting the islanders. The priest who has excommunicated Agate is on his side.

il Greco invites the circus back 10 years after its first visit to christen the island on St Elmo's day. Sterlina has become famous and will be the celebrity guest, but she decides to arrive in disguise, her cousin acting as her double. Sterlina watches Dumitru's show.

The "pious women" of the island plan a revolution, disrupting the baptism ceremony with the help of a statue stolen from the church. At home Agata hears her daughter speak for the first time. She summons the winds. A storm suddenly rages, Sterlina's double drowns. il Greco suspects Isola, rushes to confront her and dies. The storm abates. Dumitru tells the police that he killed il Greco. He's taken to a distant prison, run by no other than il Bianco. Agata stops making her sauce.

The island becomes unpopular. Agata has saved up enough to buy back properties for the islanders. Hotels are demolished. The "pious women" of the island realise that the gipsy Dumitru had many christian attributes after all, and that Agata could be the island's saviour. Agata gets Sterlina to start a circus school which will support the island. A committee of women organise matters.

The final chapter's in the first person from Agata's viewpoint. Isola had put on the blue dress which was all that Agata had of her mother, then died. She was Greco's daughter, the result of a rape. The book ends with a recipe.

The book has strong elements of fable/allegory (Agata's hair goes white at childbirth, etc) and destiny/archetype, though it's set in the mid to late 1900s. The reader's encouraged to read symbolically in various ways

  • There are few descriptions (though meals receive much attention).
  • Several phrases that devalue appearance are repeated: that beauty can't be bought, that "good" isn't the same as "beautiful", that to live you need a dream, and that the sauce recipe must remain a secret.
  • Though the island may be nameless, people's names may have a significance over and above what we're told. il Bianco is compared to a communist, Ermete and Onorate Vallone are Sterlina's father and brother respectively, and the choice of "Sterlina" (and "il Greco") might not be accidental. Allusions abound -

    • "Sterlina knew how to stay in equilibrium between illusion and lies with the same concentration with which she once walked the tight-rope" (p.169)
    • Sterlina says "the circus is a space suspended between perfection and error" (p.208)

Compare/contrast binaries are abundant too - the static island vs itinerant circuses; paradise island vs prison; names and anonymity; duty vs love; chance vs fate; the ringmaster's suit Dumitru was given vs the blue dress.

The politics aren't complex, on a character level Dumitru's obsessions aren't convincing, and Agata's father disappears completely for a long while, but as fate-driven fable I think the novel works well - characters who aren't popular with the masses turn out to have inner goodness, love conquers all, and at the end the situation's restored to much the way it was before the outside world interfered.

[for corrections to the above, see the comments]

2 comments:

  1. Gentile Tim,
    mi permetto di risponderle in italiano, lingua che, ne sono certo, conosce perfettamente.
    Ho apprezzato molto l'interesse manifestato verso un'autrice italiana emergente come Paola Cereda, ancor più considerando la modesta attezione che l'editoria anglosassone in genere ha per gli Autori di lingua non inglese ancor più se emergenti.
    Detto questo mi permetto di sottoporle alcune considerazioni riguardo al libro da lei recensito "Se chiedi al vento di restare" di Paola Cereda.
    Lei sostiene che Agata fin dalle prime battute "dorma" con Dumitru, sottendendo un rapporto intimo tra i due che in realtà non è mai esplicitato. Ciò può essere vero -in parte- sebbene lo ritenga non essenziale ai fini della storia. La loro relazione si nutre di passione, di cose non dette, di quel filo sottile e a volte effimero che lega due persone che si innamorano ma che molto hanno da imparare dall'amore.
    La natura nel libro ha grande spazio. Le descrizioni ci sono, sanno di Mediterraneo, vanno ben oltre le pagine dedicate alla famosa salsa. Le ho respirate a fondo; da isolano (nativo di un'isola del Mediterraneo) ho apprezzato la capacità dell'autrice di di dar vita a personaggi che hanno fatto parte del mio vissuto, del vissuto di tutti coloro che sono nati in riva al Mediterraneo.
    Il Bianco NON E' un COMUNISTA!!! Non capisco quale significato ha questa parola per lei e cosa comporti chi si merita tale appellativo. Il Bianco è una persona dotata di elevata sensibilità, che apprezza il bello, che ha rispetto per le sensibilità altrui, un uomo dotato di spirito, a suo modo un provocatore e un anti conformista. Non mi risulta che tali caratteristiche siano proprie del pensiero comunista, ancor di più della sua espressione reale. Se così fosse sono un comunista e mi piacerebbe ce ne fossero di più in giro.
    Piccola svista: Ermete è il nonno di Sterlina, Onorato ne è il padre. Non padre e fratello rispettivamente.
    Infine Signor Tim, quando si recensisce un libro, è, anzi sarebbe buona norma non svelarne fino in fondo la storia. E' sintomo di scarsa attenzione e considerazione per il lettore e per lo stesso Autore. Insomma non si fa, a lei piacerebbe se le svelassero il finale di un film o di un libro ancor prima di vederlo o leggerlo?
    D'accordo questo è il suo blog e può fare quello che vuole però la prossima volta ci pensi.
    Cordialmente
    nnurra



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  2. Many thanks for the corrections. I thought il Bianco was compared to a communist in the book, but my Italian's not good. And I get confused about the names for relatives even in English.

    I began with "Spoiler Warning" to warn people about the nature of the write-up.

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