At the deathbed of Vincenzina Umbriello sits her daughter Rosa Maiorana. It regards the deceased, talking intently with her. She wants to be the soul closer to her mother, to understand its essence. In a long conversation with her she tells Vincenzinas life story.
This is the basic situation of Wanda Marascos novel “La Compagnia delle anime feint,” a narrative gloss piece between prose and poetry, family epic and psychological profile of individual destinies and the Portrait of an entire city, which holds 2,017 running for the Premio Strega and up mitmischte in the final round of the last five titles.
Rosa a long monologue that stringing together a lot of small scenes from Vincenzinas family history. As an authorial narrator she looks into the inner life of people know their moods and thoughts, their dreams and the ghosts that haunt. Most springs naturally their bold imagination: “Non lo so se questa è la tua vera storia, ma sto imparando a costruirne una che ti somiglia.
” ( ‘-‘. Be venuta dal niente e dalla paura, ma “, mi senti?” Ma ” ‘) as to close, reassurance to seek points of Again and again Rosa turns to the mother. Although her account total follows the chronology, but in detail the short episodes (two or three pages long) are more linked associative. The novel has no division into chapters and no continuous plot.
The life of Vincenzina and her family as we get portrayed on more than one hundred years, it is dramatic, in some ways tragic. There are joyless resumes that do not leave room for warmth and love (not even for friendliness), whose challenges without chances are that do not allow optimism, hopes destroy, demanding harsh determination and renunciation.
They are filled with poverty and suffering, defeat and humiliation, violence, disease and death, they are drawn by strong emotions such as frustration, resentment, jealousy, revenge and hate.
There are two families whose paths fold in March 1946 when Rafele Maiorana, “un vero signore,” the seventeen-year Vincenzina Umbriello met. Their grandmother Adeli spent her life in Villaricca, a rural town a few kilometers north of Naples. Hierarchies and constraints limited thinking and behavior, the meager living conditions dictated austerity and rigor including to the three daughters Iolanda, Vincenzina and Italia. ADELIS soul was hardened. Brutal they counted on her unfaithful husband Biasino off mercilessly drove her prettiest daughter Iolanda out of jealousy and resentment crazy.
In the close environment is Vincenzina a modest but open-minded, strong-willed child. Only Rafele expands their horizons, speaks of the sea, of America. He comes from the academic family Maiorana – doctors, lawyers, land ownership, a palazzo right at the cathedral – but is it a stranger who refuses the pressure to perform. He falls in love with the poor servant Vincenzina, courting her and eventually married her in October 1947 – a mixture of weakness, fear (before Vincenzinas brothers who force the abuser to the marriage vows) and defiance (against its control selfish, scheming mother Lisa who despises the daughter of her life). marked by their respective milieus – both full of constraints – both obtain any personal sovereignty. Like her mother is Vincenzina a hard, disillusioned woman who endures the infidelity of her husband in silence.
The family receives a tiny apartment in miserable Rione Sanità on one of the stairs alleys, lead up to the Capodimonte . The residents are a “compagnia” a common destiny. Here grows Rosa, the narrator on. Teachers Nunziata, “saggio e pazzo” she promotes girlfriend Annarella it demands, and like a Greek chorus accompany “le orche” the gossip women, all outrageous incidents in the area, about the behavior of the boy next door “Mario Maria,” the dear woman would be and finds a tragic end. Confronted early with all the hardships of life, Rosa is fast.
Rafele ill with cancer, his live virtuous woman in debt to a usurer to pay for the drugs. After the early death of her husband, she even begins to lend money. Their business transitions to the unfortunates in the dark bassi the district must Pink accompany them, because they expect and can lead the books.
The survey shows that Vincenzina the focal point of a novel is about women. During the few men appear in weak or indecisive in character questionable, the author says of her protagonists, they were “donne Segnate da una nascita non fortunata, una mala educazione, un arresto della normalità, ma non vittime passive […] tutte since indagare per capire quanto di loro è irreparabilmente Guasto e quanto abbia ancora la qualità umana che il consente mutamento, il progresso “. Mothers and the Church are the true authority of this universe; who rests with them, reaps revenge.
Another protagonist of the novel is Naples. Rarely I have the atmosphere of the city at Vesuvius so close refined as in Marascos novel. He goes deeper and higher, the Royal Mountain Capodimonte on the city with the black pavement ( Basoli ) down into the dark bowels of Napoli Sotteranea , Here, Rosa did not describe the scenes so explicitly. Instead, the inhabitants created the narrow alleys, stairs, studio flats by talking, looking to move. The best scenes are those in which Vincenzina the Cento Scale runs down, their eyes capture everything that is going on here and calling there, and later, when it already darkens, loaded with vegetables and purchases stage to level rises. (That is why the cover, a black and white photo of Piergiorgio Branzi, a real stroke of luck.) Other fascinating percorsi lead down to the harbor or by a hidden basso -Door in the ancient to modern times used underground of the city.
with the slums of the Rione Sanità the sprawling city villa Maiorana on the via Duomo , contrast with their dusty, cheerless, imprisoned distinction and rural scenes in Villaricca, where there are at least sun and a vast sky. The drive-train, there goes through bucolic landscapes and gives the traveler the leisure to think.
Brittle how their lives are the dialogues of the characters. The sentences are short, the messages clearly, the idiom is the Neapolitan dialect. has in the printed image to quickly recognize its rules, and the spelling mimics the debate, perhaps in movies, music or locally met.
This is not a novel, raises the nostalgia, and not an easy read. The vocabulary is demanding, the tangle of names, places, episodes and the time jumps difficult track, some passage is puzzling. From the mosaic of scenes but is made up gradually a great picture. The eloquence of the author gives it its beautiful shades. The calm narrative style in everyday Italian creates a solid ground of realism, contribute to its positioning, the dialectal sprinklings. of course, on specious is Marascos ability of its vivid imagery ( “Il palazzo dove abita Rafele le va incontro come un’armatura.”.
La Compagnia Delle Anime Feint Of Wanda Marasco Review. (2019, Nov 18). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/la-compagnia-delle-anime-feint-of-wanda-marasco-my-review/