by Marina Jarre
Paolo examined her and reassured her. Lying dressed on the bed (I noticed that she hadn’t taken off her nightgown, which stuck out from the neck of her dress), she listened to him, almost distracted. She said, looking at her arm: “You can see my veins.” They brought some broth and I managed to make her eat by spoon-feeding her.
I told her that she had to try to eat at least the broth in the next days, if she wanted to be strong enough to come home on the weekend, where her room with her things was waiting for her. Again she listened distractedly. We said goodbye and moved toward the door. When we were on the threshold, she said, still lying down, barely moving her head toward us, illuminated by the grand September sky, the red sunset behind the big window spilling light on the bed: “I know you all carry me in your heart.”
That July in Bordighera, it never stopped raining. Andrea was at home, studying for an exam, and I was happy to be able to look after him. It was impossible to go to the beach and I walked in rain shoes along the streets incongruously bordered by gardens flowering under a gray November sky.
One afternoon I took a walk to see a large uninhabited villa that interested me and that I returned to look at year after year.
It rose high on the hill, an immense slanted rectangle eroded by time, especially the balconies and under the gable ends of the roof; the shutters on the innumerable windows were dilapidated. The big garden that separated it from the street was now thick with chaotic green vegetation devoid of other color. In the midst of the other gardens—cared for, cultivated, rich in flowers of every species, with lemons, jasmine, infinite geraniums, dahlias, convolvulus—the garden in front of the vast structure was completely consumed by its random disheveled green. An abandoned hotel, I had said to myself; but a name on an oval plaque above the big gate belied this reassuring hypothesis. It was written in ornate—also very tall—pointed bronze letters that said: “Angst.” This was repeated on the roof in large rusty letters: the A was upside down and threatened to drag with it the adjacent consonants.
This time I noticed just before the building an uphill street I’d never seen; in fact when I set off to see it I always expected not to find it anymore—fallen in on itself, collapsing within the still rigid and gigantic geometric structure whose outlines might remain sketched in the air even after its complete disappearance—and I gazed upward until I saw it rise, doors and windows closed and corroded behind the yard without flowers.
So I ascended, under my umbrella, still passing houses with flowering yards. A soft wind had risen from the southeast. Right after the first bend, I found an open gate and saw very close, on the lower side, the immense structure at the end of a grassy driveway. Still I continued for some minutes on my street; there was a long, splendid hedge of purple clematis on the fence of the next garden and a little farther on, behind the villas, a completely wild valley, flowering with broom.
I went back, as I did in those days, to my work of rewriting, to my attempts to close the gap between life and book—it should be a casual, inconclusive conversation among several interlocutors, I said to myself: me, the book, the others, those who appear in it, those who would read it—and there came to mind details, episodes, words I hadn’t even cited, maybe as important as those I had. And in the future might there not also be my winter trip to Torre Pellice, which I had found in the afternoon already submitting to the dark protection of Monte Vandalino? The street from the station to the library, where I was going to consult texts, was empty; only a strong wind swept up dry leaves in the gray and violet air. And yet it had seemed to me, cold and alone, that I was reentering a shadowy womb, not welcoming but known, mine.
When I turned back from the flowering valley, I stopped at the gate. I closed the umbrella, since a large ficus extended its thick-leaved branches over my head. I realized that the villa to the left of the gate also, in fact, behind an apparently intact façade, had a caved-in roof. I considered the big building, so close this time, and went over in my mind the innumerability of its rooms—had they been emptied of their past?—under the enormous A, upside down like a fallen weapon.
Behind me the ficus leaves blown off by the wind hit the ground with a sharp thud. It was the only sound I heard. “I could go on rewriting forever,” I said to myself, as I went on opening the barred doors inside the huge “Angst,” “and never be finished.” The soft wind mixed smells of wet earth with the smacking thuds of the leaves. “That’s not an autumn sound,” I thought, “too sharp and distinct,” and, turning my back on the lopsided gate, I delivered the pages of a story I would perpetually revise.
21 “... and Jesus said, ‘Let us go over to the other side.’”
