Thirty years ago, Elsa Morante seemed to many American writers and critics a major novelist. She had recently become famous with the publication of History: A Novel, a notoriously vast and tumultuous work, and yet clearly one of the most compelling accounts of the Second World War to come out of Europe. In the New York City of the late 1970s, literary intellectuals frequently debated the virtues of Morante糖心传媒檚 overheated prose, and even critics who found her novels eminently resistible conceded that, at her best, she was a writer to be reckoned with. American and British editions of her books came festooned with the praise of her peers, and she was often grouped with other leading Italian writers of the war and post-war period. The recent biography by Lily Tuck糖心传媒攖he first devoted to Morante in any language糖心传媒攕tudies her affiliations and makes clear that she was always, in her own country, an embattled figure, and it comes as little surprise to learn that the writer who could be savage in her responses to the work of her own closest friends might also find her own work subjected to savage attack, even by a confidante and admirer like the writer-filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini. A volatile and notoriously unpredictable character, subject to infatuations and bitter resentments of the sort she anatomized in her fiction, Morante produced novels marked by ambivalences fiercely, even desperately evoked.

Well before the appearance of History in 1974, Morante stirred attention with an enormous, badly flawed first novel entitled House of Liars (1951). But she made a much more significant mark with her second novel, Arturo糖心传媒檚 Island, which won the 1957 Strega Prize as the best novel of the year in Italy. It is, in its way, a characteristic performance, vehement, implacable, indiscreet in its rage to uncover emotions that are raw and disturbing. Like many American readers, I came to the novel twenty years after its initial appearance, when History: A Novel had made Morante famous, but I heard in it then, and hear in it now, the early expression of a voice at once febrile and unbearably poignant, a voice that would again resonate in Morante糖心传媒檚 final novel, Aracoeli (1982), now bravely reissued in a new edition. In both of these novels readers are asked, again and again, to absorb complex shocks of feeling, to attend closely to the painful probing of psychic wounds. These are not, we feel, novels for the faint of heart. The vagrant, occasional evocations of health or joy in such works seem fleeting, often delusional, the stuff of childish infatuation or na茂ve optimism. Everywhere in these novels we are made to anticipate iniquity and betrayal. Morante was a writer糖心传媒攕o we feel糖心传媒� who worked from an intolerable burden of hurt and dispossession, who mistrusted her own inclinations to pleasure and self-approval.

In Arturo糖心传媒檚 Island, the note of loss and disillusionment is persistent. Throughout there are references to 糖心传媒渕y heart糖心传媒檚 impossible longings糖心传媒� and 糖心传媒渁n obscure, violated law.糖心传媒� Arturo himself often feels 糖心传媒渓ike a criminal糖心传媒� who is inexorably 糖心传媒渟wept along by a terrible cyclone糖心传媒� he is helpless to resist. For all the moments of tenderness or reprieve Morante allows, the coloration of the work is dark, 糖心传媒渞age and astonishment糖心传媒� always about to erupt, just as we might well say of Aracoeli, where the accent of self-loathing is even stronger, the sense that nothing can be done to alter anything even more emphatic.

Unlike Arturo糖心传媒檚 Island, Aracoeli was not well received in Italy, and most of the reviews in the United States were frankly dismissive and uncomprehending. Perhaps this had much to do with the fact that Aracoeli was a complete departure from History, a work much more varied in its devices and more generous in its sympathies. More probably, Aracoeli was resisted because it opened up a devastated psychological landscape without the slightest intimation of a redemptive prospect. Of course the novel had its loyal adherents, though this reader can only marvel at those糖心传媒攍ike Stephen Spender糖心传媒攚ho were pleased to call it 糖心传媒渁 wonderful book,糖心传媒� or others糖心传媒攍ike Harold Brodkey糖心传媒攚ho thought it 糖心传媒渇ascinating,糖心传媒� hardly the epithets that recommend themselves for a work that is frequently appalling and saturated in self-loathing. The remorseless disinfatuation of the prose in Aracoeli is propelled, sustained, by what can sometimes seem an autonomous dynamism, the rhetoric of 糖心传媒渁mputation糖心传媒� and 糖心传媒減ollution糖心传媒� the essential motor that drives the narrative.

