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Conversations in Bolzano
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More reviews by Peter Gordon
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Conversations in Bolzano by Sandor Marai
The past few years have witnessed the discovery of numerous species -- from pigmy mammoths on Wrangel Island to diminutive versions of Homo erectus in Flores -- which survived, albeit reduced in stature, considerably beyond what we assumed their epoch to have been. Among these we might count SANDOR MARAI, the Hungarian writer whose novels read like the classics of nineteenth century, yet were written closer to the middle of the twentienth century, and are only just now appearing in English, the first being the very appropriately named Embers.
If you thought you had read everything from Turgenev to Stendahl, Marai will be an eye-opener.
CONVERSATIONS IN BOLZANO tells the story of ten days or so in the life of a Venetian libertine, whom one might recognize as Giacomo Casanova, a recognition that is irrelevant and largely distracting, in the mid-1700s. He has escaped from prison with a rogue friar, his friend and secretary.
It was in Bolzano where he fought a duel with the Duke of Parma, over the hand of Francesca, the only woman Giacomo ever loved. Or did he? He arrives in Parma penniless, begs and gambles his way to a stake, becomes a local celebrity and re-encouters the Duke and Duchess of Parma.
Such are the bare bones of the plot, and a bare bones plot it is too, for this novel takes place in the mind and takes the form of long, and on occasion long-winded, dialogues, soliloquies and meditations.
CONVERSATIONS IN BOLZANO has received decided mixed reviews, with America's Publisher's Weekly calling it "intolerably tedious" and Kirkus Reviews calling it "self-indulgent rant". Reviewers on the other side of the Atlantic, generally hold a different view: The Times calls it "extraordinary" and "gracefully subversive", The Guardian "eloquent and fast-moving".
There must be something special about a novel that can be referred simultaneously as "tedious" and "fast-moving".
My view? That Marai's critics don't get it: Marai has written a psychological novel about characters that follow their lives' convictions to their logical conclusions, only to find the destination inherently contradictory: love both enhances and tears down self-worth, self-examination leads to truth and nothing, that pride requires humiliation. It reminded me of Pirandello.
And those long-winded passages? Mere decoration, like the masks and costumes of the Venetian balls that Giacomo and the Duke frequented. The language is glorious, but meant to be stripped away.
Peter Gordon
05/12/2004
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Peter Gordon is editor of The Asian Review of Books. |
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