MARINA JARRE (1925–2016) was born in Riga to a Latvian Jewish father and an Italian Protestant mother. She spent her childhood in Latvia until until 1935, when her parents separated and she moved to Italy to live with her maternal grandparents, among devout, French-speaking Protestants in a community southwest of Turin. Jarre wrote over a dozen novels, short story collections and nonfiction works. Cultural identity, personal character, psychology, and autobiographical themes are central elements of her writing.
ANN GOLDSTEIN has translated The Neapolitan Novels and other works by Elena Ferrante, as well as writings by Primo Levi, Giacomo Leopardi, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Anna Maria Ortese. She is a former editor at The New Yorker.
NEAPOLITAN CHRONICLES
BY ANNA MARIA ORTESE
A classic of European literature, this superb collection of fiction and reportage is set in Italy’s most vibrant and turbulent metropolis—Naples—in the immediate aftermath of World War Two. These writings helped inspire Elena Ferrante’s best-selling novels and she has expressed deep admiration for Ortese.
https://newvesselpress.com/books/neapolitan-chronicles/
UNTRACEABLE
BY SERGEI LEBEDEV
An extraordinary Russian novel about poisons of all kinds: physical, moral and political. Professor Kalitin is a ruthless, narcissistic chemist who has developed an untraceable lethal poison called Neophyte while working in a secret city on an island in the Russian far east. When the Soviet Union collapses, he defects to the West in a riveting tale through which Lebedev probes the ethical responsibilities of scientists providing modern tyrants with ever newer instruments of retribution and control.
https://newvesselpress.com/books/untraceable/
THE YEAR OF THE COMET
BY SERGEI LEBEDEV
A story of a Russian boyhood and coming of age as the Soviet Union is on the brink of collapse. Lebedev depicts a vast empire coming apart at the seams, transforming a very public moment into something tender and personal, and writes with stunning beauty and shattering insight about childhood and the growing consciousness of a boy in the world.
https://newvesselpress.com/books/year-of-the-comet/
WHAT’S LEFT OF THE NIGHT
BY ERSI SOTIROPOULOS
Constantine Cavafy arrives in Paris in 1897 on a trip that will deeply shape his future and push him toward his poetic inclination. With this lyrical novel, tinged with an hallucinatory eroticism that unfolds over three unforgettable days, celebrated Greek author Ersi Sotiropoulos depicts Cavafy in the midst of a journey of self-discovery across a continent on the brink of massive change. A stunning portrait of a budding author—before he became C.P. Cavafy, one of the 20th century’s greatest poets—that illuminates the complex relationship of art, life, and the erotic desires that trigger creativity.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/whats-left-night/
THE 6:41 TO PARIS
BY JEAN-PHILIPPE BLONDEL
Cécile, a stylish 47-year-old, has spent the weekend visiting her parents outside Paris. By Monday morning, she’s exhausted. These trips back home are stressful and she settles into a train compartment with an empty seat beside her. But it’s soon occupied by a man she recognizes as Philippe Leduc, with whom she had a passionate affair that ended in her brutal humiliation 30 years ago. In the fraught hour and a half that
ensues, Cécile and Philippe hurtle towards the French capital in a psychological thriller about the pain and promise of past romance.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/the-641-to-paris/
THE BISHOP’S BEDROOM
BY PIERO CHIARA
World War Two has just come to an end and there’s a yearning for renewal. A man in his thirties is sailing on Lake Maggiore in northern Italy, hoping to put off the inevitable return to work. Dropping anchor in a small, fashionable port, he meets the enigmatic owner of a nearby villa. The two form an uneasy bond, recognizing in each other a shared taste for idling and erotic adventure. A sultry, stylish
psychological thriller executed with supreme literary finesse.