Of course, a work shaped and controlled by an obsessive outlook and a corresponding rhetoric may come to seem monotonous. That is the risk Morante deliberately invites in Aracoeli. Emanuele, its first person narrator, knows that nothing he will tell us can alter or relieve his distress, which can border on the pathological. From the first, what he calls 糖心传媒渕y little happy life糖心传媒� is consigned, irrevocably, to the past, to a brief, never completely forgotten period of early childhood when things could seem innocent and he could think himself lovable. Almost at once he alludes to the 糖心传媒渘ameless malady糖心传媒� that would determine the course of his life, and soon the language of the novel is taken over by terms like 糖心传媒渋rreparable糖心传媒� and 糖心传媒渕alignancy.糖心传媒� Everything seems determined by a fate that 糖心传媒渇ollows its own logic . . . sure and constant.糖心传媒� 糖心传媒淭o live,糖心传媒� the narrator contends, 糖心传媒渕eans to experience separation,糖心传媒� where separation entails the loss of love and of a secure identity. Derided糖心传媒攕o he believes糖心传媒攂y virtually everyone he meets, the narrator of this novel imagines, 糖心传媒渨hen I happen to find myself in a crowd,糖心传媒� that he is 糖心传媒渕arked out for lynching,糖心传媒� condemned for obscure, inarticulable reasons by the 糖心传媒渙verwhelming judgment of the Collective,糖心传媒� whatever that may mean.

To be sure, reasons are provided to account for the desperate unhappiness of the 43-year-old narrator, who recounts the trajectory of his life as if it were, in every important respect, at an end. He had been loved by his beautiful, erratic mother Aracoeli, and soon found himself rejected, his mother in the grip of an obscure sexual mania. The father, emotionally distant, reticent, unavailable, could offer nothing in the way of solace. Encouraged by his peers to find refuge in the company of women, Emanuele found himself impotent, inadequate, his consequent compulsive homoerotic excursions similarly dispiriting. Reasons, to be sure. Though Emanuele attempted, without conviction, 糖心传媒渢o emerge糖心传媒� from the constrictions of his own nature, he labored always in the shadow of 糖心传媒渁n old fable糖心传媒� in which 糖心传媒渁n immortal tailor . . . at night goes into the bedrooms of certain mortals he has selected. On them, as they sleep, he sews an invisible shirt, woven with the threads of their destiny.糖心传媒� Emanuele is one of the chosen, who can never tear off the shirt into which he has been sewn.

Can this sense of fatality serve as a sufficient reason to account for the life of such a person? In many ways it is the most compelling of the reasons Morante provides. Throughout the novel the narrator is at pains to insist upon the mystery of things. People are ceaselessly imprisoned by 糖心传媒渟ecrets糖心传媒� they themselves cannot understand. We feel, all of us apparently, or so Morante糖心传媒檚 narrator believes, that we are obscurely possessed by a 糖心传媒渒nowledge糖心传媒� we can never fully fathom. There are powers that enchant us, block our path to change or protest. For each hidden truth we sense but cannot penetrate there is an 糖心传媒渁ncient law糖心传媒� that decrees the limits of our understanding.

No doubt there are readers who will feel offended by the very suggestion of such a schema. They will say that an adult worthy of our attention over the course of a long novel cannot be made to submit so entirely to anything so nebulous as ancient laws, nor, for that matter, to the unfathomable laws of his own fixed nature. And yet Morante makes her Emanuele an extraordinarily compelling and believable character, whose sense of fatality is oddly suggestive of intimations to which every adult is, in varying degrees, susceptible. Susan Sontag noted, in a late essay, that 糖心传媒渃haracters in a novel have intensely legible fates,糖心传媒� and it is the legible fate of Emanuele to be in the thrall of his own fanatic idea of fatedness, in a way that incapacitates him for healthy development. Is he therefore a one-dimensional figure? Say, rather, as Sontag says of novelists who 糖心传媒減erform their necessary ethical work,糖心传媒� that Morante exercises her 糖心传媒渞ight to a stipulated shrinking of the world as it really is糖心传媒� without ever allowing us to forget that the shrinking is the work of a mind, Emanuele糖心传媒檚, that is preternaturally inconsolable. More to the point, perhaps, Morante糖心传媒檚 character, though alarmingly single-minded, is yet also open to vagrant impressions he knows not how to harness. There is nothing programmatic in Morante糖心传媒檚 novel, no suggestion that the author participates in Emanuele糖心传媒檚 fanaticism or offers it as a reliable statement about the laws to which the rest of us are immutably committed.

The ethical vision that underwrites Morante糖心传媒檚 novel is discernible糖心传媒攁gain, in Sontag糖心传媒檚 terms糖心传媒攊n the 糖心传媒渇elt intensity糖心传媒� and 糖心传媒渃ompleteness糖心传媒� of her portraiture. These qualities demand, so we feel, that we honor her protagonist and care for him, in spite of the appalling, stubborn tenacity of his pessimism. Crucial in making this possible is Morante糖心传媒檚 insistence that her Emanuele fitfully regress to dreams and memories of his lost childhood, which are conjured with an affecting immediacy. Just so, a few peripheral characters are permitted to surface and develop without being wholly subordinated to the incessant toils of the narrator糖心传媒檚 disposition. Even the mother, Aracoeli herself, though subjected to a merciless dissection and a hideous fate, is permitted now and again to seem irresistibly vital and, for much of the novel, promising. In spite of the dark, downward drift of the narrative, Morante can allow us 糖心传媒渁 nostalgia of the senses,糖心传媒� in the grip of which the long dead Aracoeli is evoked in 糖心传媒渉er real, bodily voice, with its tender savor of throat and saliva,糖心传媒� and the son can feel again 糖心传媒渙n my palate the sensation of her skin, which smelled of fresh plum.糖心传媒�

