A woman finds one day that her husband is leaving her. She's 38; they have two young children and a dog. The other woman is a 20-something the couple has known for years. At first, Olga, the scorned wife, thinks her husband might be having a passing spell of some sort. But soon enough it's apparent that it's permanent, that she's alone.
The book follows her descent into temporary madness, during which her life as well as those of her children is at risk. She sinks into a kind of sexual and physical morass, a loss of dignity from which one would think would be impossible to recover. The language is raw and unadorned, and I've heard that the original Italian is even rougher than the English translation. Olga's desperation and pain and anger and fright is hard to look at and hard to look away from. Early on, she confronts her husband, who wishes she wouldn't be so dramatic, so difficult:
Speak like what? I don't give a shit about prissiness. You wounded me, you are destroying me, and I'm supposed to speak like a good, well-brought-up wife?...With these eyes I see everything you do together, I see it a hundred thousand times, I see it night and day, eyes open and eyes closed! However, in order not to disturb the gentleman, not to disturb his children, I'm supposed to use clean language, I'm supposed to be refined...This kind of thing works well in novels because it's cathartic for the reader, but of course in reality she'd be locked up for some of the things she does and says. It's not a revenge fantasy- she takes it all out on herself and the kids which are like extensions of herself, and the poor dog, a symbol of the whole family- but it's still violent, psychically and psychologically. Nevertheless it's an incredible book that would certainly stimulate a lot of conversation and thinking about what it means to be a woman, a wife, a mother. Olga is tough on her kids; she's not a sentimental mother and she's in the throes of a major upset, as are they. The whole family is in chaos. She hits bottom, but then she comes back up enough to see the daylight and a way out.
So yeah, I really enjoyed this but in a way it was like reading a particularly gritty crime novel, one that you can't put down even when it's ripping you apart. Maybe we need a new category for Ferrante's books, domestic thrillers. Or something. She's got a new book coming out from Europa in the fall- watch for it, and read this in the meantime.
This is my 11th book for the 2012 Europa Challenge.
This sounds really good. Difficult, but really good.
ReplyDeleteDo you remember Mrs Ramsey from To the Lighthouse and that critical and incredibly tense moment where she flirts with the idea of not comforting her troubled but imperious husband. It's an amazing moment! (Woolf is so good at them). It took courage to write that, to make the male need implicit in this scene and that female solicitousness explicit and to capture this dynamic in all its complexity and subtlety.
ReplyDeleteFerrante shows the same kind of courage in DAYS. For a female writer to create a heroine who is not understanding, not forgiving, not solicitous of her adulterous husband, who is, in short not very likable, is a risky proposition. If you add to that the fact that the heroine in question is also a mother unable (or unwilling?) to put her children before herself and her own suffering, then the act of writing goes even beyond courage. In a country like italy, at least, with its idolatry of the perfect, long-suffering, pious Mother Mary (who's a virgin to boot!), such an act could be considered foolhardy. Ferrante refuses to become a public figure so that she can be free to write characters and stories like this, things that shake people up and challenge certain sacred cows. Her new books takes this to a whole new level. It is a more reassuring narrative, less confrontational, but no less powerful.
I'm very curious to know what you'll make of it, Marie.
michael
Does Olga really go mad? Mad being defined as a reaction disproportionate to the action that provoked it? I suppose that's the question at the core of DAYS; together with the question of whether we happy double standards when judging the appropriateness of a reaction depending on who, husband or wife, is doing the "reacting".
Michael,I can't wait to read it! :-)
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'm sure a lot of the impact of the book is dependent to some degree on the cultural context you talk about. To me she is raw and shocking but it doesn't hit me as hard as it seems to hit in Italy. I love her books for their brutal honesty when it comes to womens' feelings and thoughts, for her refusal to write fiction that idolizes the family, idolizes children, idolizes middle class marriage. Compare that to a lot of what gets written here!
ReplyDeleteI was going to message you, Marie, about this one to wonder whether you'd read it yet. I've just finished it and noted the very same passage you've quoted. What a powerful story!
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