https://newvesselpress.com/books/the-bishops-bedroom/
THE EYE
BY PHILIPPE COSTAMAGNA
It’s a rare and secret profession, comprising a few dozen people around the world equipped with a mysterious mixture of knowledge and innate sensibility. Summoned to Swiss bank vaults, Fifth Avenue apartments, and Tokyo storerooms, they are entrusted by collectors, dealers, and museums to decide if a coveted picture is real or fake and to determine if it was painted by Leonardo da Vinci or Raphael. The Eye lifts the veil on the rarified world of connoisseurs devoted to the authentication and discovery of Old Master artworks.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/the-eye/
THE ANIMAL GAZER
BY EDGARDO FRANZOSINI
A hypnotic novel inspired by the strange and fascinating life of sculptor Rembrandt Bugatti, brother of the fabled automaker. Bugatti obsessively observes and sculpts the baboons, giraffes, and panthers in European zoos, finding empathy with their plight and identifying with their life in captivity. Rembrandt Bugatti’s work, now being rediscovered, is displayed in major art museums around the world and routinely fetches large sums at auction. Edgardo Franzosini recreates the young artist’s life with intense lyricism, passion, and sensitivity.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/the-animal-gazer/
ALLMEN AND THE DRAGONFLIES
BY MARTIN SUTER
Johann Friedrich von Allmen has exhausted his family fortune by living in Old World grandeur despite present-day financial constraints. Forced to downscale, Allmen inhabits the garden house of his former Zurich estate, attended by his Guatemalan butler, Carlos. This is the first of a series of humorous, fast-paced detective novels devoted to a memorable gentleman thief. A thrilling art heist escapade infused with European high culture and luxury that doesn’t shy away from the darker side of human nature.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/allmen-and-the-dragonflies/
THE MADELEINE PROJECT
BY CLARA BEAUDOUX
A young woman moves into a Paris apartment and discovers a storage room filled with the belongings of the previous owner, a certain Madeleine who died in her late nineties, and whose treasured possessions nobody seems to want. In an audacious act of journalism driven by personal curiosity and humane tenderness, Clara Beaudoux embarks on The Madeleine Project, documenting what she finds on Twitter with text and photographs, introducing the world to an unsung 20th century figure.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/the-madeleine-project/
ADUA
BY IGIABA SCEGO
Adua, an immigrant from Somalia to Italy, has lived in Rome for nearly forty years. She came seeking freedom from a strict father and an oppressive regime, but her dreams of film stardom ended in shame. Now that the civil war in Somalia is over, her homeland calls her. She must decide whether to return and reclaim her inheritance, but also how to take charge of her own story and build a future.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/adua/
IF VENICE DIES
BY SALVATORE SETTIS
Internationally renowned art historian Salvatore Settis ignites a new debate about the Pearl of the Adriatic and cultural patrimony at large. In this fiery blend of history and cultural analysis, Settis argues that “hit-and-run” visitors are turning Venice and other landmark urban settings into shopping malls and theme parks. This is a passionate plea to secure the soul of Venice, written with consummate authority, wide-ranging erudition and élan.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/if-venice-dies/
THE MADONNA OF NOTRE DAME
BY ALEXIS RAGOUGNEAU
Fifty thousand people jam into Notre Dame Cathedral to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption. The next morning, a beautiful young woman clothed in white kneels at prayer in a cathedral side chapel. But when someone accidentally bumps against her, her body collapses. She has been murdered. This thrilling novel illuminates shadowy corners of the world’s most famous cathedral, shedding light on good and evil with suspense, compassion and wry humor.
https://newvesselpress.com/books/madonna-notre-dame/
THE LAST WEYNFELDT
BY MARTIN SUTER
Adrian Weynfeldt is an art expert in an international auction house, a bachelor in his mid-fifties living in a grand Zurich apartment filled with costly paintings and antiques. Always correct and well-mannered, he’s given up on love until one night—entirely out of character for him—Weynfeldt decides to take home a ravishing but unaccountable young woman and gets embroiled in an art forgery scheme that threatens his buttoned up existence. This refined page-turner moves behind elegant bourgeois facades into darker recesses of the heart.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/the-last-weynfeldt/
MOVING THE PALACE
BY CHARIF MAJDALANI
A young Lebanese adventurer explores the wilds of Africa, encountering an eccentric English colonel in Sudan and enlisting in his service. In this lush chronicle of far-flung adventure, the military recruit crosses paths with a compatriot who has dismantled a sumptuous palace and is transporting it across the continent on a camel caravan. This is a captivating modern-day Odyssey in the tradition of Bruce Chatwin and Paul Theroux.
http://newvesselpress.com/books/moving-the-palace/
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