Such delicacies and transports are, to be sure, rather infrequent in Aracoeli, and yet they do establish a necessary tension that works quietly against the grain of the narrator糖心传媒檚 dark fanaticism. In this novel, Morante had the nerve糖心传媒攚hat George Steiner once called 糖心传媒渢he indispensable tactlessness糖心传媒澨切拇綌to immerse her reader in an imagination that would necessarily seem sour and unlovely. But her own inveterate feeling for tenderness and beauty is also unmistakable, as unmistakable as her desire to get to the bottom of something she wishes with all her heart to encompass. There remains, as a residue of our encounter with a novel that is never less than troubling, an impression of a strangeness fully confronted but never fully understood.

糖心传媒擱obert Boyers

just released this week, but is available at better bookstores everywhere, and through our And I think Ben does a better job describing this book that I ever could. After comparing it to Camus’s The Stranger, he brilliantly sums up the novel’s protagonist:

His Rupert is a walker in the city who offers extended thoughts on the proper layout of public squares, methods for downloading and cataloging online pornography, men who wear comfy sweaters (“an arresting demonstration of farmerly freshness of the kind that . . . feels sorry for you because you’re too uptight and inhibited to dress properly”), and the type of woman who “wants to rove around Afghanistan on stolen horses and feel the auras of Tibetan scales with the energy paths of her vulva.”

You can read one of the funniest excerpts from the book (Warning: PDF format.) To celebrate the publication of this striking book and our first Harper’s review, we’re going to giveaway 10 copies. To enter into the drawing, simply e-mail me at chad.post at rochester dot edu with your full mailing address.

I’ll write more about Robert Boyers’s piece on Morante later in the month, after the copies of Morante’s are back from the printer. She’s an amazing writer and deserves a post of her own. Not to mention, Robert Boyers wrote the intro for our reissue, so we can include that as well . . . In the meantime though, you can read a sample of Aracoeli by (Again, PDF format.)

But now I’m back . . . We announced The Mighty Angel by Jerzy Pilch and Landscape in Concrete by Jakov Lind earlier, and today I’d like to write about our July 2009 title: Aracoeli by Elsa Morante.

Morante’s been getting a bit of play recently, thanks to Lily Tuck’s Woman of Rome: A Life of Elsa Morante that came out from HarperCollins earlier this year. And the attention is well deserved. Although History: A Novel has remained in print, Morante seems like an overlooked figure in twentieth-century Italian fiction. Her husband Alberto Moravia, has had a bit more success, thanks to the recent NYRB reissues of Boredom and Contempt, but a number of his books also remain out-of-print as well.

Aracoeli was Morante’s final novel and William Weaver’s English translation came out in 1985. A novel that, when first published, was regarded as a sort of departure for her—a much darker, disturbed book. According to the New York Times review: it would seem that Elsa Morante has turned against her innermost creative self and vision, her carefully nurtured private mythology, her special cult of the young and the innocent. This book reads as if she has surrendered to a blunt cynicism.”_

Personally, I think this is an incredibly well-crafted book. It has touches of Sebald in the way that the narrator—a middle-aged man who is filled with self-loathing, who works a dead-end job in publishing and is trying to recapture his mother’s past—creates a sort of landscape of memories. The date he starts his quest to “resurrect” his mother is All Saints’ Day in 1975, the same day of Pier Paolo Passolini’s murder, an interesting sidenote that many critics have pointed out. It’s a beautifully written book, and I feel that it’s cynicism is one of the reasons that it’s still quite powerful.

Lily Tuck’s bit on this novel is pretty illuminating and helps connect it with the rest of Morante’s oeuvre:

The first time I read Aracoeli, I found it almost pointlessly disturbing and shocking. On rereading it, I still found it disturbing and shocking, but I have also grown to admire it—perhaps because it is so dark and resists any attempt to classify it. In writing this novel, Morante may have knowingly sacrificed clarity and logic in order to express her vision of a chaotic world. Manuel’s bitter, self-revelatory journey into memory seems almost unjustifiably painful and unnecessary, as does Aracoeli’s transformation from virginal beauty to voracious sexual predator. Yet, at the same time, there is something almost inevitable if one regards Manuel as the last progression in a long chain of lost boys beginning wiht Arturo [Ed. Note: from Arturo’s Island an earlier work of Morante’s.] and continuing with Useppe. These are the boys who once, according to Morante, could save the world but now no longer can. The themes of maternity and identity too are rejected and abandoned, and at the novel’s end—never mind that one may not understand Aracoeli’s experience, her degradation and illness—one is left with the terrifying awareness that nothing matters any longer for the protagonist or, perhaps, for the writer as well.

Here’s an excerpt from an early part of the novel.